Keep Notes is a popular note-taking app known for its simplicity and ease of use. You can use this note app to capture your ideas, create reminders, and stay organized.
In this Keep Note review, we will take a deep dive into Keep Note’s features, performance, pros, and cons to help you decide if it is the right app for your note-taking needs.
Let’s get started!
What is Keep Notes?
Keep Notes is one of the free note-taking apps developed by Google that provides you with a fast and easy way to capture and organize thoughts, ideas, reminders, and tasks. While other note-taking apps provide various advanced features, it is known for its easy-to-use interface.
Now, let’s move further to the key features of Keep Notes which makes it a go-to choice for many users.
Key Features of Keep Notes
The following are the key features of the Google Keep note app:
User-Friendly Interface
The main attraction of Keep Notes is its minimalistic design. The app’s interface is clutter-free and easy to navigate so users can easily get started with notes making.
When you initially open the app, it first asks you to sign in using your Google account. Later, you are immediately presented with a blank screen. Here, you can create notes, draw, lists, and add text of your choice by tapping on the + icon in the bottom-right corner. Once you have created any note, it will be visible with a grid of colorful notes.
Additionally, you can also change the viewing style of the notes from the option present in the search bar from grid view to list view. There are also no complex menus to navigate, everything is available right there with a just few taps away.
Multiple Note Formats
Keep Notes allows you to capture your ideas and organize them in multiple formats. With this, you can create:
Text Notes
Text notes are basic, traditional notes where you can write your thoughts and ideas. To create a text note on Keep Notes, you first need to tap on the + icon and then select the Text option. Here, you can add the title of the note and start writing your ideas.
Furthermore, in every note section, you will be given a few more options to manage your content. At the top-right, there are three options: pin the note to keep it at the top of your list, add reminders to get notified at a set time, and archive the note to hide it without deleting it. Whereas, at the bottom, you’ll find tools to customize your note, including options to add a background color, adjust text formatting, and use undo/redo functions to correct any changes.
In these text notes, you can also optimize your content by adding a photo, images, drawings, voice recordings, and a checkbox list.
Photo Notes
With Keep Notes, you can also take a photo or upload images to your notes to capture things like receipts, whiteboard diagrams, or other visual information.
Checklists
For those who need to create to-do lists, it has a simple checklist feature that lets you add tasks and check them off when completed.
Drawing
Keep Notes also allows you to create drawing notes, offering a simple yet effective way to visually express ideas. To use the drawing feature, open the Keep Notes app, tap on the plus icon, and select the Drawing option. Here, select the drawing pen of your choice. To change the color and cursor size, you can double-tap on the selected pen.
Also, it offers two additional options to enhance your notes. First, you can change the grid view of your notes including square, rules, dot, or none. Second, it provides the option to grab text from an image. If you’ve added an image to your note that contains text, you can use the Grab Image Text feature to extract the text from the image, making it searchable and editable within the note.
Color Coding and Labels
Keep Notes offers color coding for your notes to help you stay organized. When you create any note, you can assign them a color which is useful for easy visual sorting and categorization. For example, you can choose two colors to differentiate between personal and work-related work.
In addition to color coding, you can also add labels to each note which allows you to group similar notes together. To create a label, you simply need to tap on the three horizontal bars present in the top left corner and then tap on create a new label. Now, simply add the name for your label like Shopping list, Work, etc.
This is more like creating a separate space for all your work and making it easier to find specific notes when you need them.
Powerful Search Functionality
Keep Notes’s search functionality is one of its standout features. It lets you search your notes efficiently by note type (Lists, Images, or Drawings), labels things, and colors.
Plus, it even allows you to search text within images. For example, if you draw something or take a photo of a document and save it as a note on Keep Notes, you can search for the keywords contained in the text of that image.
This strong search functionality of Keep Notes makes it easier to retrieve notes without scrolling through your entire collection and saves time.
Reminders and Notifications
With the Keep Notes app, you can set time-based reminders to get notifications when it’s time to complete a task, or you can set location-based reminders that trigger when you arrive at or leave a specific location.
For example, you could set a reminder to pick up your parcel when you reach some specific location. These reminders are synced across all your Google apps or devices, ensuring you never miss a task.
Collaboration and Sharing
Keep Notes provides great support for collaboration to easily share your notes with others. To share your notes with multiple people so that they can contribute to the same note, you can use its Send or Collaborator option.
For this, you first need to open the note you want to share. Then, tap the vertical dots in the bottom-right corner of the note. For sharing, you’ll see several options, such as copying the note to Google Docs or sending it directly via other apps like WhatsApp, text messages, and more. Additionally, you can use the Collaborator option to share the note over email, allowing others to access and edit it.
Another key benefit of using Keep Note’s sharing and collaboration features is that the changes made to shared notes are updated in real-time, so everyone can see the latest changes.
Integration with Google Services
As this app is a part of the Google ecosystem, it integrates seamlessly with other Google services such as Google Drive, Google Docs, and Gmail. For example, you can send a Keep note directly into a Google doc using the share option.
Plus, if you are using other Google products like Google Maps, GDrive, etc., the integration with Keep will make your workflow even more efficient.
Archive and Trash
Keep Notes offers two additional features, archive, and trash for organizing and managing your notes. The archive option is useful when you want to hide something from others without deleting it. This removes the note from your main view but keeps it safe in the archive section.
On the other hand, the app manages a trash option for the notes you no longer need. All the notes that you will delete are moved to the trash section where they will stay for 7 days. So, if you mistakenly deleted a note, you can recover it from the Trash section within 7 days after deletion. However, you can also manually empty the Trash.
Web Clipper
Keep Notes also offers a Chrome extension named Google Keep Chrome Extension using which you can clip content from websites and save it directly to your Keep account. Using this KeepClipper tool, you can clip text, images, and links on your desktop.
But, there are some downsides to using KeepClipper! Firstly, this extension is exclusively available for Chrome users, limiting its accessibility to those using other browsers including Safari, Firefox, etc.
Additionally, the screenshot capture feature often stops functioning, which can be frustrating when trying to save visual content. When I tried using the AI Summary option for the clip article, the summary it generated was not as useful and clear. Instead, it only captures links from that website.
Offline Access
The app allows you to view and edit your notes even when you are offline. As soon as you are back online, your changes are automatically synced across your devices.
Voice-to-Text Conversion
As mentioned earlier, it offers a recording feature for hands-free note-taking. While this feature allows you to record voice memos, it also converts the voice into text and adds to the current note. Later, you can decide if you want to keep the text or the voice recording.
Customization
Keep Notes provides several customization options to suit your preferences. Here is what you can customize in the app:
- Color-Coding Notes: You can assign different colors to your notes for easy classification and discovery. All you need to do is: Select the notes and select the note color.
- Background Themes: You can add pre-designed themes/images to your notes.
- Dark Mode: You can switch between different lighting modes from light to dark. If you prefer working at night, you can switch to the dark mode. By default, the theme settings are set on System default.
Pros of Keep Notes
The following are the pros of Google Keep Notes:
- Easy to Access: The Keep Notes app is very simple and easy to use, even for beginners. Everything from creating a quick note to setting a reminder is just a tap away.
- Google Ecosystem Integration: The ability of this easy note-taking app to integrate with other Google apps like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs is a major advantage for users already invested in Google ecosystem.
- Quick Collaboration: The collaboration feature of Google Keep Note is perfect for teams, families, or friends to share ideas in real-time.
- Free of Cost: This app is completely free to use with no in-app purchases.
- Versatile Note Formats: It supports text notes, checklists, images, voice recordings, and drawings, making it highly adaptable.
- Cross-Platform Sync: It automatically syncs across all devices. So, you can access your lists, notes, etc. anywhere with your Google account.
- Offline Access: It allows you to view and edit notes even without an active internet connection.
- Formatting Options: This note app provides you with multiple options for text styling including the basic bold, italic, underline, and headings.
Cons of Keep Notes
Here are the cons of Keep Notes:
- Limited Advanced Features: Keep notes lack advanced features like nested folders, note encryption, etc. found in other note-taking apps.
- No Dedicated Desktop App: There is no dedicated Keep Note app for Windows. However, you can still use it via a web browser.
- Limited Organization: While Keep Notes provides labels, colors, and a grid or list view for organization, it lacks the feature to organize complex notes in folders or subfolders.
- Dependence on Google Account: It requires a Google account to access its services which can be a barrier for non-Google service users.
- No Advanced Task Management: You can create to-do lists and set reminders with this note app. However, it doesn’t have advanced task management features including task prioritization, dependencies, and integration with project management tools.
Final Verdict
Keep Notes is a great tool for basic note-making, creating lists, and setting reminders. Its powerful integration with the Google ecosystem and real-time collaboration features is something that makes it an excellent choice for everyday tasks.
However, its limitations including the absence of a dedicated desktop app, missing advanced task management features, etc. make it less suitable for users with more complex needs.
Who should use Keep Notes?
Keep Notes is best for you if:
- You are already using the Google ecosystem (e.g., Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar)
- You need a simple note-taking app with basic functionality.
- You want seamless integration with other Google apps.
- You are looking for a free, easy-to-use note-taking solution.
- You don’t require advanced features.
Overall Rating
The ratings are subjective to one’s requirements and use case. But, after putting it to the test, it’s a clear 4 out of 5 for me. This is clearly because of its simplicity and seamless integration as its greatest strengths.
Also, if they fix the issues with the KeepClipper extension, it could easily become a 4.5 out of 5 for me.
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