MacMost: Notes

While Notes has become a robust system on the Mac, using TextEdit has some advantages such as recovering deleted information, restoring from Time Machine, and being able to store information alongside other files in a project.

A common problem is finding that you are suddeny missing contacts, notes, calendar events or email messages on your Mac, iPhone or iPad. It could just be that you are looking only at a specific account or subgroup of those items in that app. Here's how to switch back to viewing all entries.

The Reminders app can be used for so much more than just quick to-do lists. Here are 20 ideas for different checklists that most people can use. You can also use the Notes app instead of Reminders.

When you create Quick Note in Safari in macOS Monterey it should maintain a link to that web page and allow you to return to that note the next time you visit that page. This could be useful, but the feature is a bit buggy.

There are many ways to take notes with your mac whether it is in a school lecture or at a work meeting. You can use built-in apps like Notes, TextEdit or Pages. You can get third-party apps like OneNote, Noted, Bear or GoodNotes. There are many also ways to record audio while taking notes.

In Mac Notes you can only export one note at a time as a PDF file. With the help of a script, you can quickly and easily export all of your notes to html files as a backup or archive. You can also save notes this way to clear out your Notes app.

The Notes app gets a bunch of new features with Catalina, bringing it up-to-speed with Notes in iOS 13. You can do a lot more with Checklists now, share folders of Notes, and view your notes in a gallery. You can also search your Notes for objects in photos and words in scanned documents.

In school and at work, the Notes app on the iPad has gained status as being even better than third-party notes apps. In addition to syncing over iCloud, you can type, write, draw, take pictures, record video, and scan paper. Text can include styles, lists, tables, and checklists. If you write out notes by hand with an Apple Pencil, you can even search for text in your writing.

When you create the Notes app on a Mac or iOS device, you can usually use advanced features like tables, checklists, font styles and images. But sometimes you may notice that you can't use any of these features. This is because the Notes app lets you access notes on various services, like iCloud and Google. Those advanced features are only available on iCloud notes. If you are also using Google to store notes, then any notes you create on Google's service won't allow those options.

If you are using the Notes app only to store simple text, then you are missing out on some of its advanced features. You can store images, videos, audio, links, map locations and many other things in Notes. You can also add checklists and tables. Objects stored in notes can be examined and also exported and shared.

Stickies is an app that has been around on the Mac long before Notes, Reminders and iCloud. You can place little notes on your Desktop to refer to while working. You can even have these notes remain on top of other windows. While it doesn't offer some of the advanced functionality of today's apps, it can still be useful as a Mac-only tool for helping you get work done.

Instead of saving links in bookmarks or the Reading List, you can also save them to a Reminders list and the Notes app. This can be useful during research or when you want to share a link of links with students or co-workers.

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.

If you want to take a temporary photo with your iPhone, and not have to remember to delete it from your Photo Library later one, use the Notes app instead. You can take a photo right from the app, and it will appear in the current note, but not your Photo Library. You can then delete the photo from the Note, or the entire note.

A new feature in macOS Sierra and iOS 10 is the ability to collaborate with more than one person in the Notes app. You can create a note and then add other Apple IDs to share the note with. Each person can add and edit the note in real time, or as an ongoing collaboration.

A new feature in Mac OS X 10.11.4 and iOS 9.3 allows you to lock some or all of your notes in the Notes app. You can assign a single password that works for all locked notes in your iCloud account. You can lock and remove the lock on notes on your Mac, iPad or iPhone. This provides an extra layer of security if you store sensitive information in some of your notes.

The Notes app in El Capitan adds all sorts of new features such as checklists, styles and attachments. You can import photos, documents and other files into a note. You can even add web and map links. A new media browser in Notes allows you to view all of the items attached to all of your notes.