Apple Notes: Simple Yet Powerful (Tips + Tricks)

Grab your FREE Apple Notes cheat sheet: peterakkies.ck.page/notes-che...
Unless you have a very niche use case, the best notes app for you is probably the one that comes with your iPhone: Apple Notes.
There are other note-taking apps with advanced collaboration features, with AI built in, and with complex networked note-taking abilities. But I realized that I don’t need to create a personal wiki or a second brain and that most of my notes are just for me. I just need to write down some information and access it later.
Chances are, keeping your notes simple is the best approach for you too. The Notes app is amazing because it’s already on your devices, it’s dead easy to use, and it actually has many of the advanced features you might need.
So in this tutorial, I’ll show you some tips and tricks about what you can do with the Notes app. I’ll also show you why it’s probably the right app for you.
TIMESTAMPS
================================
00:00 Introduction
00:41 Organize With Folders and Tags
02:27 Format Your Notes
05:11 View Your Notes in Different Ways
06:10 Swipe or Long Tap on Notes for Options
07:30 Use the Quick Note Button
08:10 Easily Search for Notes
COURSES & RESOURCES
================================
Free Cheat Sheets:
Things 3 - peterakkies.ck.page/things-ch...
Todoist - peterakkies.ck.page/todoist-c...
Apple Notes - peterakkies.ck.page/notes-che...
Apple Reminders - peterakkies.ck.page/reminders...
Weekly Reviews - peterakkies.net/freebies/week...
Free Mini-Courses:
Which Task Manager is Right for You? - whichtaskmanager.com
The Essentials of Big-Picture Productivity - peterakkies.net/freebies/bpp-...
Full-Length Courses:
Things 3 - peterakkies.net/courses/things-3
Todoist - peterakkies.net/courses/todoist
OmniFocus - peterakkies.net/courses/omnif...
Apple Notes - peterakkies.net/courses/apple...
Big-Picture Productivity (setting & achieving goals) - bigpictureproductivity.com
List of Tools, Apps, & Services I Recommend:
peterakkies.net/tools
CONNECT WITH ME
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[@PeterAkkies]

Grab your FREE Apple Notes cheat sheet: peterakkies.ck.page/notes-cheat-sheet

[@MonolithMike]

This is great. The more notes and task management apps I try, the more I come to believe that all you need is Apple Notes and Apple Reminders. That’s it.

[@gaxrav]

Thank my fucking GOD you finally posted about Apple Notes. I have watched EACH AND EVERY apple notes video on KZbin... even some in unknown languages. I am obsessed with Apple Notes.

[@mauriciomunoz87]

I’m kinda obsessed too. I have no idea even why, other than I recently started using Notes recently. I’ve been watching so many videos on this topic.

[@bertlzansinger]

This "tutorial" is finally one to my taste. Fast, precise, in-depth. Thank you!

[@allinson_sam]

This guy needs more subscribers let get him to 100,000 mark such clear instructions 👍🏼

[@PeterAkkies]

🫶🏻

[@KhaledMoAdel]

honestly this "second brain" is in my opinion powerful and also useless, investing the time in using them properly feels like an entire job on it's own if you know what i mean, Great video as always!

[@fluxmind]

I agree. There is little about how to do organization well and in a way that makes it do-able.

[@somerandomfellow8321]

Yeah it drives me insane. I become literally obsessed with trying to create the perfect setup and capture information in the perfect way when in reality I have no need for it. I am not studying to be a medical student, I am not trying to find the latest and greatest inventions. I am just a regular guy that is curious about learning but is not actually learning. Maybe one day I'll have a use case for a second brain system when there is an actual purpose to have one, but at the moment I mainly just create notes to get them out of my head and sometimes (when I want to recall something) search for them. I don't consume enough information to be able to create links between everything, so I think it's much better to become someone who learns and use a simple system than someone that doesn't and has an advanced one. I can still take notes on things but only casually. Got a nice quote? I'll throw it in my notes app, but I am not going to review it unless I remember it or find it when trying to search for something else. Only thing I am weary about is what to do with long notes. Apple Notes is great but there's no version control. I have a psychology book with many chapters that I am going through and I end up with over 2000 words that I find very important to help me recall things (by questioning myself with questions like what are 3 types of LTM, or what is obedience etc). Do you reckon I should create one long word or pages document and just put it all in there? Seperating it into seperate notes seems exhausting but may make it easier to find information by simply searching.

[@kostoglotow]

Yes and no. There was (is?) a hype around it, fueled by new flashy apps and content creators getting in on the circle-jerk. That in turn fomo'd many ppl into such an approach, ppl who never needed or wanted it to begin with. Masturbation over tools and features then takes precedence over building a robust system that should ideally only exist so that the user can forget about it, in favor of doing _actual work_. All too often ppl expect an app to save them and do all the work for them, when instead the app would only be the end-point of an over-arching approach that depends on careful prior thinking, and that takes a bunch of discipline and focus - which we all know, are rare commodities in 2023. No app can replace those. Essentially a lot of ppl fell for a self-reinforcing content hype bubble, where ppl were pissing on each other's legs and chanting "it's raining!". The ppl who make these things work use very non-flashy apps & couldn't care less about "graph view" and similar distractions. The real lesson that sadly went over the heads of most, is that you don't want to get vendor-locked into some proprietary system for your notes if you want them to work for you long-term.

[@hallo_ween07]

Same. I don’t want to connect 20 different note taking apps. I just take notes quickly in Notes and use reminders and calendar. That’s actually the easiest and smartest way to organize.

[@kmylla03]

As a Brazilian, I loved “tiau” 😍 Great video! I'm setting up my review notebooks in Notes because I saw that it was more complicated to use notebooks in Word or Goodnotes. And since I have a Mac and iPad, it has made my studying easier.

[@girishd5075]

Great video.❤👌👌👌 Very helpful. I was not aware of the below points until I saw this video - Using hash tags. Creating checklist. Search for notes with attachments. Using 2 fingers to select notes.

[@drdentrepair5530]

I've used several different note apps over the years. About a year ago I switched to just using apple notes. I think it works great. It does everything I need it to do. IOS 17 has some new features that take it to another level.

[@kiwiinexile]

easy is GREAT. As I have said before, it is awesome to have a productivity tool that does not steal your productivity. Even better - getting videos like this that just gets on with it and hits me with the info - BOOM, no messing around and everything I need. Top work as usual Peter 👍👋

[@issamike4342]

I love the apple’s notes series

[@gusttavoo]

i didn't want the video to end. hehe. learned a bunch. thanks!

[@alistairlegge7225]

The thing i want most from any notes application is the ability to convert to Word and Word to notes with ease. Being able to link the two would be ideal.

[@YoshiMuramasa]

THANK YOU FOR THIS PETER!

[@RameshKumar-ng3nf]

What a great informative video Peter !! 👌❤🙏 Thanks a lot for sharing as always 🙏

[@georgee3401]

Excellent tutorial. Well presented and very useful. Many thanks!

[@Primo_extracts]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@AdrianEarnshawMusic]

Great video yet again, always look forward to what tips you can provide. The thing that annoys me with Apple Notes is that you cannot set a default font for a new note and have to physically set it every time. If Apple fixed this, then it would be perfect for my use case.

[@GarryBurgess]

Especially annoying is that you also can't set a fixed font size, so I have to adjust it larger every single time.

[@MarshallBeyer]

Great video! Love the breakdown! I’ve used a bunch of note apps and have come full circle and am back on Apple Notes. When I really looked at how I was using apps like Obsidian, Craft, Notion, etc. I can totally achieve this in Apple Notes.

[@subzer076]

Thank you so much for that video, very useful.

[@natehuang]

Thank you so much!

[@CrazyGadgetGuy]

Great video! It was super helpful

[@MikeLambert01]

Great video; it covered a lot of ground but in an efficient, easy-to-follow way.

[@Bmarker299]

Outstanding. I just suscribed. Cannot afford to miss you excellent and useful videos

[@Greg-fg1rd]

Good advice!

[@Buffaloc]

For me, I am seventy eight, I like to use a mouse for this app on my ipad. Very good video about the app and I have watched many.

[@DREAMINDIGO]

Great video! You taught me something new, I'm going to reorganize all my notes in sub-folders now. My only problem with the Apple ecosysthem (which I love by the way) is that it only works with other Apple users. I need to take a lot of notes with my friends (we are at University), but none of them has Apple, so I always need to opt for other apps

[@kidson1273]

Hey Peter! I've seen Carl Pullein use a "Master projects list" to track projects long-term. Do you use any particular method or view to track what projects you are currently working on, and to visualize their current status? Your content really helps me organise my life and tasks in a way that suits me, thanks a lot!

[@Thefootynutritionist]

Can I also create sub folders when using smart folders? I like the organization of sub folders but want them to be smart 😊

[@kimbapslayer1995]

I kinda prettify my apple notes pages. I add a Title, format the subtitle with monotype text, use block quotes to separate sections, and add an image or giph. and as I'm writing this I just realized I should add a dedicated page to hold images I'd like to repeatedly use for headers

[@carlsimmons305]

Great content & a lot of this I have learnt from previous KZbin content, however like how your share your content. Something I have noticed in the past & still have the same issues with is that when sharing a note to someone else & there is scanned documents, not all the information is shared in the same way (written) & or not all of the scanned documents are shared. This isn’t always the case, just on occasions which is highly frustrating indeed. Generally ‘Notes’ is an exceptional Apple application & use it a great deal. I also keen Scanned documents for qualifications, travel items etc as they are always handy & means everything is accessible 24/7 What would be useful is if Notes & Calendar where a little more capable of sharing information.

[@robfuzz]

The one and only thing I would want is a Chrome extension for when I'm on my PC at work. I do a lot of web clipping. Apple assumes its users use Macs at work.

[@waterfire6131]

Great Video!!! How to I stop Notes from pasting 'Excerpt From and the author/book information every time I copy/paste from a book pdf I have?

[@lucamosetti4571]

👍 super

[@TJ-22]

You’re a great teacher. I love the usage of tags, the search features, and the smart folders. I’m considering transferring some notes and documents to Apple Notes. Is Apple Notes pretty responsive with 30-40 GB of data? Or does it tend to lag at that point? I’m not sure how that storage amount compares to others usage, so maybe it’s not a big deal, but that’s about how much storage I would anticipate that I’ll need. I currently have about 100 GB of free available iCloud storage, so there’s no issue there.

[@PeterAkkies]

Thank you for the kind words, TJ. I have never tried putting that much data in Apple Notes so I don't know.

[@robertfairbanks8421]

I love Notes. One question, though. I know I can sort notes, but is there a way to sort folders?

[@AKGatesway]

Any ideas on how to replace the Evernote Web Clipper b/c Apple Notes does note have that feature. Thanks!

[@AndreSouza-vu8ub]

Great video. I just miss colors on notes for a better experience.

[@FCJOC]

Surprisingly useful

[@marcpilon9189]

Hi! I really enjoyed your videos. I have a question: is there any way to use another cloud service than iCloud to sync/save apple notes? I’m already paying to use OneDrive with my Office account.

[@PeterAkkies]

Hey Marc. No, effectively there is not. You can technically sync notes using other accounts but you don’t get any of the actual features that make Notes useful. So no.

[@MrCarrotin]

Great tutorial, I’m really enjoying this video. But one question to the community: How I adjust a cell of a table in width or height…like in word excel or other tools? Looking forward to get a hint to do this. Thanks!

[@PeterAkkies]

Thank you for your kind words. For now, you can't adjust the height or width of tables in Notes.

[@MrCarrotin]

@@PeterAkkiesthank you for support! Maybe next iOS release 😂

[@raymondconners]

I love Apple Note. I just wish we could merge 2 notes

[@AgentMichaelScarn9]

Hello & Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me! When I click ‘aa’ option, I don’t have all of the formatting options you have. I have an iPhone 15 pro and my iOS is updated to the most recent version. Everything possible is on/available/selected in settings and yet the format options still don’t pop up. QQ- Is it possible to format/center alignment within tables? Definitely don’t currently have that option at this moment.

[@Sebastiaosegundo]

That's it. 😀

[@mahnushare4887]

I have a question please : How to link some notes in THINGS3 ?

[@rflquim]

@PeterAkkies, do you use Apple notes to reading and handwritten pdfs books? Do you recommend?

[@PeterAkkies]

I don’t read handwritten PDFs so I don’t have an opinion on that :)

[@uaenami]

I just wish you could change the colours... By the way, do you know if you attach a photo or file, does it create another photo or file in the memory of your phone or is it like an embedded form of your photo of file that is elsewhere?

[@PeterAkkies]

I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect it creates a copy.

[@hn29723]

You can change text Colors in macOS, unfortunately not in iOS

[@paulputzen6801]

I respect the view that Apple Notes is enough for the vast majority of people. At the same time I feel such a discussion can be a bit short-sighted. For many, using sth. like Obsidian isn't necessarily about "niche use-cases", but about wanting to own our data in a robust file format that is easy to read/migrate. This makes sense for a note-taking app especially, where over the years we build up personal knowledge & resources that we want to be able to access even decades down the road. Even a huge company like Apple can at some point do sth. to alienate swathes of its current user-base, become politically intolerable for an individual user, or fall off and go under at some point.

[@PeterAkkies]

By niche, I mean needs that the vast majority of people don’t have. Your needs are valid and legitimate, but most people never even open the Notes app on their phone. You’re part of a small minority. Which is great-just something to keep in mind.

[@Quince828]

It’s still not clear how the swipe from the right opens a quick note. I see I have a few quick notes but I’ve no idea how they got created. Swiping from the top right brings up notifications not the control centre.

[@theaspiringactor]

please provided a good workflow or substitute for windows

[@micaela2049]

Okay for those of you using Google keyboard in order to record a speech to text is that after you record you have to touch the the screen in Apple notes in order for it to paste the text in. Edit: I'm using Google because the Apple speech to text doesn't work very well

[@macsakki]

Pity that to date one cannot lock notes that contain hashtags. Maybe in version 17.

[@tessloggins8485]

How do I drag and drop a note ?

[@liqslip]

How do I tell Siri to add my current voice note to a specific folder etc?

[@mvg2x34]

I find the hashtags a bit redundant. Won’t the keyword search on the title get you to the file too?

[@PeterAkkies]

It will, if you're very good about giving your notes descriptive titles, but not everyone is good about that

[@lynnjames8986]

How to get back to home screen

[@christiandevos9468]

Once you created a note with a photo you can’t modify the size of the photo. That’s a no go for me

[@Bmarker299]

❤

[@b1tchb4by3]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that you can import images and paste MP4’s to Notes, so you can use it as an offline mixtape!

[@nici1782]

I wish they could integrate their native apps better… mail, notes, calendar, contacts still not working all well properly together

[@nici1782]

Collaboration does not work well

[@picxlmedia7856]

The fact that you can’t do simple things like add attachments in notes is pretty crazy. Or I must be missing something?

[@PeterAkkies]

You can add images, PDFs, audio files…

[@maryanngonzalez6524]

A lot of good information but you select the options too fast and I had to go back and watch it a second time.

[@GorillaDev417]

For quick short notes, Apple Notes is great! For longer, handwritten notes, Apple Notes is terrible. Loss of handwritten notes and laggy when a note gets too long.

[@tunguy]

You wiz through things to quickly

[@PeterAkkies]

Thanks for your feedback. Other people think I go too slowly. I can’t please everyone so I try to find a balance. Generally, when I go fast, more people watch and keep watching.

[@IAmSam_TheMan]

Its embarising how bad Google Keep is compared to apple notes. and that Evernote is sold there isnt anything an Android user can use. 😭

[@DanMills7]

Peter, I love your videos. However, telling people they're doing something wrong in your title is not a great way to attract someone to watch your video. I watched your video because I respect what you've done so far. There are other KZbin creators who I skip the video anytime they tell me I'm doing something wrong right off the bat. In fact, I unsubscribe because he was doing it so often.

[@PeterAkkies]

Hey Dan. I really appreciate your comment. I’ve been considering this question myself for quite a while now. On the one hand, I want to help the most people, and I see people using these types of titles get a lot of views. Views means helping people! On the other hand, I like to keep things positive. After trying the “you’re doing it wrong” title on for size for a bit, I decided it doesn’t sit right with me. Thanks for keeping an open mind and for sharing. Sometimes these decisions aren’t straightforward.

[@DanMills7]

@@PeterAkkies I get it. I enjoy your videos too much to not say something. :)

[@ttg889]

It works awful on windows

[@ericrogers6672]

SLOW Down......

[@elvisisalive2716]

the pen/pencil functions blow terribly , should take from Notability and others on how the pen function should work