A Beginner’s Guide to Mac Notes

If you are new to Mac, you may not yet be using the Notes app. This is a handy built-in app where you can store small pieces of text and create lists. When you use iCloud, your Notes sync across all of your devices, so you can create them and edit them anywhere. You can also share notes with other iCloud users.

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Video Transcript: Now if you're new to Mac you may not yet be using the Notes app. The Notes app is a very handy way to be able to store bits of text, lists, any type of miscellaneous information on your Mac and not only have it available on your Mac but across all of your Apple devices like your iPhone. 
So let's run the Notes app which you should find in your Dock by default. If not you can find it in your Applications folder or just look for it using Spotlight. Now you want to make sure that you're storing your notes in the right place. It used to be that Notes were stored locally on your Mac which means they would only be available on your Mac. But now they are mostly stored in iCloud. 
So in Notes you can go to Accounts which will take you to System Preferences in the Internet Account section. Select your iCloud account and make sure that you have Notes checked. Now look in the left sidebar here. If you don't see it go to View and then you'll see Show Folders. You'll see iCloud and then Folders under iCloud. You'll also see On My Mac or somethings else. Make sure you've selected the Notes under iCloud in order to be creating new notes that will be available across all your devices. 
Now a New Note has been created for me and you can see a list of it here. So this is the Folder and this is the list of the notes and this is the note itself. I can type whatever I want here. I can have multiple lines. I can do checklists. I can create tables. I can do styling so, for instance, I can use Command B for bold. I can bring up some regular styles here as well to be able to use. You can do whatever you want here and it will actually work across all of your devices. 
After I'm done creating this note it will appear on my iPhone if I'm logged into the same iCloud account and have Notes turned on under iCloud. Any updates I do on one device will appear on the other. It's in perfect sync. 
So I can easily create a new note with this button here. The title of any note is going to be the first line. So I can create a shopping list. Then I can start with a checklist right there by clicking on that and I can even use these checkboxes here. So I can create this shipping list on my Mac and then I can check things off on my iPhone. I can add new things on my iPhone as well as I'm shopping. 
So those are the basics. There's a lot more you can do. You can create a new folder. So I can create a new folder called Shopping Lists and I can drag this into it. So now you can see that I've got some folders here. I have a default one called All iCloud which will show me everything under my iCloud account. I have this folder called Notes and a folder called Shopping List. You can see that I can move these back and forth between these but they'll all appear in All iCloud. 
You can do some other things as well. I you want to delete a shopping list, select it and hit the Delete button. I can Undo that. I can add a person to it. So if I know somebody else with another iCloud account I can Share it with them. For instance I can Share the shopping list here with my wife and we can both add to it, both see it on our iPhones. A very handy feature. You can also Lock a note. Of course you can go in and Edit a note and do whatever you want to it.
There's some even advanced features with High Sierra like the ability to add a Table. You're also not just restricted to text. So, for instance, I can add some photos to it as well. I can just drag and drop a simple photo. I'm going to grab one here from the Finder. Drag it in. You can see it appears there in the note.
When you're on an iPhone you'll be able to take a picture and add it to Notes directly in the Notes app there. So you'll be able to see that here then reflected on your Mac. It's important to keep your operating systems up to date for all the latest features. So using High Sierra on your Mac and iOS 11 on your iPhone and iPad so that they're compatible with all the different Notes' features.
It's a handy app. It's great to use whether you use all these advanced features or maybe just create simple quick little bits of text that you can copy and paste into emails for various different things. It's just a handy little app and if you've been using say TextEdit or Pages to create small little text files for things you may want to switch over to using Notes so that it's easier to access them and you can access them across devices.

A Beginner’s Guide to Mac Notes

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