Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

I've given up on using any sort of branded app for notetaking. At best it's open source and the maintainers will lose interest in a few years. When you write things down, you're investing in your future. It's silly to use software that isn't making that same investment.

After trying Evernote, Workflowy, Notion, wikis, org-mode, and essentially everything else I could find, I gave up and tried building my own system for notes. Plain timestamped markdown files linked together. Edited with vim and a few bash scripts, rendered with a custom deployment of Gollum. All in a git repo.

It's... wonderful. Surprisingly easy. Fast. If there's a feature I wish it had, I can write a quick bash script to implement it. If Gollum stops being maintained, I can use whatever the next best markdown renderer is. Markdown isn't going away anytime soon.

It's liberating to be in control. I find myself more eager to write things down. I'm surprised more people don't do the same.

Edit: here's what my system looks like https://imgur.com/a/nGplj

X-post from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15057002 10 months ago. Still using & loving it.

I have found org mode to be really useful for free form note taking. Granted, the emacs factor may scare away some users, but I think org mode is worth it even if you are using emacs solely because of it.

Org mode has configurable todos(todo, next, scheduled, deadline). You can attach tags to notes, have nested todos with percentage completion tracking, can write code snippets in any language with full syntax completion, log time for different tasks, and this is just all I can think on the top of my head.

And to top it all, it is just plain text. You can store org documents in dropbox and access them just like your other dropbox documents.

Standard Notes: https://standardnotes.org/ for plain text, encrypted notes. Everything is easily importable or exportable in .txt format.

MS OneNote is great however they have stopped updating their desktop application (which allows offline notes) in favor of putting everything in the cloud (which will require a subscription to yet another cloud service if you exceed the OneDrive limits.)

I take all my notes with Sublime Text 3. After having bought it and VS Code being more suitable for my programming needs I just use it as a snappy notes taking application. I can close it and everything I leave will be restored as is in a snap when I come back. Not sure if there's a way to sync this but if there is, that would defeat any other "note taking app" for me.

Eventually I want to try using Microsoft Whiteboard but I'm waiting to buy the Surface Pen before I try it out.

Workflowy is great for quick, structured, hierarchical note taking. It is basically a text only bulleted list of lists. Navigable by keyboard or mouse and syncs to whatever phone / desktop etc you have.

Too expensive by half, and I don't think it is client side encrypted which is a deal breaker for anything sensitive. I really enjoy the simplicity though, great for checklists, writing papers, and all those little rare but important non-calendar based lists, ie. books to read, music to buy, etc.

My ideal note-app would be like workflowy, but allow de-hierarch-ising the list mentality. I mean, workflowy is basically a database back end and I can link tags between lists. But why not just have all the tags separate in the first place? You could have the constructed hierarchy tree to the left (ie bullet list), and the links tree to the right so you can see how the entries both compose and decompose.

If on the Mac ecosystem, Bear is Apple notes but with fewer sync bugs and more useful features (like a close cousin of markdown and amazing tagging). I've switched to that for notes that might stick around for a while (from Evernote and Apple notes, though I still forward emails into the former as a convenient archive). For transient notes (like shopping lists etc.) I just use drafts on iOS. Seems to work for me after years of frustration with Evernote and Apple notes.

I've tried several different, SimpleNote, KeepNote, EverNote... and so on. I have come to a conclusion, that using the default iOS note app is enough for me. Using paper notes while @lectures and rewriting them sometimes to Notes.

I'm also using another method of note taking, which I prefer more, but which is not always accessible on the go. I stumbled upon a script here and modified it a little. (changed vim to nano and added some other):

    #! /bin/bash
    fpath=$HOME/notes.md

    if [ "$1" == "cat" ]; then
        cat "$fpath"
        exit 0
    elif [ "$1" == "rg" ]; then
        rg "$2" "$fpath"
    elif [ "$1" == "nano" ]; then
        nano "$fpath"
    elif [ "$1" == "--help" ]; then
        printf 'Commands: \n-----------------------------------------------\n
        $ notes \n
        $ notes --help\t\t--\tdisplay this help\n
        $ notes date\t\t--\tadd date row to notes\n
        $ notes <text>\t\t--\tadd new entry \n
        $ notes cat\t\t--\tprint notes using cat\n
        $ notes rg <pattern>\t--\tripgrep notes\n
        Remember to use #tags (for easier grepping)!\n\n'
    elif [ "$1" == "date" ]; then
        {
        echo ''
        echo '# '"$(date +"%m-%d-%Y-%T")"
        echo '-'
        } >> "$fpath"
    elif [ "$1" == "" ]; then
        less +G "$fpath"
    else
        {
            echo ''
            echo "$@"
            echo ''
        } >>"$fpath"
    fi

In short, writing $ notes prints out displays the notes and writing $ notes <text> appends a new line. This is extremely powerful because of it's simplicity and easy accessibility in terminal (where I spend most of the time anyway)

edit:: formatting edit2::

I very often keep this (with extended bash history) to keep notes about long commands I need to use later in the future, but not often. One had to do with imagemagick and resizing/compressing bunch of images in a directory. Added tags #imagemagick #command and in split of second I can get the command again whenever needed ;)

Typora! I just found it recently, but maan, I was searching for something like this for a long time! It is basically a Markdown editor but with an unique touch and extra features like outline, sidebar browser, built-in image viewer and stuff. It's very beautiful.

https://typora.io/

It's been mentioned already but allow me to repeat it: plain text is your friend. Use some markdown if you like. Store everything in folders, using a complex or simple hierarchy, depending on your style. Backup and sync your files using one of the many providers, have it all encrypted (or not if you don't care).

This is your core note-taking system that will last longer than you.

On top of that use any app or editor you fancy. I'm on a Mac, I use iaWriter as my markdown editor (I love that you can drag and drop images into the files), houdahspot to search, Monosnap to take screenshots. And a few OSX tags. But I expect all this to change anytime.

I have around 15 years worth of notes and journalling entries and this setup has emerged as the clear winner. If you care at all about long-levity, I highly advise against proprietary data formats.

I've found that actual paper works best for me -- I tend to jump around a lot, use special symbols, occasionally draw diagram fragments. Then when I'm done dumping core it gets transferred into emacs/org-mode, where it may get an editing pass to make it more coherent to future-me.

Termux on Android with emacs/org mode and a ton of custom capture templates is awesome. Capturing eg. workouts and expenses to org tables and then processing them with python to get summaries.. quick restaurant or sento reviews in my journal .. whatever you want to capture quickly, you can tailor it to serve you. And, at the end of the day, it's all plain text synced by git.

I’ve recently started using TiddlyWiki for my work and personal notes. It really excels at modeling complex, real world data through its tagging system. Also, it is open source and locally hosted so it is safe for work or other sensitive information.

Google Docs for long-form notes (meetings, classes), Google Keep for short-form (grocery list, to-do, etc.).

Nothing beats the fact I can use it instantly across all devices (not Apple-only) and it's free.

I have been using Notion.so for a few months now.

I especially like being able to add any type of element (code, image, video, todo) to any page, the drag-and-drop reordering, and that I can export everything to Markdown if they ever go under because they (inexplicably) decided to remove limits on mobile users.

I see lots of people's answers include markdown or another plain text format. I have long held the opinion that note taking is the single most applicable situation for a WYSIWYG experience. On top of that, I find the ability to draw in my notes essential. For these reasons, my favorite software would be MS OneNote. However I run Linux and don't always have pen input available so I go with pen and paper instead.

So, how do you all deal with plain text notes? If you had a good WYSIWYG editor that fits in your workflow, would you switch?

plain text files and your favorite editor, whatever that is.

things that should be encrypted are either gpg encrytped or put in my password manager.

Bonus if you format your plain text with markdown or asciidoc or whatever your fav. plain text markup language is.

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Put it in a VCS for super double bonus points :)

me personally: Vim, asciidoc and in a fossil repo.

Heavy note taker here. If I'm on my Mac, I use the Notes app. My favorite things about the app are real time sync between the desktop and phone app, easy checklists, text format options and the ability to inline embed images.

When I'm on my phone I use Google Keep. What I love about it are the colored background, tile view and checklists. I wish Keep allowed inline embedding of images.

MS OneNote as it features a nice integration with MS Outlook. You can create tasks directly in OneNote and have them automatically show up in Outlook. As my employer uses the enterprise version, I am not worried about the Cloud.

Google Docs for long form stuff.

Apple Notes for the rest.

I honestly didn't realize how much I was using Apple Notes on iOS and Mac, until recently. The ability to create folders, and iCloud sync (after it became useful enough) are amazing.

I only wish Apple Notes would get a lot more features similar to Google Doc, but at that point it'd be an another replacement for Apple Pages.

I was never hooked to Evernote, despite the amount of traction it got. So I'm not sure if Notes on iOS and mac will be a good replacement for Evernote users though.

It really depends on how you do note-taking. In my case, I take notes related to my research projects, meetings and things I find useful, which require me to find a software with Latex, MathJax support. I don't like latex code inside my note, I like the rendered view. Second requirement is that this software should be mobile support. On the bus, on waiting line etc, I should be able to edit/add notes.

Outliners are good for noting ideas. It makes you think more structural and organized. The less bullet you spend, the simple the idea becomes, that way reading it requires less energy.

I use Dynalist because of the reasons above and its mobile app is 10/10.

Here it is the compiled list with all apps mentioned on this thread https://www.saashub.com/reviews/post-news-ycombinator-2018-0...

I like tree sheets: http://strlen.com/treesheets/

I use a combination of iThoughtsX and Evernote.

I find myself in a lot of situations where information isn't coming to me in a particularly organised fashion - interviews, presentations with several presenters, being on the receiving end of braindumps, etc. For those situations, I really need a mindmap app to be able to reorganise information with minimal effort into a structure that makes sense to me. It's a not-cheap, Apple-only app, but it can output into a variety of formats if I want to consume it on some other platform.

It also works well as a presentation tool if I don't know the audience's knowledge level. Rather than be tied into e.g a sequence of slides, using a mindmap tool I can skip over stuff the audience already knows, while still having the content there (just not visible) if I need to drill down deeply. I can go from receiving an unstructured braindump to presenting that same info in an organised fashion within a few minutes

I used to use Freemind and Freeplane, but the lack of an iOS option was a killer.

For most other situations, I find Evernote is great

I feel like I've used them all. OneNote, Notion.so, NotePlan, Outliner, Mac Notes, Scrivner, Evernote.

I personally seem to gravitate towards OneNote for pure note taking. I personally like Notion.so more for notes that refer to tasks, using Notionas more of a task management and organization app vs pure note taking.

Outliner is a great app for quick note taking in nested format.

I’m currently working on adopting The Archive (https://www.cultofmac.com/535825/the-archive-is-the-best-pla...) into my workflow.

It ticks a lot of the boxes other people mention in this thread: markdown for interoperability, filebased and quick searches.

Apple Notes is great. The only feature I wish it had is markdown or an easy way to make code blocks, but all of its other features make up for missing it.

I have used many other options, but Notes works best.

I used to use OneNote and quite enjoyed it but always felt it was slightly heavy weight.

As I’m fully in the Apple ecosystem I now just use Apple Notes and in all honesty am totally happy with it. It’s fairly simple but does everything I need for free.

I also use Notability on the iPad for when I want to scribble something with the Apple Pencil and am also quite happy with that!

Emacs org-mode

I’m paper and pen - so recently was introduced to Goodnotes on iPad with a pencil. I found a used eBay iPad and can rapidly take notes, draw diagrams and flowcharts. Full search with online recognition, too.

Honestly it’s pretty good. I am much more productive than on paper.

On laptop or desktop I stick with vim and copy to Word if required. I use Inkscape for diagrams.

I’ve given up on absolutely everything; As of now, I just keep .txt files in my Dropbox, accessed via any app on the market.

I dropped a few bucks on Quiver for a more developer friendly Evernote, and I've been relatively happy with it.

zimwiki

pros:

* open source

* stored as a bunch of linked text files

* can version control with git

* wysiwyg markdown(media-wiki syntax) editor

http://zim-wiki.org/

Simple Note https://simplenote.com/ and MS OneNote.

I really like Federated Wiki, which was created by Ward Cunningham. I run it both locally (for private notes) and on a VPS.

I find it is a computer tool that actually helps and encourages me to write and organize information and does not impede me in this activity. ("Clippings" together with a program called FinderNote on Mac OS Classic are another.)

Github repo with set-up instructions: https://github.com/fedwiki

Site with introductory information: http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors

"Sandbox" to get a feel for how it works: http://sandbox.fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors (NB: This is an older version of the software, but the core features are still pretty much the same.)

FinderNote for Mac OS Classic downloads:

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1795-findernote-2-0

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/findernote-20

Edit: Add FinderNote links.

Two favorites:

1. Google Keep: For light weight temporary note taking - grocery items, during travel - hotel addresses, rental details etc. Where lighting quick sync is needed between web and mobile interface, for transferring data between my laptop and mobile.

2. Microsoft OneNote: For heavy duty archival note taking, where font formatting, picture and document embedding is a necessity. Which should be also available on mobile, but quick sync is not necessary.

I started using onenote, and it still pleasantly surprises me from time to time. The last feature I stumbled upon was that it autocompletes simple calculations[1].

[1] https://support.office.com/en-ie/article/insert-and-calculat...

Supermemo, but it's not really a note taking program perse. Most people use it to learn languages or skill specific vocabulary. But, I throw my notes in there too.

Edit:

Specifically, the incremental reading feature and annotated notes. Essentially you can add an article like it's a flashcard, and then it'll schedule it for reviews, and you can even review your notes. If you need something specific, you can search for the note itself.

I tried (in order): Evernote, OneNote, Simplenote

Although not ideal, I ended up with OneNote. Also for temporary notes, I use Trello (easily accessible from my mobile), but the notes don't live there for more than a week.

I like how many people advice to build your own system with git and markdown. Ideally, I want such a system to work quickly on non-cutting edge mobile and sync on the fly, so maybe that's an idea for a side project.

Notational Velocity (Mac only, open source) http://notational.net

It allows you to very quickly do a full text search, it saves the files as plain text, it supports external editors (I use MacVim) and it syncs with simplenote.com so I can see my notes on NV on my various macs and the simplenote app on my phone. It's very minimal and I like it a lot.

I tried Evernote, One note and simple note, then settled on zim http://zim-wiki.org/ It even works on OSX but i had to build it via brew

Turtl: https://turtlapp.com/ Largely because it's open source and privacy oriented, encrypted client-side. It's not as convenient and feature-rich as OneNote, but entrusting Microsoft with all my notes seems crazy.

VimWiki, old version https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki/releases

mobile: termux + vim windows: cygwin vim chromeOS: crouton vim

Tried evil with OrgMode and deft but always come back to VimWiki

TiddlyWiki if only non-mobile

I find a single pane outliner the best for me. You can nest, group and move ideas around quickly. For windows, the best still is Ecco Pro. It's a free software written back in the 90's that has an awesome outliner. I know there are many other windows based single pane outlines but I have not used windows for my desktop for several years.

On Linux, which is my primary desktop, I use Ecco Pro on Wine.

If using OSX / IOS, I would recommend Omni Outliner.

Regarding two pane outliners vs singleness pane, I simply don't find the fragmentation of information across two panes intuitive. This may be subjective though. To me, having all information in a single tree, flows much better when brainstorming.

For Android, I don't have many good options for Outlining and therefore a regular note taker for now that's Evernote.

I'm currently evaluating several different options, and I'm beginning to lean towards "One tool is probably not enough". Bigger tools such as Notion.so or a personal wiki are great as a repository of knowledge, you can easily browse and organize information. But writing a one-off quick note is not their forte. Lighter tools like markdown files in a text editor or a pure note app all handle the jot-down-a-note aspect very well, but they lack in organization and structure.

I prefer not having to use a bunch of tools for the same task, but here it seems like that's probably the best idea. Use a light note-taking app (or a physical notebook) to scribble things down, then enter it into a more repository-like software when I'm back at my computer.

On Mac: vi

On Windows: Ubuntu environment and vi

On Linux and BSD: vi

On phones and tablets: email client

Alternate for all platforms: email client

I write markdown in Visual Studio Code and just save it in a notes directory.

I can then grep across the directory, or use VSC in built search in folder tool. I also get the formatting of markdown. It is already on my machine and usually already open and running.

Sounds odd but: mindnode, devonthink and paper

No matter what I tried, a mind map app felt extremely natural. I just dump random bits of stuff into the map and it works.

If I’m not in my pc, always paper

Then bigger notes in devonthink because of its superb search and classification

I use Evernote Premium and I’m mostly content with it. It’s worth $95/year to me. There’s no device limit in the Premium edition. You also get full-text search in PDFs and other nice features.

So far I haven’t found any alternative that suits me better. I really like being able to use different notebooks for different purposes and being able to tag individual notes. (This is something that e.g. Apple’s Notes is missing.)

I won’t trust Evernote to stay around forever so my plan is to research alternatives in two years or so just to see if any good alternatives are available. (NTS: I should also make backups of my Evernote data...)

Sachin Rekhi here, YC alum from 2007. Wanted to throw a plug out for our app Notejoy: https://notejoy.com

We've built Notejoy as a collaborative notes app. So it's not only great for personal notes, but also great for easily sharing notes with your team with real-time editing, @mentions, threaded comments, and more.

But also built with a lot of the productivity features you expect from a note-taking app, including Mac, Windows, iOS apps, keyboard shortcuts / markdown accelerators, syntax highlighting, clean distraction-free interface, and more.

How about Notebook?

https://zoho.com/notebook/

For short notes I've been using deft[1] on emacs. It gives a Notational Velocity like interface for searching/viewing within emacs. The actual note-taking is via org-mode.

For notes from online courses, I recently started using the stock Notes app on macOS/iOS because of the Pencil support on the iPad.

Not sure if this helps as I don't know what platform/editor you use and I wouldn't expect you to switch either for note taking :)

1. https://jblevins.org/projects/deft/

Warning: Early stage of development

Thinking Notebook & Markdown IDE

MindForger is human mind inspired knowledge management tool which aims to connect the tradition of outline editors with emerging technologies. Its mission is to help you in organization of your knowledge and associated local, web and real world resources in a way that enables quick navigation, concise representation, automatic interconnections, associative completion and inferencing.

https://github.com/dvorka/mindforger

As many others, we build our own tool and by now we are named as a "Trello-killer" by Make use of. https://zenkit.com can be used to organize anything in the way you want it. You can choose between several data views and switch whenever you want. Use a lot of customization features to show your data as you need it. From a simple list view through kanban and databases, everything is possible.

It´s available for every device, without limitation. There is also a Snap for Linux.

Products from www.literatureandlatte.com deserve a mention on this list - they are called Scrivener and Scapple. I realize they might not be for everyone (both are paid), but I find them delightful.

As I’m exclusively using iOS and macOS I simply use Apple Notes.app. It syncs and you can even collaborate with other apple notes users. EDIT: not to forget the Apple Pencil support it brings.

I've really been enjoying Taskade.

A lot of the stuff out there suffers from feature bloat and too much complexity.

I like Taskade because it's light weight and fast, and it's great for teams.

I use boostnote[0] for my personall stuff and slab[1] at work.

Boostnote can sync my notes with dropbox and supports markdown and code snippets with a nice desktop app and is free.

Slab has a collaboration functionality similar to google docs and it's easy to share notes with my team, with ok pricing.

[0] https://boostnote.io/ [1] https://slab.com/

On the Mac, I highly recommend OmniOutliner. I have outlines that have evolved over, literally, decades. Before using OmniOutliner, I used More, an early Mac outliner that ran on a Mac Plus. OmniOutliner could import More files[1], so, when More was discontinued, I could keep using my outlines without a hitch. I am still actively evolving and growing outlines today that I may been working with, literally, for 40 years or even a bit longer!

I love the process of working with outlines. They're the perfect way to store information in an organized way.

There's a common outline storage format, OPML (Outline Processor Martup Language), which OmniOutliner exports to. So, if the Mac ever entirely disappears, or OmniOutliner's publisher (OmniGroup) goes out of business, you should be able to keep using your OO outlines on whatever platform you move to next. Also, OmniOutliner does run on the iPad today.

One tip which is key to my own use: use hashtags so that you can instantaneously find the outline heading for whatever notes you're looking for.

[1] https://discourse.omnigroup.com/t/does-omnioutliner-import-m...

Dropbox Paper has worked quite well for me.

I hate to admit it. I tried everything, maybe except for org-mode. My favorite - which I do a bunch of stuff in real time and which generates money for me is: Microsoft OneNote thick client. Supreme user experience. Second best: tables in Microsoft Excel.

sigh I am supposed to be a die hard open source guy. Well well maybe npt so much at the end of the day. Corporate life is all proprietery high end Oracle, SAS, IBM and Microsoft.

Trello for some notes, often TODOs, since you can archive cards and tick off task lists.

notion https://www.notion.so/

Over my last two terms I've invested in using markdown with Pandoc to write any notes in class. I needed a way to be able to take math notes, and be simple to use. After migrating to Linux, OneNote was no longer an option. It's simple to use, as it uses markdown syntax for anything text based, and LaTeX syntax for inlined math formulas.

I as of recently also found out that VimWiki exists. I've started to use it because of the note linking capabilities. I'm starting to keep notes on events, certain tools, languages, and all other information I need in the wiki. It's also in Markdown which is nice.

Find tools that are close to what you want, and try to make your own suite. It may seem like a lot of work, but knowing your note taking solution inside and out can be very handy. When you're presented with something new that you don't know how to take down, you can evolve the system into being capable of handling it. Which you can do if you've make your own system, but using ready made solutions won't allow this.

Used to use MS OneNote, switched to using Outline (Mac) when I moved away from Windows. I'm still pretty happy with it, but I'm a one-device-at-a-time, laptops-are-as-mobile-as-I-go kind of guy who doesn't care about syncing, etc.

However, most of the time I just use paper. I generally use 200-ish page hardbound books with a narrow rule, and go through around 2 a year with work; entries are dated, volumes are dated when filled and filed away. I don't treat them with the full rigor that you would a real "lab notebook", but it's the same general idea.

For hobby use, I use similar books, but usually blank or graph lined.

For day-to-day reminders and such, I'm almost always carrying a little 50-cent spiral-bound notebook. When used up, remove the spring, toss the pages and cover into the recycle bin.

My use of software for note taking at this point is pretty much confined to initial research where I'm more interested in saving images and URLs than any actual details that might end up on paper later.

I use https://www.lifepim.com (disclaimer, I wrote it - it is free for all to use though).

The notes side of it works well, and has enough markdown features to allow me to transfer all my GDrive notes to it.

Like others have mentioned, I get tired when apps and sites go unsupported or have shitty (if any) export features.

This has been bothering me for a while too, I take 3 kinds of notes:

1. Project-related notes: I write those close to the source in a special `.todo` file highlighted with an extension I wrote [1].

2. Short-lived notes: I write those in my sticky notes app [2], which allows me to have different "categories" of notes while still requiring only a single window.

3. Long-lived notes: I write those in Evernote as well, and like many others here I've long searched for a replacement. I guess I'll have to code my own, I don't really need anything fancy, just an interface for searching and tagging markdown files.

[1] https://github.com/fabiospampinato/vscode-todo-plus [2] https://github.com/fabiospampinato/noty

I went through the very same kind of issues with note taking. I was looking for a portable format, not depending on any 3rd party service that stores my data on some unknown format in a server somewhere, simple to use and customize.

After trying almost every application out there, and being a developer myself, I ended up writing a minimalist package for the Atom editor that I called "second memory". Base text format is markdown, it includes grammar / syntax highlight, and some "nice" and simple features like TODO items, stars, and some text widgets. I use it together with markdown-preview package and syncthing for keeping notes in sync across all my devices. If you like the Atom editor, you can take a look at it on https://atom.io/packages/secondmemory

Daily I use a FileMaker default template as it allows me to attach docs and media along with text. And by-the-way, it has kept almost 5 years of daily pics of me! For meetings I use an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil using GoodNotes4—works great. I take a pic of the handouts and mark them up. Easy, orderly.

Evernote + a subscription works for me.

I have been using the Day One[0] and it has been fantastic. It is marketed as a journaling app but it works really well for general note taking.

Pros: - The developers offer a service where they will publish all notes as a book for a small fee. Exporting notes into physical media is a great way to ensure notes stay preserved into the future.

- They are available on most apple platforms (ipads, macOS, iphones) and the notes sync up between all of them. There is also an android app.

- The subscription isn’t expensive

Cons:

- Doesn’t support Windows

- The service to publish a book from notes is still in beta, has not worked well for me so far.

I have been using this app for making notes for about 8 months now and it’s been working great.

[0] http://dayoneapp.com

Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but WizNote is a pretty decent Evernote clone with clients for all platforms. Use Google translate on the site: https://wiz.cn/

I used Keep for a while, but now just have a folder with some markdown files (roughly one per note). I use git to push it to a server and download onto my phone and tablet. Works well, but obviously does not sync across all devices in real time.

Simplenote is decent for just quick note taking on a phone or computer browser with a sync that usually works.

Onenote is good if you like organizing your notes hierarchically into notebooks, tabs, etc. They have apps for the different OS's.

For quick notes about things I might want to search for later (e.g. books to consider buying): Notational Acceleration (Android clone of Notational Velocity), and nvpy (python GUI app, cross platform), synced to Simplenote.

Notes I'm going to share with others (e.g. interview notes, or important things to consider when we do X): Google Docs or Word (stored in corporate OneDrive), so that they're editable and people always have the latest version.

I tried Dynalist (workflowy clone) and like it, but somehow I stopped using it after using it regularly for a month or so. Not sure it's the product's fault, though.

149 comments and no mention of http://www.ulyssesapp.com/ yet. Although the recent change to a subscription pricing model was off-putting at first, it is reassuring in some ways because it underlines the developer's longterm commitment.

That said, I've recently been using Notion for EVERYTHING at work, and now considering if I could do likewise for my personal notes/essays.

PS. It's funny how the intense competition between 'distraction-free' writing tools has almost become distracting in its own right.

Now-days I stick with google-docs. I suppose this is largely due to the reason I am mostly taking notes on meetings:

* having one document per recurring meeting kinda makes sense

* vaguely structured per meeting log kinda makes sense

* it is easy to share around/collaborate, as company has google-suite

* ability to make comments/edits is awesome when you collaborate remotely

* ability to assign tasks to people is nice, because it allowed us to track things that would be too light-weight for i.e. jira

For quick-notes, I usually use trello.

I thought I would be using org-mode and git more, but I haven't figured out a good sharing mechanism and I always forgot to push/sync my notes there.

I love the typography of iA Writer: https://ia.net/writer It saves to plain text markdown files, but supports directory-based search etc.

OP, I am like you, but so far I wasn't able to find anything better than Evernote, so I learned to live with the 2 device limit...I just use the web version on the 3rd device.

In evernote, I can add new note very quickly via shortcut, search very quickly by tags or keywords, and also a lot of information fits on one screen. It's a unique mix of those conveniences which keeps me using Evernote.

Also, on Windows, what a lot of other apps lacks is that there isn't a native windows app. Then some things like hiding to system tray don't work, or the whole application looks just like a webpage.

Kind of related, but does anyone have good software for dealing with PDFs?

Any important letters (or something I may want to refer back to later) I scan and email to myself. I used Evernote previously, the nice part is it OCRs the PDF so I can search text within them, but the workflow isn't that nice (and I'd prefer something self-hosted).

When I've asked before I've received recommendations for full blown enterprise document management systems, but all I want is something with an interface like Gmail for PDFs (I'm suprised Google themselves don't do this within Gmail).

I've never been able to find the one note-taking system to rule them all, but that seems to be because the contexts in which I need to write/access notes are quite different.

At the moment I've settled on a three-tier system:

NVAlt - as a scratchpad, clipboard buffer and other transient notes.

Moo.do - for structured notes, Todo lists, reminders and agenda/scheduling

Dokuwiki - for long term knowledge base stuff and for documenting personal and home projects. Love this because my family can easily read and use it too.

I've tried loads of tools but I've stuck with this set longer than any other so far.

Gmail drafts, when I finish something, I put an X infront of it and feel accomplished. Every Sunday I review my tasks, add what I think I need, remove any completed items, or items I will never complete.

For the crowd that happens to have a Synology I switched to DS Note when Evernote went 2 device only, it even imported all my notes. Has desktop and mobile apps, best Evernote clone I've found.

I have an Alfred workflow that lets me copy any text, press CMD + Shift + X, and emails me the snippet. I then have a simple app that connects to my email account (Gmail) and lets me add tags (labels) to notes. This allows me to take notes quickly (I'll just write something in Sublime) and easily review/categorise them later. This has been really wonderful and I am constantly tweaking the workflow to suit me. It's also really simple and only relies on Alfred (which is a great tool anyway).

I use zim-wiki and slickrun/jot [1] on windows for quick notes. slickrun has a WIN-J shortcut which can be used to pop up and focus the quick note buffer, copy something from inside and close the buffer window without leaving the keyboard. Pretty happy with anything from bayden.com

[1] https://www.bayden.com/slickrun/1033/SlickRunHelp.aspx

I use IA Writer in a Git repository inside of Dropbox. I have a shell command that creates a new Markdown note for today's date in the right folder.

Dropbox lets me access files across devices. I got commit every day or so using another shell shortcut, which makes all of the markdown files readable on the GitHub UI.

I was getting tired of proprietary software solutions. This just works. If I wanted more advanced tooling, I would probably add a build system like Softcover.io.

Mindnode, which is infortunately Mac-only. But it is really a mind-map tool. I just like to take notes in mind mapping tools.

I wish I could find a polished open source mind map tool.

Hi, you can use https://checkvist.com both for note taking and for any kind of planning. This is a hierarchical outliner with tons of features focused on work from keyboard (tags, notes, due dates and repeating tasks, Markdown with code support, file attachments, public lists, collaboration). Dark scheme if you dare :)

I'm one of the devs, so ping me if you have questions.

Markdown in Sublime Text . Cool feature is index of all headings in folder with Cmd + Shift + R

- https://github.com/SublimeText-Markdown/MarkdownEditing

- https://github.com/vkocubinsky/SublimeTableEditor

You can get around the 2 device limit by getting a subscription to evernote.

I like DevonThink because it has good fuzzy searching. Good for finding articles that kept that kinda sorta has to do with the article you are currently writing.

https://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/overvi...

For general notes not directly linked to some project with it's own document hierarchy and so on I use a paper notebook with hard covers. Seriously - it's so much more convenient than any digital alternative. The only discipline I need is to write the date before any new entry so I can backtrack on what I wrote.

For projects I use plain txt files unless I really, really, really need something more complex

I separate notes into two categories "Actionable" and "Reference I may need in the future" For Actionable I use "OK Google, note to self" to send to my email and then use a tool I developed to manage Actionable email/todo/links/files etc. For "Reference I may need in the future" I use Evernote and add keywords I may use for searching

It's very different than Evernote, but my favorite note taking app is Dynalist. I have all my todos, goals, plans, and sundry ideas there.

Currently a combination of apple notes and a personal wiki. I was unhappy with the existing wiki software (both paid and open source) and so my partner and I built https://www.wikiful.com/.

We're currently in a sort of soft launch phase. Working on a few more things before really doing a Show HN or product hunt.

I like the directory full of .md and txt files. Similar to Notational Velocity and nvAlt - but cross-platform is terminal_velocity. https://github.com/terminal-velocity-notes/terminal_velocity - it lost the maintainer recently, but it works fine!

I've started creating my own command-line flat-file note software [1]. It's very basic, brittle and still in alpha (committed version 0.4.0a2 last night), but even now I vastly prefer it to any kind of corporate app. Plaintext files in a directory beats almost anything else.

[1]: https://hawth.bitbucket.io

For privacy and portability the text editor in Tails Live OS is no frills. Notes are basic text files, persisted to a password protected and encrypted disk partition, with the option to additionally encrypt and password protect individual files.

Notes are saved in a standard format and can locked down in an instant simply by pulling the Tails USB from whatever device you happen to be using.

I've been using OneNote (Windows 10 app) so far with a surface pro device. It really is great, though I'll have to research how exportable the notes are (print to PDF is... Difficult)

I for one trust Microsoft to provide me software to access my notes and cut me off, but nothing is too big to fall, so I'm thinking about switching to markdown + images scribbled with my pen.

Google Keep is free, has multiple subsections, and automatically syncs between my smartphone and my PC with no intervention on my part.

iOS notes app is very good.

I've tried a lot of applications for notes, and I always end up back in a plaintext editor like Atom. This is for common, work-related notes, etc. For everything else, its all about pen and paper.

For me, one reason I used Evernote for the longest time was so I could load my notes on my Pebble. This worked, but not consistently. Next best thing? Pen and paper.

I use Google keep, simple notes, never used Evernote and it likely won't cover all the features, but its fine for my usage.

Evernote works awesome, worth every penny. I use the checkbox lists fot todos, share notes with contractors with task instructions easily, the notes can have embedded images and files. I access it on phone, tablet and desktop works perfectly, i highly recommend it.

Edit: forgot to mention it includes a buil-in chat that i use all the time with contractors

Gmail. Create a new email as a draft, you can access it on any computer or any phone and the search function is all-powerful.

I love iA Writer -- I keep it open in a fullscreen window on my mac that I can just swipe over to. It's perfect for potentially converting short notes into long form. Also, once I start typing out a note, it is completely immersive and I don't see windows elsewhere on the screen vying for my attention to get back to them.

I tend to use several machines/devices during my working week, so anything installed locally is a no-no.

My solution was to knock up a web app in php (you can use the backend of your choice) that lets me create notes using markdown, these are auto saved to the server and browse-able via another php page.

Like a poor-mans markdown notepad, but online.

I use a private wordpress.com account and write notes in markdown. It supports full-text searching and has a nice markdown renderer. I publish quick notes/bookmarks as blog posts and important notes that I plan to constantly update as static pages. Categories and tags help me arrange things in the side menus.

I think Microsoft's OneNote is probably the best one I've used personally. The only thing that is a little labourious is setting up your notebooks/sections but once you have that set up, its actually pretty good.

I just wished it had markdown support built in and also Syntax highlighting for code examples.

Though rather focused on todos, I use Taskwarrior with taskd deployed to a VPS. On mobile I use it inside Termux. For code snippets I wrote an interactive CLI that supports shell hooks which pushes changes into a Git repository automatically. Quite a nice combination for my shell-centric workflow.

I am a happy user since early beta of MedleyText https://medleytext.net Please be aware that this note taking solution is potentially geared to cater to the software user community or alike mostly.

This is a bit of a special case but my note taking app of choice is squid/papyrus.

Unlike all the other text based alternatives this is virtual paper. It is best used with a device with a stylus (ex: Galaxy Note). The advantage is an infinite size canevas, and a high level of zoom.

Asana. The ease of use and organisation is just enough for my needs. I am a extensive note taker.

A simple command line journal application that stores your journal in a plain text file, developed in bash and inspired in jrnl.sh

https://gitlab.com/osiux/txt-bash-jrnl

I used Evernote for awhile but they did stupid things like putting the upgrade button back on the toolbar after I had removed it.

When I finally did upgrade to their basic tier they kept spamming me to upgrade to their mid-level tier.

Uninstalled it shortly after that.

Please don’t pester your paying users.

OneNote, it syncs automatically, you can open it on the web, and the dedicated apps are pretty great. I went from not using it at all and eyeing it with suspicion to using it daily about a year ago and haven't looked back.

I'm using OneNote for sketches and handwritten notes (Tablet). For everything else, I use a private DokuWiki instance. I like having a web-based, but private, note-taking solution that supports media files and hyperlinks.

For jotting down quick markdown notes with your keyboard that auto sync to every device, Simplenote is hard to beat.

For pen-and-paper notes, Apple Pencil, iPad Pro, and GoodNotes with iCloud sync & Dropbox backup is a great choice.

Notepad for Android – A simple, bare-bones, no-frills note taking app.

Lots of features. No ads. Apache Licensed.

https://github.com/farmerbb/Notepad

Simplenote works for me. I was always in awe of the Apple ecosystem and at least when it comes to note taking, I use Simplenote to sync between Ubuntu and a smartphone running Android keeping things plain and simple.

nvALT on Mac. Open source but brittle and needs a rewrite. Crashes occasionally.

I’ve (mostly) settled on using Google Docs for text-heavy notes, and just regular old paper for notes that will contain a lot of symbols and math. I also rely on paper for super short-lived notes and brainstorming.

I use Telegram and write messages to myself. It's extremely convenient, because it's my main communication tool and it's always open so I don't need to take any special action to make a note.

I litter my folders with notes.md files. I use google keep for quick check-list. I have a rotting todoist account.

It's a mess. And I have a standard paper logbook, its primary purpose is to organize thoughts in reunions.

Full disclosure, I am the creator of this application. It's sort of like Notational Velocity on steroids. https://recollectr.io

Markdown-oriented app for iOS, Mac & Windows, with WebDAV support for self-hosted or direct device sync, http://notebooksapp.com

I’ve settled on a plaintext file in my home directory called “did.txt”.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17538697

I like MediaWiki for note taking. My Dreamhost account features a one-click install for that. I added https (DreamHost supports automated LetsEncrypt renewal), added a responsive theme and basic auth.

I've been looking for perfect solution for over 15 years. Finally found it. Emacs's Org-mode. Nothing else truly beats its simplicity, versatility and robustness for note taking.

Microsoft OneNote for some stuff.

Mostly Quiver (or Boostnote) with the files backed up to a remote git repo. Added benefit of being a format that is not locked in and can be parsed out later if required.

Been using way too many apps in the past twenty years. AskSam on Windows in the 90s until early 2000s. Then they stopped developing it. Exported my notes in HTML format, waiting to be migrated into my latest tool. - Then when the iPhone arrived tried to do note taking on it. Used Momonote app (still exists, but practically abandonware), created a couple of thousand notes. Exported them as csv, waiting to be migrated... Then Evernote. Excellent tool. I have 12k notes in it. Love it. Still use it. Paying member. In between tried to migrate from Windows to Ubuntu. Started using Emacs+Org (several hundred notes in there, waiting to be migrated). But also ZimWiki. Then moved to Mac/OS. Went back to Evernote. Currently using a combo of Evernote and Bear Writer app. Love Bear. Has a phantastic UI, markdown, super fast interface, syncs with all my iDevices.

But I am aware that in twenty years from now none of these tools might be alive anymore. I keep exporting and backing up my data because of this. And my backlog of "to be migrated" grows longer and longer.

For now I find it more convenient to use a tool with a sleak interface that offer all the features I need in a "personal wiki" / note taking app: inserting screenshots into notes (this is a killer feature for me), beutifully rendering my markdown text, fulltext search, nested folders (or tags in Bear lingo), syncing across all my devices. The alternative is too cumbersome: For instance Emacs/Org + rgrep + Dropbox for syncing + git + a bunch of .emacs entries that allow me to insert screenshots.

Edit: Forgot to mention IdeaNote. Used it when I tried to replace my iPhone with a BlackBerry device. Excellent app. I could create super long and time stamped journal entries / logs / notes on the superb keyboard of the BB device in seconds (never got used to typing on a touchscreen). But eventually the BB got abandonware itself. And so the app. Luckily I could pay 50$ to export my 3k notes. Migrated them successfully to Evernote with a bit of Ruby script.

Edit 2: Lesson learned for me: No tool is going to be there forever. Need to have a clear concept for how I will keep my data independent from tools du jour.

I use the plain notes plugin for Sublime for notes that I need to keep around for a while, and pen and paper for more ephemeral notes that I go through and toss once a week.

Macdown - an Open source Markdown editor for macOS. https://macdown.uranusjr.com/

Things for Mac & iOS - https://culturedcode.com/things/

I'm trying to keep it simple stupid and using Bear Writer. The only caveat is you can't share the note with other people unless you export it

Workflowy. I can't say enough how amazing it is. Would just be nice if it had some integrations.

It seems to be undergoing a lot of development right now as well.

https://jenyay.net/Soft/Outwiker - the best one

I love StackEdit, syncs to your google drive and supports Markdown, multiple folders, and folders within folders.

Works on Android, IOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc

TaskPaper. The tab key indents the entire line, regardless of cursor position on the line, making outlining very easy.

Is there another editor that does this?

Please take http://write.pub for a spin. It has built in Versioning

Currently trying http://www.bear-writer.com/

Org-mode in Emacs, with a todo.org synced in Dropbox. I've been using it for a while now, and it's life changing.

Paper, vim scratch.txt — personal favorites.

Im using firefox notes, and its really good.

+1 for freemind have been using it for years as a daily work sheet to allow me to switch between tasks quickly

macOS and iOS notes - easy, free, no one is mining my data, and it automatically syncs across devices.

I keep an instance of VS Code open that points to ~/notes, which is a folder containing markdown files. I've tried lots of other more branded note taking apps, but markdown is how I think, and VS Code has good markdown support out of the box. Plus, I don't have to context switch to a different set of key commands, since VS Code is also my primary code editor.

I've been using Evernote for 6 years, and still continue to use it for the following reasons:

* Everyday I use https://marxi.co to write my technical work journals in Markdown (with nice extensions like flowcharts) that gets rendered into rich text format within Evernote

* I archive and tag each article I read with the Evernote Web Clipper, because URLs always go stale so you want your own copy.

* Evernote works with https://ifttt.com so it integrates seamlessly with my other applications and workflows

* Evernote is also capable of OCR within PDFs if you use the paid pro version.

* This means that all sorts of note taking is in a single place, making it a breeze to quickly search.

I pay for Evernote to get around the device limit, offline usage etc, as the free version is pretty crippled. I know there are definitely cheaper alternatives in terms of price, but I feel it's worth it for all the features available because I value my precious time, which I don't want to consume more of to maintain the same set of features using FOSS alternatives. Good thing is that Evernote allows export to a human readable archive format which I use to ensure that I have a personal copy of the notes to prevent vendor lock-in.

EDIT: Just formatting

workflowy for quick organized notes.

Zim (http://zim-wiki.org)

Joplin is a good Evernote replacement and has been getting updates quite frequently. Love it.

Can realy recommend https://joplin.cozic.net/. It speaks md. Can do usefull syncing with many different services. has a firefox and chrome website importer and seems open-source on first sight. I use it now after a lot of other trys. i like it

1. email

2. docs.google.com

3. github.com/<username>/<repo name>/wiki

all cloud solutions, latter 2 have versioning

After much experimentation (e.g. Freemind), I wound up using a text editor and Dropbox.

Bear if in the Apple ecosystem.

MS OneNote.

firefox notes for quick notes, dropbox paper is not bad, and zotero for more detailed research note taking. I frequently just open VIM with Pencil/mark down and take notes directly onto a Dropbox folder.

I like OmniOutliner for MacOS as it makes it easy to reorganize my notes.

I see you didn’t appreciate Evernote. Ever tried Jupyter Notebook?

Typora for writing markdown files which are saved in google drive.

vimwiki

Apple Notes. I even use it for code on the go.

Workflowy? Best way to organize my thoughts.

a folder in Google Drive, a bunch of markdown files and VSCode. The global search in vscode is quite good.

I really like Confluence from Atlassian

Pen and paper

I love Sublime with markdown notes.

Resophnotes synced to simplenote

- nvALT (or Notational Velocity)

- Google Docs

Word for mac is pretty good

So I probably tried a vast majority of all the major notetaking solutions out there. And many of the different ways you can organize things (GTD, david allen, secretweapon, inbox zero, etc) as well as my own creative variations as well.

The solution I have is that there is no gold bullet when it comes to notetaking. They all have problems. You just have to try many different methods and solutions to see what works, based on how you organize things, and the way you think.

Personally, I have found a blogpost here that encapsulates mostly everything I do after 4 years of notetaking. http://devonzuegel.com/post/memex-my-personal-knowledge-base.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I use dynalist.io personally as my notetaking app. It supports features like codesnippets as well with a 3rd party extension. You can find how I organize it on my blog http://vincentmtang.com/2017/06/24/how-i-use-dynalist-io/

To give you a quick gist of it this is how I organize things on dynalist

- Journal (New items added uptop)

- Courses (New items added at bottom)

- Ideas if I have nothing else to do (New items added uptop)

- Everything else (Meeting notes / Collaboration)

There was a lot of psychology and research that I did personally detailing what goes on behind why I chose things this way. It mostly deals with a 2x2 selection matrix I made called UPIE (structured vs unstructured, internal vs external).

------------------------------------------------------------------

Second, I organize writing in its own form via wordpress.

- Drafts / Ideas for writing (40+ drafts atm)

- One time posts (write everything in an hour or two and post, regardless of grammatical issues)

Third, I also use github for SVN control on larger repositories. Everything goes either in the `C:\www` folder based on PHP best practices (I don't write in php). Also, I have a folder called `C:\dropbox\github` for repos that are small in file (e.g. no node modules) and SVN control is too burdonsome to deal with. I use an extension called "markdown preview enhanced"(MPE) which in all of my research of markdown, is the best markdown extension to date on VScode and atom

Fourth, I use codepen similar to how I organize evernote. I have over 2500 notes on evernote so I know what the best practices here are. Each codepen file = one evernote note. I tag things, and search through it via as I normally would in evernote. I follow the "microsite" ideas heavily from chris coyier https://css-tricks.com/microsites-for-case-studies/. I find I am able to talk hours maybe days explaining how complex some of my private codepens are for the project I'm working on, to get a better relay this information about my skillsets as a frontend dev.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Fifth, I have several other methods of organizingi things in general. I call it "self-data-collection" methods that I made up myself. For instance,

- Youtube video I've watched so I can check a log of videos I've looked up and limit search queries to just that. I have a system of bookmarking and commenting useful things here.

- Hackernews posts I've read for more than 30 seconds, so I can see it under `myusername/comments`.

- Stackoverflow posts. Upvote so I know what the best solution is to the question, namely so I can also keep track of what I've read as well that was helpful in obscure solutions and tech

- Google maps. If you looked at my local area maps on my account, I have about 200 stars and indexed / cataloged what each business is for. Hackerspaces, startup studios, areas with freewifi for working with laptops (coffee shops, bookstores), etc

- Shopping / Physical goods. I have a 2500 (limit of wishlist count) and another 1000+ ongoing list on amazon. I have different ways of searching through this so I can cross-pollinate different ideas from different industries. For instance, xbox controllers used in space/engineering simulations

- Lastpass. I manage about 200 account emails here

LASTLY I have some support systems

- Anki for flashcard and SRS (space repetition learning) among other things

- A list of 700+ applications I used on alternativeto.net at one point. I wrote 200 + reviews of these so I know why I did or did not like them, so I don't need to repeat the errors I made previously

- 700+ stars I bookmarked on github for ideas on opensource libraries to use, depending on project need. I fork it if its worth investing into

- A list of bookmarking system on google bookmarks based on emojis for quicker ways to grok what folder I want to look for. I organize it A-Z

- Different browsers for different functionality

- customized toolbar and spacers inbetween software apps for faster visual grouping identification

- Directory Opus for my file explorer. Apple Mac's have a significantly better native file explorer system and some apps, but directoryOpus bridges that gap for windows

- 100 + macros managed by phrase-express. I have a blog post about it here http://vincentmtang.com/2018/05/31/14-useful-phrase-express-...

------------------------------------------------------------------

I could go on all day but I will leave it at that, to answer your question blankly I use mostly dynalist.io and a bunch of other things I slew together. I call it my "SOP" or standard operating procedures which ended up being several pages long. Its constantly evolving but now I just commit things to memory based on some industrial engineering practices I learned called LEAN for identifying and mapping value streams based on best business practices. This is something I do natively now and don't think very hard into, it mostly stems from how I used to run my own virtual business starting in middle school.

Lastly, I am writing my own notetaking software as well and I am not going to say more than this, but its mostly based on pitfalls I found in the above writing I wrote.

Notetaking requires a set of principlces that you need to follow as well as rigirous daily practice to enforce principlces of accountability. I do daily sprints here normally too in dynalist under journal section

What and how you use software vastly depends on what your field of interests is as well. I personally don't get too invested in tooling despite everything I stated above, there's a really good quote from one of my favorite youtubers "MJP funfunfunction" -> e.g. "Everything has a maintenance cost. The pros of that software needs to outweigh the cons of maintenance and debugging". This means you won't ever probably hear me talking about org-mode/linux/vim/emacs because I honestly like the simplicity of my GUI tools on windows.

Also, because I know what an optimized approach is to notetaking I can also identify based on metadata which people are worth following. I use twitter to keep a list of these people

I run backups of long posts I make here on pinboard.in using a keyboard shortcut

The approach I take to formatting long text mostly stems from how I've seen people use reddit to organize their public posts / notes in markdown format

Dynalist.

Google Keep works for me

I'm using noteplan

Dropbox + Sublime Text

checkvist.com

Unlimited hierarchical lists. Fully controllable via keyboard.

Vim and iA Writer

www.viewert.com - free online note-taking powerhouse. I use it every day, it's a personal wiki that can be converted to a blog and back.

Index cards.

Boostnote.

Zim

* vim

* cherrytree

* syncthing

* git

Changing jobs in 2005 caused me to switch from taking notes on paper to doing it electronically.

My new employer provided a tablet PC with a stylus running Windows and [OneNote](https://products.office.com/en-US/onenote). Taking notes on that system with excellent handwriting recognition was a revelation. The tablet was pretty clunky by today's standards, but it worked well. It was particularly useful for generating meeting notes in real time and projecting them during meetings.

After moving to another employer, I no longer had access to such a tablet but used [TiddlyWiki](https://tiddlywiki.com) to keep my notes. It was great until the number of notes became large (in the thousands).

After that, I became an early adopter of [Evernote](https://evernote.com). It was an adequate note-taking app, but the killer feature for me was searching for text in images. At that time, we put meeting notes up on a whiteboard. After the meeting, I could take a picture of the whiteboard, insert it in Evernote, and search it any time after that. I maintained a subscription to Evernote until the end of 2016 until they got squirrely about their subscriptions and some privacy issues.

After several years absence, I went back to TiddlyWiki. It was very much improved. But after importing thousands of notes, it became too slow at editing. The search was on for another system.

I looked at several open-source tools under active development:

* [TreeSheets](http://strlen.com/treesheets/) has been around a long time and has some unique features for organizing your information. * [CherryTree](https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/) it has been around for quite some time. Very long feature list. Very long wishlist too. * [BoostNote](https://github.com/BoostIO/Boostnote) bills itself as a note-taking app for programmers. It has clients for lots of platforms and can keep them all in sync. * [iA Writer](https://ia.net/writer) is very focused on writing.

I committed to [Collate](https://collatenotes.com) for awhile, even bought a license, but development seemed to stop shortly after I paid for it. And it keeps asking me to re-enter my license key. So, slowly moving off of it. And no more closed-source apps.

These days, my notes usually start short and then get longer and more detailed over time. Often they include mathematics, so typesetting math is crucial to me. Joplin fills the bill very well. It's almost perfect for me. But linking to other notes is a bit clumsy.

I set up a self-hosted [MediaWiki](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki). It did everything I wanted (and way more) but was more cumbersome to administer than I wanted to deal with.

What I finally ended up doing was writing my own wiki.

* It uses a version of Markdown that can typeset math (_via_ [MathJax](https://www.mathjax.org)) and accepts wikilink syntax as well. * Syntax highlighting for program snippets. * It seems to be cross-platform. (I started development on Windows, now do it on macOS, and can (but shouldn't) self-host it on a Linux server. * It runs on a desktop. (I can't read long notes with math on a phone and tablets are pushing it a bit with my poor vision.) * It's written in Clojure and ClojureScript, languages I enjoy working with. * The editor I wrote has a real-time preview (but the scroll bars don't' sync yet.) * The editor is compatible with Grammarly, so I get some help with my atrocious spelling and grammar. * All data is stored locally in a SQL database but can be exported to Markdown files with one keystroke. * Pages can be exported with YAML so that they can be imported directly to my blog. * and on and on.

Another option that might be useful is a [Jupyter](http://jupyter.org) notebook. It looks interesting, but I don't really have much experience with it. There's even a [kernel for Clojure](https://github.com/clojupyter/clojupyter) that I want to check out.

If you have the interest and the desire, I encourage you to look into writing your own tool. It isn't as hard as you might imagine just to get something working. It is incredibly hard to polish things to just the shininess you might want, but that's part of the fun.​

Textedit

Wikidpad.

Write on spiral notebook paper, then scan it.

Google Keep

Emacs.

OneNote

nvpy

Don’t take notes. If you can’t remember it, it’s not worth knowing. If there is something you want to remember but you can’t, simplify it down to the basics until you can explain it back to yourself in such concepts that you would never forget.