Yeah, it sure takes a considerable amount of time for what a little we see here. But would you consider small apps like LyricsNote? 🤔 I did try these apps and yeah they have bunch of features but I think they somehow disorient me for their very same bunch of features.😐
Just found your videos and I'm really impressed. Motivational, down to the facts, yet fun to watch and a lot of knowledge… as english is my second language I only wish, you wouldn't talk that fast. Well, will have to get better in listening comprehension, I guess. ;)
I looked at Notion as it combines notes & project management organization which for me is a must to have it all in 1 place but I dislike the lack of sorting everything by colour like Trello does. It probably sounds shallow lol but as a very visual person, I deal better with information colour coded rather than a massive white sheet of paper. Also there are so many things you can do with it but not enough training videos to learn them so I kind of gave up on it.
No Notion here until they give users local storage. I cannot ditch my Evernote which I've been using since 2008, but Notion being so configurable, it's a great app for everything else. The local storage issue has been addressed and I've pointed it out to the company itself. They're looking at it..
@Jade Moineau You cannot have different colors in the same line. If you want to emphasize a single word with a color in a line, you can't because it colors all the block.
@Jade Moineau, sorry for the silence and thank you for your help. All the videos or blogs I have seen about Notion from bloggers or Notion themselves show all pages to be white so I don't know what you mean by dark mode. All the colours I have seen were pastels which is not colours in my eyes. I need to highlight items like a RAID log, bright green, bright red, bright orange otherwise I don't remember so much to do these things. Trello lets you bright colour your boards/blocks so on the landing page of all your project, you can distinguish personal versus business say.. Yes you can have banner, add videos but if there is no colour there is no incentive for me to use it. Why don't get give the choice of a colour palette, that is what I wonder. It maybe a small thing to others but it's a big deal to me. I think it would make a wonderful can do everything in one place tool if there were more design options.
From the apps listed, I cannot write without OneNote because of one thing- I can place my cursor and start typing wherever. I need that feature and I'm not finding it in any other entirely free app. I love repositioning my text's paragraphs, certain sentences, lists, and having images in there too for reference or inspo, or infographics. I'm not big on using tags and labels because I have no use for them 9/10 times but just that whiteboard experience is something I cannot do without. it fits my need for visualization and having everything in the exact place I want it to be. I do editorial writing and fiction.
yea i understand , but i coudnt sync the files . and somehow i lost all my notes of one month . i remember ccreating the note in cloud but boy i am so helpless rn. haha i might hv gone creazy rn
@@coviidd1911 yea idk it used to. but somehow it just vanished. but its fine now. i got the notes ready again , i asked my friend. now its syncing properly
So I just checked out Notion, and all I can say is 'Where has this been all my life'. The flexibility of data collection is incredible. Thanks so much for this video, might actually be life changing. I could never bite the bullet on going to a paid plan with evernote, but notion seems like a no brainer!
I know! Sadly there aren't a lot of good note taking apps for it. Although it's surprising that I have never heard about Typora before, because I researched a lot to replace Evernote to take notes for college, and every single option was either an extremely barebones note taking app (like Simplenote) or a less than ideal non official client of other apps.
So, Linux doesn't have good note apps? I was thinking of dual booting Linux 🤔 I use ColorNote for android which also has PC version and... LyricsNote cause it lets me collect guitar chords over lyrics.✌️
I've been using the atom texteditor for notes for a couple of years now. Works with Linux and Windows don't know about Mac. No android app. No integrated sync I write my notes in JSON but not really I write in code
I use One Note primarily. Literally written textbooks of info with this app. Its hyperlink function allows me to link to different pages notebooks away. i just love that! I've even used it to embed videos, relevant files, and several other things. It just feels more polished to me.
Great video! But I have some things to say as a person who dropped Evernote twice, came to love OneNote and tried out Notion The heirarchy system in ON is awesome imo and with hyperlinks u can mimic everything that Notion does except with even more freedom yet more simplicity. You can even link to windows folders/directories o.O I make my own TOC pages for my Notes as well as PC folders + interactive Tabels with this function (although not so often) There's also ON tagging kit which is a FREE add on that allows u to use tags for pages like u'd expect them to be while still having ON original tags which I personally love so much (the question tag is a life saver) And there's onetastic calendar that let u view page titles on a calendar based on their creation date (for ppl who care about recency sorting) plus the onetastic add-on adds tons of functionalities for ppl willing to spend a one time fee & also allow u to write ur own add-ons if u know how (the fremium was enough for me) One more thing I love is the insert space function. This has improved my quality of life because of how much agony it saves me in med school. I'm very particular about the order of paragraphs in my notes & it makes adding info more convenient It does lack code boxes (irrelevant to me) but I think there's an Add-on that takes care of that (though not sure) The best thing about ON is that it can be as powerful or as simple as u want it to be. It's the middle ground between the somewhat limited EN & the overwhelming (& at least for me time-wasting) Notion. P.S: sorry this was long but I suffered so much with finding a note-taking app so I hope this will help others who borderline like ON to make a more informed decision
Joundi Good comment. I am liking your explanation. Where do you get ON add-ons? ON has built in limit of like 20,000 notes. How do you get around that?
One more feature I like that I forgot to mention is setting images as background which is very helpful as spreads for bullet journals, or habit trackers >> u can simply fill over them & with this u can have endless design possibilities.
This is the only comment so far that mentions Onetastic! I've been looking for this. Thanks for the comment... Let's make the original comment (to which I replied) the most thumbs up-ed comment so that more people would see it!
@@rubenssiomusic I'm all about Onetastic! I use it every day, mostly for things like the table of contents macros (of all scopes, from inline page ToC right the way up to full notebook ToCs), and also for custom styles. I would love proper code formatting because I do a lot with Powershell, but I've just found that OneNote Gem has a function for this that I'm going to try out (currently I either use a custom style to format my pasted code with the right font/size, or if it's something more complex I'll do the ridiculous step of pasting from PS ISE to Outlook, then pasting again from Outlook to OneNote to retain all formatting). OneNote 2016 is SO GOOD, but the cutdown "universal" app version makes me very sad.
1:50 What are you talking about? OneNote is the granddaddy of Note Taking apps not Evernote. It was released in 2003. Evernote was first released in 2008. Infact OneNote mostly defines what a note taking app is. On the Wikipedia page for typical note-taking app features. OneNote is the only app that has all of them. When OneNote gets a new feature, the table gets larger. Your need to sort by date is weird to me. It means your work flow is not based on task (notebook) but by pages. I think that loose method cumbersome. Also sorting by date is mostly a part of search. Nested notebooks is also weird. You mean to minic a folder structure, which would hamper the whole point of a notebook metaphor. OneNote has section s and section groups which is way better and helps with creating locked section and pages.
Liking the first paragraph here from a fellow OneNote user, but I can’t relate so much to the second... I constantly need to see pages sorted by recently edited/created, though you’re right, I mostly do that with search. My pages within a section start out sorted by date (newest at the bottom), but I’ll often drag & drop them and nest several levels of subpages into a specific order. I create further levels of a hierarchy by using section groups within a notebook, each containing their own set of sections and pages and nested subpages, and I’ll also nest section groups within other section groups! Sections all the way down. The desktop OneNote 2016 on Windows is way better than the web/iOS/Mac versions, and all the OneTastic macros I can use in Windows give it so much more power. My favourite set of macros are the ones for “table of contents” - with one click you can create an outline using different levels of heading structure within your page, you can create an index page for each section with all of its nested subpages indented nicely (and all the pages hyperlinked), you can create a full notebook index with all your section groups and sections, either scoped to include all the pages or just the top level. I’ve also started using one to add breadcrumbs to each page so you can see where it sits in the overall hierarchy, with quick shortcut links to jump around to the other sections easily. I so wish the Mac app at least had this functionality, because it works so well for me and goes most of the way towards providing what Thomas is looking for as well!
Thank you for putting this information together. I find it interesting that you titled this as a Note-Taking list while your requirements are well outside of taking notes. It seems like you are looking more for a work flow, project management, formatting kind of thing. When I think of taking notes, I am in a meeting or doing research and need a way to get my thoughts down quickly. Kind of what you would have traditionally done with pen and paper. Once I have my notes, then I transfer them into something that better fits the needs for that information. This is similar to the process of re-writing your notes that sinks them into your brain as well as better organizes them for future review. If I am at my desk, I use OneNote for multiple things such as phone meeting notes, daily to-do list, processes, etc. I am able to link to any of my notes and outside sources. Very free form and I really like the infinite page scroll. When I am not at my desk, I either use traditional pens and paper or I use my iPad and Notes Plus.
I can fully recommend iA Writer as an alternative. It’s super easy to use with a library view and tags, supports markdown and is way cheaper than say Ulysses. I use it both personally and in my profession as a content editor.
I love these text-heavy videos because there are so many freeze-frame bonuses. I need you to drop a fire single from your Crash Bandicoot Sound Effect band, BTW.
You totally forgot about Trello! Trello is the new EverNote. It is extremely easy, simple and intuitive to use, yet it has tremendous depth. The flexibility and possibilities are endless! You can use it to organize your work, GTD, thoughts, ideas, work processes, etc. It syncs seamlessly across all platforms, has an excellent mobile app and collaboration is is quick, simple and easy. ... and it is free!
I started paying to get all the features from Evernote from 2015, and I still think this is the best App I have purchased ever. I just find their web clipper super useful, so does the context note organizing and searching. I will never get lost on a single piece of new things I run into while browsing through web pages. Plus, it has better compatibility than other Apps. But it is great to learn there are other tools out there that can do a better job on notebook organizing. Thanks for sharing!
Well prepared and explained video. Good job. IMO, one if the first things to look at is the ability to get notes in (import) and out (export). Don't spend years in an ecosystem that you can't get out of. Businesses do go out of business
If you’re like me and happen to convert your notes into tasks you could take a look at Dynalist: it's a Taskpaper like with hierarchy (you can nest folders into folders).
you're a life saver, my man. i spent the entire evening looking for one that fits my needs and was about to give up because all of the apps(about 17-18 of them) i came through had some issue or the other. Dynalist offers everything that i need...mac+android, dynamically typed markdown, good file structuring, light and good performance PLUS it's free ! thank you 🙌
for me, im happy using apple note app .. its really simple and straight .. while other note app very complicated and time consuming in order to arrange your note etc . while using apple note has some bad sides like some times it shows you have exceeded your memory limit for note . and also you cant connect both notes together . if they add the missed features while stay simple, absulotely will be best note app in my opinion . thanks for this helpful video
Whatching you from iran thomas. love you and thanks for everything that you learned me. I'm a student and have a really important exam in May. You have no Idea how much your videos help me to study better. Again thank you so much :)
I constantly use one note, and when you mentioned that you can´t sort pages my modified/created/alphabetically i went on to check that. Now they do. I wouldn´t be surprised if they added that feature because of you!
Hey Thomas - about the tag hierarchy issue, I ran into a similar problem using Outlook for macOS where it alphabetized all of my folders and subfolders. One way I was able to get around it was by "forcing" my own listing preference by sticking 01_, 02_, etc in front of each item. Just a thought - you're definitely the expert here!
I have a library of these notebooks. Great choice I use a blackwing pencil as its dark, and a nice handling pencil. Moleskine has become very disappointing..
@@michaelf.thomas213 Yes. I started with moleskine because of the name recognition, and I can't understand the appeal on any level. They don't open properly. The paper quality is low (I can only write on one side). And if you get the dotted version, the dots are too bold. Though even the Leuchtturm paper is a touch thin. I wish they had the exact same notebook with slightly heavier pages to decrease ghosting.
I'm basically the same, use Evernote - things frustrate me about it e.g. lack of nested notebooks but I cant find anything better. I highly recommend installing IFTTT - you can take screenshots and itll automatically upload them to Evernote to make notes from later. Much of the time I'm lazy and cant be bothered to write the note right now, so this methods super helpful to remind me to look at stuff later on.
That's a great tip! On a related note, I've been testing Clickup for project/task management, and one of my favorite features is their Chrome extension that lets you take screenshots and auto-attach them to tasks.
Thank you for your video, Thomas! You are the second person I’m watching on normal speed 😂 what do you think about the Obsidian? do you know the history of the evernote creation?
I am a OneNote user for over 5 years and I must say that this is not a good summary of what OneNote can do. List and indentation can all be done with just having a '-' or '*' in front then tap the spacebar. Tab indents the list item, shift+tab, do the opposite. There are many great features. By the way, the sorting issue happens only on the MAC OS version of OneNote. Great video though! Thanks for making it!
Notability is the best for lectures - allows you to record the lecture, even syncing the sound to your handwriting sentence. You import lecture slides as a PDF and write all over them. Oh and Thomas, it does that nesting thing you like so much. Gotta check it out for students.
That's why I use OneNote. You can do both. I type when I use my laptop and write on my Note 9 and this gets transcribed into text and syncs to same place.
In OneNote you can create section groups and also section groups within section groups. You can also create subpages and also subpages within subpages, basically creating an unlimited heirarchy.
Interesting video. Just found your channel and subscribed. I appreciate the effort to research and discuss all of these Apps. Most of them I had never heard of. I came to a different conclusion, but I am a Windows and Android user. Plus my needs and workflow are really different (and basic) from what you have going on. I'll be binge watching your channel to see what else you have going on, thanks for the great presentation!
This is possibly a niche use-case but, besides the database functionality, the thing that made me love Notion is the fact that you can create LaTeX blocks with relative ease. I constantly need to add logic snippets to my notes and being able to do so using just the keyboard without having to compile anything or fiddle with extensions is just really nice.
Actually, according to Frank's own criteria, OneNote IS the best, but he skipped it saying it doesn't suit him. Well, you may not like it for your own undefined reasons, but objectively, it is the best.
Please do a Notion video! I have tried to get into that app since it was released, but always bail after being overwhelmed, confused, or otherwise frustrated. I'd love to see use cases, examples, etc.Thanks!
1. Notability if you are Mac owner.. It's better than Good Notes for its recording feature and organizability. Can type or write. Has computer and iPad and iPhone apps. More optimized than One Note. 2. One Note if you are a Windows AND Mac user. It's more optimized for windows. Can type or write, AND record voice. 3. Evernote - accessibility, but dated and heavyweight app. 4. Notion - free for students but needs user to be well educated on its usage.
Loved Essentialism. And thanks for the awesome app rundown. I love OneNote's drawing capabilities, but I hate it for general note taking. Love Keep for quick notes, but not for longer writing. Will give a few of these a try.
BOOM! Thanks heaps for a great info vid... I've been an Evernote user for YEARS so loved this and would also love to see a Notion vid as I've never heard of that before... Keep the awesome vids coming 😀💙🙌
The free version of Ticktick is way better then Microsoft OneNote. You can't even make folders in OneNote. The 9 list limitation in the free version of Ticktick doesn't really matter because you can make many sub-lists that behave the same as lists. Ticktick is amazing.
Very good overview of note taking apps. I recently switched to One Note when Evernote raised it’s prices, but I agree with you that the lack of ability to sort is annoying. I was an Evernote user since around 2008 so I had a lot of content. I imported the data into OneNote, but it was nothing less than painful and took multiple tries to get all of my data over. It also just threw my notes in whatever order it felt like, so my nicely organized chronology such as my medical file had to be hand sorted, which was a pain in the butt. I also don’t like that new folders I create on one device don’t automatically show up when I try to view them on another device. I have to add the notebook on the other devices. I could complain more, but I’ll stop here. :). I’m going to give it some more time, but I may end up going back to Evernote. I see they have a mid-range pricing tier that looks new or I just wasn’t aware of it previously. Thanks again for the great video!
Nimbus Note (with Clipper and Recorder) is the best in my opinion because it has most of the features you mentioned. Markdown, databases, cross platform, hierarchy folders and tags, scanning documents, mobile clipper, and even a screen recorder and it cost about a third of what Evernote costs.
I'm amazed by Typora! Thanks! It's minimal, incredibly beautiful but also ridiculously powerful. That's a rare combination! Above all, it's also cross-platform, including Linux which I use. Lack of sync can be easily fixed with saving files in a dedicated folder on a cloud. Lack of phone app can be remedied by using some md reader app - let's face it, a phone is a consumption, not a productivity device so taking notes on a phone is less likely. What I might miss is lack of an extension for easy clipping off sites (like Evernote does), however copy/paste site to a Typora still works awesome, it's just more work. Also, there is no sharing with a link, I can only share a link to a md file on my cloud, which is an alternative, but not as easy one as sharing from an app panel.
I use Typora + GitLab (you could also use GitHub, as typora uses GitHub flavored Markdown language) for syncing between systems. If you are maintaining a GiLab repo wiki, just pull the wiki to your system and use Typora for editing. And push when done. This is freakin awesome!!!
So I'm not a heavy git user - can you set it up to push every time you switch documents and trigger the auto-save, or do you need to still set up a local file system for that, and then manually push after you're done?
@@Thomasfrank Git has no context to know when you switch files, so I can't think of a way to auto push after switching. But you could just make a Script that does a commit and push every 30mins or so.
@@Thomasfrank Unfortunately that isn't possible out of the box. But pushing to a remote may not be something that you want to automate. For instance, a freakingly awesome use case is that if a many people are working on the document, it is treated as a merge conflict and you resolve it during the push, just like any other code. So even if you automate using a custom script, in the above case you may need to fix the conflicts manually. But you see how effective and time saving it can be, when multiple systems are editing simultaneously. Moreover, if it can be viewed online if you log into GitLab account. As I am an engineer, I just love the speed at which I can type in equations (using mouse to write equations in word take forever when compared to this), and the fact that I can use the md file as a wiki for my projects easily. Only catch probably is that you have to get used to the asset management, like images that you insert in the document. But I like it this way, coz if I make a change in the asset it gets automatically updated in other documents where it is referred. Oh, and one more thing since typora and git are cross-platform, we sync from systems having any OS... I really can't oversell it enough 😊. I had pitched it to my colleagues and my office has adopted this pipeline for documentation now.
This was an amazing video. It would be nice to get a video on a workflow or how to use some of these features you mentioned in a professional workflow. Would definitely be interested in a notion video.
Wow! Great analysis, Thomas! Thanks for sharing it. Despite being a macOS/iOS only type of person, I already tried a bunch of those apps you mentioned. And, I'm glad to see that some of them improved after all these years. Said that I must mention Notion kind of get me thinking about migrating from the Evernote environment. Specifically because of I always trying to build on them a second brain (using Tiago Forte’s method), and it seems to me that the Notion dynamic approach would give me resources when mixing and using data from the other notes. Do you know the BASB method? Do you think Notion would be a great fit for it? Better than Evernote?
I don't know if they added it after you've made this video but now the tag hierarchy is available on Evernote Android. Still no way to make deep hierarchies for notebooks nor markdown... 😅 The tag hierarchy is really cool. Automated with Filterize app, you can accomplish great things.
THANK YOU for this video! It's a big help, as I am new to most all these technologies..... I have a LOT of handwritten notes that I need to put into a well laid out, cleanly structured & easily transferred (to PC from ios iPad etc) - preferably via a Dictaphone method, (for speed) and easy post text page lay-out editing.....Can you recommend what my best (preferably simple to use) options are to achieve this? Cheers! :)
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If you enjoyed this one, check out my picks for the 8 best habit-tracking apps as well: ruclips.net/video/491oCCVMa04/видео.html
Yeah, it sure takes a considerable amount of time for what a little we see here.
But would you consider small apps like LyricsNote? 🤔
I did try these apps and yeah they have bunch of features but I think they somehow disorient me for their very same bunch of features.😐
Just found your videos and I'm really impressed. Motivational, down to the facts, yet fun to watch and a lot of knowledge… as english is my second language I only wish, you wouldn't talk that fast. Well, will have to get better in listening comprehension, I guess. ;)
is evernotr available offline ? please let me know...and if posssible please make a video about your evernote experience & technices .Thanks
hi
@Thomas Frank, You can use any git server for typora to keep your notes in sync + you get versioning
take a shot every time he mentions hierarchy
Thanks. Now I'm on the liver transplant list.
Jreg wth r u doing here?
It is important, it's my main issue with Evernote and the only reason I am looking for a replacement.
@@DiogoSantos-ln1nz cherrytree is for you
@@gagarine42 Shortly after my comment I went with Notion and I am really happy with it.
idk why but i felt soo comfortable when he said * Twenty nineteen *
Because we watch this video in 2020😪😭
Anyone from 2020 can relate 😭😭
😭
boohooo 2020 bad
Because 2020 isnt too comfortable 🤣
A Notion video yay! Pleasssee!
Francesco.
Yes, I test it today and it's muuuuuuch better than trello, than docs and than evernote. 10/10
I looked at Notion as it combines notes & project management organization which for me is a must to have it all in 1 place but I dislike the lack of sorting everything by colour like Trello does. It probably sounds shallow lol but as a very visual person, I deal better with information colour coded rather than a massive white sheet of paper. Also there are so many things you can do with it but not enough training videos to learn them so I kind of gave up on it.
No Notion here until they give users local storage. I cannot ditch my Evernote which I've been using since 2008, but Notion being so configurable, it's a great app for everything else. The local storage issue has been addressed and I've pointed it out to the company itself. They're looking at it..
@Jade Moineau You cannot have different colors in the same line. If you want to emphasize a single word with a color in a line, you can't because it colors all the block.
@Jade Moineau, sorry for the silence and thank you for your help. All the videos or blogs I have seen about Notion from bloggers or Notion themselves show all pages to be white so I don't know what you mean by dark mode. All the colours I have seen were pastels which is not colours in my eyes. I need to highlight items like a RAID log, bright green, bright red, bright orange otherwise I don't remember so much to do these things. Trello lets you bright colour your boards/blocks so on the landing page of all your project, you can distinguish personal versus business say.. Yes you can have banner, add videos but if there is no colour there is no incentive for me to use it. Why don't get give the choice of a colour palette, that is what I wonder. It maybe a small thing to others but it's a big deal to me. I think it would make a wonderful can do everything in one place tool if there were more design options.
From the apps listed, I cannot write without OneNote because of one thing- I can place my cursor and start typing wherever. I need that feature and I'm not finding it in any other entirely free app. I love repositioning my text's paragraphs, certain sentences, lists, and having images in there too for reference or inspo, or infographics. I'm not big on using tags and labels because I have no use for them 9/10 times but just that whiteboard experience is something I cannot do without. it fits my need for visualization and having everything in the exact place I want it to be. I do editorial writing and fiction.
Are you still using onenote?
Is it possible to see/share and save your notes elsewhere with OneNote?
yeah, a whiteboard like experience provided by onenote is very handy as my notes consist of mostly images and their annotations.
In OneNote:
Though you have to organize it yourself, you can make pages into subpages, allowing for a greater hierarchy
yea i understand , but i coudnt sync the files . and somehow i lost all my notes of one month . i remember ccreating the note in cloud but boy i am so helpless rn. haha i might hv gone creazy rn
@@testoutparadise5547 it syncs everytime i write wym?
@@coviidd1911 yea idk it used to. but somehow it just vanished. but its fine now. i got the notes ready again , i asked my friend. now its syncing properly
So I just checked out Notion, and all I can say is 'Where has this been all my life'. The flexibility of data collection is incredible. Thanks so much for this video, might actually be life changing. I could never bite the bullet on going to a paid plan with evernote, but notion seems like a no brainer!
I tried notion but maybe I dont know how to use properly ......I can't really find out how is it productive
12:21 "and even linux..."
*cries of happiness"
I know! Sadly there aren't a lot of good note taking apps for it. Although it's surprising that I have never heard about Typora before, because I researched a lot to replace Evernote to take notes for college, and every single option was either an extremely barebones note taking app (like Simplenote) or a less than ideal non official client of other apps.
@@oristf5941 Fortunately, we have the best one. Emacs and org-mode. I know the learning curve is steep, but boy is it worth it.
So, Linux doesn't have good note apps? I was thinking of dual booting Linux 🤔
I use ColorNote for android which also has PC version and...
LyricsNote cause it lets me collect guitar chords over lyrics.✌️
I've been using the atom texteditor for notes for a couple of years now.
Works with Linux and Windows don't know about Mac.
No android app.
No integrated sync
I write my notes in JSON but not really
I write in code
In Linux you can just use whatever texteditor you want
One that comes to mind is
Kate/KWrite
They are FOSS and at least Kate has a Windows version
I use One Note primarily. Literally written textbooks of info with this app.
Its hyperlink function allows me to link to different pages notebooks away. i just love that! I've even used it to embed videos, relevant files, and several other things. It just feels more polished to me.
I wish they had page breaks on one note, I never know when my works getting cut off
The video that we need.
Early Bird Gets The Llama.
This is my new motto
Who gets alpacas?
Llama*
The Dalai Lama? jk *Llama
so sad i'm and late night opossum u.u
Great video! But I have some things to say as a person who dropped Evernote twice, came to love OneNote and tried out Notion
The heirarchy system in ON is awesome imo and with hyperlinks u can mimic everything that Notion does except with even more freedom yet more simplicity. You can even link to windows folders/directories o.O I make my own TOC pages for my Notes as well as PC folders + interactive Tabels with this function (although not so often)
There's also ON tagging kit which is a FREE add on that allows u to use tags for pages like u'd expect them to be while still having ON original tags which I personally love so much (the question tag is a life saver)
And there's onetastic calendar that let u view page titles on a calendar based on their creation date (for ppl who care about recency sorting) plus the onetastic add-on adds tons of functionalities for ppl willing to spend a one time fee & also allow u to write ur own add-ons if u know how (the fremium was enough for me)
One more thing I love is the insert space function. This has improved my quality of life because of how much agony it saves me in med school. I'm very particular about the order of paragraphs in my notes & it makes adding info more convenient
It does lack code boxes (irrelevant to me) but I think there's an Add-on that takes care of that (though not sure)
The best thing about ON is that it can be as powerful or as simple as u want it to be. It's the middle ground between the somewhat limited EN & the overwhelming (& at least for me time-wasting) Notion.
P.S: sorry this was long but I suffered so much with finding a note-taking app so I hope this will help others who borderline like ON to make a more informed decision
Joundi
Good comment. I am liking your explanation. Where do you get ON add-ons? ON has built in limit of like 20,000 notes. How do you get around that?
One more feature I like that I forgot to mention is setting images as background which is very helpful as spreads for bullet journals, or habit trackers >> u can simply fill over them & with this u can have endless design possibilities.
This is the only comment so far that mentions Onetastic! I've been looking for this. Thanks for the comment... Let's make the original comment (to which I replied) the most thumbs up-ed comment so that more people would see it!
@@rubenssiomusic I'm all about Onetastic! I use it every day, mostly for things like the table of contents macros (of all scopes, from inline page ToC right the way up to full notebook ToCs), and also for custom styles.
I would love proper code formatting because I do a lot with Powershell, but I've just found that OneNote Gem has a function for this that I'm going to try out (currently I either use a custom style to format my pasted code with the right font/size, or if it's something more complex I'll do the ridiculous step of pasting from PS ISE to Outlook, then pasting again from Outlook to OneNote to retain all formatting).
OneNote 2016 is SO GOOD, but the cutdown "universal" app version makes me very sad.
I can’t not bring this up, his eyes are beautiful
this video confused me even more,
just go with notion
@@madarsbiss8008 it takes time to learn how to use it
I recommend OneNote. I also like Notability and Goodnotes on IOS
maybe take notes while watching the vid
I am confushiossth
Check out our companion article for more details on each app AND a bunch of honorable mentions: collegeinfogeek.com/best-note-taking-apps/
These big names app somehow disappoint me for few reasons. And somehow small apps like LyricsNote with 0 downloads show some will.
1:50 What are you talking about? OneNote is the granddaddy of Note Taking apps not Evernote. It was released in 2003. Evernote was first released in 2008. Infact OneNote mostly defines what a note taking app is. On the Wikipedia page for typical note-taking app features. OneNote is the only app that has all of them. When OneNote gets a new feature, the table gets larger.
Your need to sort by date is weird to me. It means your work flow is not based on task (notebook) but by pages. I think that loose method cumbersome. Also sorting by date is mostly a part of search. Nested notebooks is also weird. You mean to minic a folder structure, which would hamper the whole point of a notebook metaphor. OneNote has section s and section groups which is way better and helps with creating locked section and pages.
Liking the first paragraph here from a fellow OneNote user, but I can’t relate so much to the second...
I constantly need to see pages sorted by recently edited/created, though you’re right, I mostly do that with search. My pages within a section start out sorted by date (newest at the bottom), but I’ll often drag & drop them and nest several levels of subpages into a specific order. I create further levels of a hierarchy by using section groups within a notebook, each containing their own set of sections and pages and nested subpages, and I’ll also nest section groups within other section groups! Sections all the way down.
The desktop OneNote 2016 on Windows is way better than the web/iOS/Mac versions, and all the OneTastic macros I can use in Windows give it so much more power. My favourite set of macros are the ones for “table of contents” - with one click you can create an outline using different levels of heading structure within your page, you can create an index page for each section with all of its nested subpages indented nicely (and all the pages hyperlinked), you can create a full notebook index with all your section groups and sections, either scoped to include all the pages or just the top level. I’ve also started using one to add breadcrumbs to each page so you can see where it sits in the overall hierarchy, with quick shortcut links to jump around to the other sections easily. I so wish the Mac app at least had this functionality, because it works so well for me and goes most of the way towards providing what Thomas is looking for as well!
Thank you for putting this information together. I find it interesting that you titled this as a Note-Taking list while your requirements are well outside of taking notes. It seems like you are looking more for a work flow, project management, formatting kind of thing. When I think of taking notes, I am in a meeting or doing research and need a way to get my thoughts down quickly. Kind of what you would have traditionally done with pen and paper. Once I have my notes, then I transfer them into something that better fits the needs for that information. This is similar to the process of re-writing your notes that sinks them into your brain as well as better organizes them for future review. If I am at my desk, I use OneNote for multiple things such as phone meeting notes, daily to-do list, processes, etc. I am able to link to any of my notes and outside sources. Very free form and I really like the infinite page scroll. When I am not at my desk, I either use traditional pens and paper or I use my iPad and Notes Plus.
I can fully recommend iA Writer as an alternative. It’s super easy to use with a library view and tags, supports markdown and is way cheaper than say Ulysses. I use it both personally and in my profession as a content editor.
a notion video please!! 🙏🙏
This 1000 Times This!
I love every single video of yours :) they are always so helpful and informative.
I love these text-heavy videos because there are so many freeze-frame bonuses.
I need you to drop a fire single from your Crash Bandicoot Sound Effect band, BTW.
You totally forgot about Trello! Trello is the new EverNote. It is extremely easy, simple and intuitive to use, yet it has tremendous depth. The flexibility and possibilities are endless! You can use it to organize your work, GTD, thoughts, ideas, work processes, etc. It syncs seamlessly across all platforms, has an excellent mobile app and collaboration is is quick, simple and easy.
... and it is free!
I started paying to get all the features from Evernote from 2015, and I still think this is the best App I have purchased ever. I just find their web clipper super useful, so does the context note organizing and searching. I will never get lost on a single piece of new things I run into while browsing through web pages. Plus, it has better compatibility than other Apps. But it is great to learn there are other tools out there that can do a better job on notebook organizing. Thanks for sharing!
Well prepared and explained video.
Good job.
IMO, one if the first things to look at is the ability to get notes in (import) and out (export).
Don't spend years in an ecosystem that you can't get out of. Businesses do go out of business
what's the best option for that ?
If you’re like me and happen to convert your notes into tasks you could take a look at Dynalist: it's a Taskpaper like with hierarchy (you can nest folders into folders).
you're a life saver, my man. i spent the entire evening looking for one that fits my needs and was about to give up because all of the apps(about 17-18 of them) i came through had some issue or the other. Dynalist offers everything that i need...mac+android, dynamically typed markdown, good file structuring, light and good performance PLUS it's free ! thank you 🙌
I love taking notes with my SPen in Samsung Notes (SNotes). I've been doing it since my Note 3. I only use it for school though!
for me, im happy using apple note app .. its really simple and straight .. while other note app very complicated and time consuming in order to arrange your note etc . while using apple note has some bad sides like some times it shows you have exceeded your memory limit for note . and also you cant connect both notes together . if they add the missed features while stay simple, absulotely will be best note app in my opinion .
thanks for this helpful video
I feel like a video on current systems/apps for to-do lists would also be welcome for many people, just an idea :) loved this video already
Dynalist! Where’s Dynalist?
It’s arbitrarily deep nesting, tagging, sharing, markdown, and cross-platform.
Fantastic comparison and commentary - well done!
Whatching you from iran thomas. love you and thanks for everything that you learned me. I'm a student and have a really important exam in May. You have no Idea how much your videos help me to study better. Again thank you so much :)
Konkoor?
@@mahdikarimi6467 Are
Note taking / Journalling apps never get old. Thanks for the info, Thomas!
Evernote user of 5 years now 🔥
Really Nice Job Thomas - your time invested is deeply appreciated...
Need a video on Notion Please
a tutorial on how to basics is a must
Definitely interested in a Notion video!
The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.
Another great video as always Thomas considering I'm going into University next year! You've inspired me to start my own channel on studying!
I constantly use one note, and when you mentioned that you can´t sort pages my modified/created/alphabetically i went on to check that. Now they do. I wouldn´t be surprised if they added that feature because of you!
depends on the version i think
Hey Thomas - about the tag hierarchy issue, I ran into a similar problem using Outlook for macOS where it alphabetized all of my folders and subfolders. One way I was able to get around it was by "forcing" my own listing preference by sticking 01_, 02_, etc in front of each item. Just a thought - you're definitely the expert here!
My favorite note-taking app is a Leuchtturm1917 with a black Precise V5 extra fine tip pen.
I have a library of these notebooks. Great choice I use a blackwing pencil as its dark, and a nice handling pencil. Moleskine has become very disappointing..
@@michaelf.thomas213 Yes. I started with moleskine because of the name recognition, and I can't understand the appeal on any level. They don't open properly. The paper quality is low (I can only write on one side). And if you get the dotted version, the dots are too bold. Though even the Leuchtturm paper is a touch thin. I wish they had the exact same notebook with slightly heavier pages to decrease ghosting.
Your cutaway scenes never disappoint 😂
Pew News background music :)
0:36 For crying out loud, sit up straight! You'll ruin your eyes this way! :O
12:40 Again, for crying out loud, sit up straight!
Notion is by far the most complex of the mentioned services. I have had difficulty understanding how to even start using it.
I agree with other comments, I would love to see a video on Notion, mostly because I don't know anything about it. Also, great video as always!
Note taking apps are great for reducing the stress of having to remember everything. 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Stellar Video! You are one of our Mentors for sure!
I take longer to watch the video because I pause to read your ridiculously funny notes
Same :D
The amount of work that Thomas puts in his videos is insane!
How are you finding this amazing apps?
I definitely needed this video before starting college this fall, thanks Thomas! ☺
I'm basically the same, use Evernote - things frustrate me about it e.g. lack of nested notebooks but I cant find anything better.
I highly recommend installing IFTTT - you can take screenshots and itll automatically upload them to Evernote to make notes from later. Much of the time I'm lazy and cant be bothered to write the note right now, so this methods super helpful to remind me to look at stuff later on.
That's a great tip! On a related note, I've been testing Clickup for project/task management, and one of my favorite features is their Chrome extension that lets you take screenshots and auto-attach them to tasks.
Could you say more about that? I would love to hear that because I do a lot of comparative research on the internet
Thank you for your video, Thomas! You are the second person I’m watching on normal speed 😂 what do you think about the Obsidian? do you know the history of the evernote creation?
I get the biggest kick out of reading the ridiculous text in your example notes. XD
*is compelled to eat all of the bread*
I am a OneNote user for over 5 years and I must say that this is not a good summary of what OneNote can do. List and indentation can all be done with just having a '-' or '*' in front then tap the spacebar. Tab indents the list item, shift+tab, do the opposite. There are many great features. By the way, the sorting issue happens only on the MAC OS version of OneNote. Great video though! Thanks for making it!
Noted 👍✨thanks
Would you consider updating this? Onenote can now organize by alphabet, creation date, last modified, etc.
*You didn't mention the app Zoho Notebook.* It's really a very good note taking app. I use it & I am quite satisfied....
its in the description as an honorable mention
@@tregi oh yeah...I see it.
But ZOHO is sometimes very clunky.
Notability is the best for lectures - allows you to record the lecture, even syncing the sound to your handwriting sentence. You import lecture slides as a PDF and write all over them. Oh and Thomas, it does that nesting thing you like so much. Gotta check it out for students.
I can write faster than I can type... I can type 167 wpm but I can write 182 wpm... thanks asian moms
Tutorials, please.
What? Lmao
That's why I use OneNote. You can do both. I type when I use my laptop and write on my Note 9 and this gets transcribed into text and syncs to same place.
how do you write so fast???
Maybe you can write that fast, but after that you can't read it anymore :p
In OneNote you can create section groups and also section groups within section groups. You can also create subpages and also subpages within subpages, basically creating an unlimited heirarchy.
Would love to see a video on Notion, maybe on how the features you mentioned could be useful for students too?
Wanted to see the details about NOTION!!!! Thanks Thomas!
CAN I GET A NOTION VIDEO PLEASE!!
Interesting video. Just found your channel and subscribed. I appreciate the effort to research and discuss all of these Apps. Most of them I had never heard of. I came to a different conclusion, but I am a Windows and Android user. Plus my needs and workflow are really different (and basic) from what you have going on.
I'll be binge watching your channel to see what else you have going on, thanks for the great presentation!
and I use Zoho Note as mobile "capture" system and then I open Zoho Note from web on PC to take the mobile notes into my managment system
This is possibly a niche use-case but, besides the database functionality, the thing that made me love Notion is the fact that you can create LaTeX blocks with relative ease. I constantly need to add logic snippets to my notes and being able to do so using just the keyboard without having to compile anything or fiddle with extensions is just really nice.
I love how the notes examples are all sarcastic and funny and stuff. Yes. I read them all. Leave me alone...
I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!
Hi
Thanks so much for this! I've been a evernote zealot for years but, it was really helpful to see what else is out there at the moment.
Actually, according to Frank's own criteria, OneNote IS the best, but he skipped it saying it doesn't suit him. Well, you may not like it for your own undefined reasons, but objectively, it is the best.
Excellent information! Thanks!!
yayyy some linux love! just grabbed typora on ubuntu
We want to know more about notion, your vids are sick!! Keep the work up
So... you're gorgeous?! Great video btw =)
Wait, what???... Anna 2013 (frozen)
Please do a Notion video! I have tried to get into that app since it was released, but always bail after being overwhelmed, confused, or otherwise frustrated. I'd love to see use cases, examples, etc.Thanks!
7:27 hey new vid tomorrow!
1. Notability if you are Mac owner.. It's better than Good Notes for its recording feature and organizability. Can type or write. Has computer and iPad and iPhone apps. More optimized than One Note.
2. One Note if you are a Windows AND Mac user. It's more optimized for windows. Can type or write, AND record voice.
3. Evernote - accessibility, but dated and heavyweight app.
4. Notion - free for students but needs user to be well educated on its usage.
Evernote is best.
No.
What do you use?
I use Evernote and it is very productive. Go for it
Loved Essentialism. And thanks for the awesome app rundown. I love OneNote's drawing capabilities, but I hate it for general note taking. Love Keep for quick notes, but not for longer writing. Will give a few of these a try.
I like bear. But I don't have any apple device. And even if I have. I never want apple only stuff. Since I need it on windows laptops on my work too.
I know workflowy may seem pretty basic, but that's what makes it so great - I'd recommend checking it out
not first
Great review Thomas!
Read your Bible, that will help you narrow down your focus in life.
BOOM! Thanks heaps for a great info vid... I've been an Evernote user for YEARS so loved this and would also love to see a Notion vid as I've never heard of that before... Keep the awesome vids coming 😀💙🙌
The free version of Ticktick is way better then Microsoft OneNote. You can't even make folders in OneNote. The 9 list limitation in the free version of Ticktick doesn't really matter because you can make many sub-lists that behave the same as lists. Ticktick is amazing.
Thank you so much for the research!! I didn’t know notion, I’ll use it to organize RUclips videos too. Thanks, Thomas.
Very good overview of note taking apps. I recently switched to One Note when Evernote raised it’s prices, but I agree with you that the lack of ability to sort is annoying. I was an Evernote user since around 2008 so I had a lot of content. I imported the data into OneNote, but it was nothing less than painful and took multiple tries to get all of my data over. It also just threw my notes in whatever order it felt like, so my nicely organized chronology such as my medical file had to be hand sorted, which was a pain in the butt. I also don’t like that new folders I create on one device don’t automatically show up when I try to view them on another device. I have to add the notebook on the other devices. I could complain more, but I’ll stop here. :). I’m going to give it some more time, but I may end up going back to Evernote. I see they have a mid-range pricing tier that looks new or I just wasn’t aware of it previously. Thanks again for the great video!
I don't Normally leave comments,but I just finished reading your book and all I can say right now is thank you 💜💜💜
Nimbus Note (with Clipper and Recorder) is the best in my opinion because it has most of the features you mentioned. Markdown, databases, cross platform, hierarchy folders and tags, scanning documents, mobile clipper, and even a screen recorder and it cost about a third of what Evernote costs.
Thank you for making this video. Very informative.
I'm amazed by Typora! Thanks!
It's minimal, incredibly beautiful but also ridiculously powerful. That's a rare combination! Above all, it's also cross-platform, including Linux which I use. Lack of sync can be easily fixed with saving files in a dedicated folder on a cloud. Lack of phone app can be remedied by using some md reader app - let's face it, a phone is a consumption, not a productivity device so taking notes on a phone is less likely. What I might miss is lack of an extension for easy clipping off sites (like Evernote does), however copy/paste site to a Typora still works awesome, it's just more work. Also, there is no sharing with a link, I can only share a link to a md file on my cloud, which is an alternative, but not as easy one as sharing from an app panel.
Definitely want that extended video on Notion!
I use Typora + GitLab (you could also use GitHub, as typora uses GitHub flavored Markdown language) for syncing between systems. If you are maintaining a GiLab repo wiki, just pull the wiki to your system and use Typora for editing. And push when done. This is freakin awesome!!!
Ooh, I’m definitely looking into doing this! Google Drive technically has version history, but I’m still looking for something more robust.
So I'm not a heavy git user - can you set it up to push every time you switch documents and trigger the auto-save, or do you need to still set up a local file system for that, and then manually push after you're done?
@@Thomasfrank Git has no context to know when you switch files, so I can't think of a way to auto push after switching. But you could just make a Script that does a commit and push every 30mins or so.
@@Thomasfrank Unfortunately that isn't possible out of the box. But pushing to a remote may not be something that you want to automate. For instance, a freakingly awesome use case is that if a many people are working on the document, it is treated as a merge conflict and you resolve it during the push, just like any other code. So even if you automate using a custom script, in the above case you may need to fix the conflicts manually. But you see how effective and time saving it can be, when multiple systems are editing simultaneously. Moreover, if it can be viewed online if you log into GitLab account. As I am an engineer, I just love the speed at which I can type in equations (using mouse to write equations in word take forever when compared to this), and the fact that I can use the md file as a wiki for my projects easily. Only catch probably is that you have to get used to the asset management, like images that you insert in the document. But I like it this way, coz if I make a change in the asset it gets automatically updated in other documents where it is referred. Oh, and one more thing since typora and git are cross-platform, we sync from systems having any OS... I really can't oversell it enough 😊. I had pitched it to my colleagues and my office has adopted this pipeline for documentation now.
This was an amazing video. It would be nice to get a video on a workflow or how to use some of these features you mentioned in a professional workflow. Would definitely be interested in a notion video.
Right now I am using Keep It.
It’s only for macOS and iOS, but it’s best the best note taking app I have tried so far.
Wow! Great analysis, Thomas! Thanks for sharing it. Despite being a macOS/iOS only type of person, I already tried a bunch of those apps you mentioned. And, I'm glad to see that some of them improved after all these years.
Said that I must mention Notion kind of get me thinking about migrating from the Evernote environment. Specifically because of I always trying to build on them a second brain (using Tiago Forte’s method), and it seems to me that the Notion dynamic approach would give me resources when mixing and using data from the other notes.
Do you know the BASB method? Do you think Notion would be a great fit for it? Better than Evernote?
Great work, thank you . Could you cover an "audio" note taking app? Or have you covered one?
I don't know if they added it after you've made this video but now the tag hierarchy is available on Evernote Android.
Still no way to make deep hierarchies for notebooks nor markdown... 😅
The tag hierarchy is really cool.
Automated with Filterize app, you can accomplish great things.
THANK YOU for this video! It's a big help, as I am new to most all these technologies.....
I have a LOT of handwritten notes that I need to put into a well laid out, cleanly structured & easily transferred (to PC from ios iPad etc) - preferably via a Dictaphone method, (for speed) and easy post text page lay-out editing.....Can you recommend what my best (preferably simple to use) options are to achieve this? Cheers! :)