What apps do you use for taking notes? This question reminds me of the classic Macworld article comparing the Palm m100 to a Mead Memo Book, which I quoted two years ago in Discipline Yourself.

Anyway, there are any number of note-taking apps and I’d like to share some considerations that may lead you to choose some of them for your workflows.

Organized to a T

If you’re looking for note-taking with extensive formatting and organization capabilities, you may want to try Evernote. This platform offers a pleasing cross-platform design for its capabilities—embedding images, attaching files, scanning documents, clipping websites, integrating with productivity apps, and more.

On the Mac, I’m told that Evernote Legacy is the way to go as the latest version lacks some key features. This sounds like a repeat of Apple’s iWork debacle when Pages, Numbers, and Keynote transitioned from iWork ’09 to their subsequent versions, which have only recently reached their older siblings’ functionality.

However, if you’re doing research, consider DEVONthink. And if you’re writing a manuscript, try Scrivener.

[Update: As of late 2023, Evernote has dropped support for its Legacy version and users I know are switching to Apple Notes.]

Productive Doodling

If sketching and handwriting are your cup of tea and you want a digital experience, check out Notability. Combine drawings, photos, and handwritten notes; collaborate with written or oral commenting; annotate PDFs; and sync across devices.

Plain Old Notes

If you can’t imagine taking anything but plain old text notes—and you don’t need any illustration, organization, or other fancy features—maybe just use Notes. Apple’s stock app may be good enough for you.

I use it for my running list of future Mac Mondays topics, typing speaking notes for presentations, listing charitable contributions, and drafting email messages I don’t want to risk sending prematurely.

Notes provides basic, single-level folder organization, which I find I barely use. Most of my time in Notes is regularly editing five or fewer entries and quickly forgetting about the other 200 in my database.

It also offers collaboration, simple password security, text styles, checklists, and tables, and integrates with a number of other Apple apps. Notes works on macOS, iOS, and on the web, and syncs over iCloud or any email account. A similar alternative is Simplenote.

What about Mail? I don’t recommend using Mail to take notes. It’s pretty limited with text formatting, attachments are a doozy, and organization is a bit lackluster, too. Stick with sending and receiving email messages.

So, what’s your favorite note-taking app?