Methods to take advantage of Google Maintain

As a part of my job as a tech author, and as a part of my ongoing efforts to get organized sooner or later, I’ve examined an entire pile of note-taking apps by way of the years: the easy, the subtle, the quirky, the AI-powered, and on it goes. It’s a preferred app class, and there’s no scarcity of choices.

Amid all these totally different decisions, one of many apps that I discover myself usually coming again to is Google Maintain. It’s quick and straightforward to get round, it really works on nearly any machine, and when you dig a little bit deeper into its colourful sticky notice interface, there are many helpful options to make the most of.

Whether or not you’re a present Google Maintain person trying to do extra with the app otherwise you’re questioning whether or not Google Maintain has sufficient to tempt you away from no matter note-taking system you’re utilizing in the mean time, these are a few of its most interesting options.

Proper from the beginning, the colourful Publish-it notice look of Google Maintain provides you a neat approach of arranging your notes: yellow for to-dos and blue for buying lists, for instance, or no matter fits you.

There are 11 totally different pastel colours to choose from moreover the default white, and on prime of that, you’ve obtained 9 background photos you should use as a substitute, overlaying themes like celebration, locations, recipes, and music.

These backgrounds might be swapped round at any time by clicking on the paint palette icon on the backside of each notice.

Google Maintain borrows a trick from Gmail with labels: particular person notes can have a number of labels, so one thing might be tagged with “household” and “pressing” or “concepts” and “trip.” It’s a helpful approach of bringing order to your notes, at the same time as their numbers develop into the handfuls or lots of.

Labels may also help you with searches as properly. As you’ll count on from a Google product, Google Maintain has a search perform that’s quick and correct: click on contained in the search field on the prime of the online interface, and you may restrict your question to notes that match a sure label (or class or colour).

On the net, your labels are listed to the left for straightforward entry. To use a label on an open notice, click on the three dots on the backside of the notice, then Add label (or Change labels).

Now you can format your textual content in each the Android and net variations of Maintain. You may make it daring, italicized, underlined, or crossed out; it’s also possible to change the scale to an H1 or H2 heading. Search for the icon with an underlined A on the backside of the notice. (Sadly, this isn’t but out there within the iOS model.)

If you would like to have the ability to verify off gadgets in an inventory, it’s simple: in an open notice, click on the three dots (or the plus icon within the cellular app) on the backside of the notice and choose Present checkboxes. (If you happen to resolve you don’t need them, you may return and choose Disguise checkboxes.)

Google Maintain helps you to collaborate on notes with different individuals, too, with out the function ever getting overly difficult. Click on the collaborator icon on an open notice (the determine with a plus subsequent to it), then enter the e-mail addresses of the contacts you wish to share it with. (On the cellular app, you’ll discover the icon by clicking on the three dots on the backside of the display screen.)

You don’t get to see who makes which edits such as you do in Google Docs, however you do get updates when somebody makes modifications to a notice, and you may see on the backside of every notice who your collaborators are.

As with collaboration, reminders are a genuinely helpful function applied in a simple approach. You will get notifications from the Google Maintain app at a particular time and even if you attain a particular place (in case you’ve obtained the cellular app put in). Reminders might be set to repeat, so you might arrange a family chore checklist that offers you a nudge on the identical time each week.

To set a reminder on the net model, simply click on on the little Remind me icon on the backside of every notice (which seems like a small bell), then set the choices as wanted. On the cellular model, the icon is on the prime of the display screen.

Typically, you create a notice that you really want to have the ability to discover instantly. In that case, you may pin the notice to the highest of your checklist by tapping the pin icon on the prime of the notice. Nevertheless, watch out about overusing this; I typically discover that if I pin too many notes, they turn out to be simply as tough to seek out as if I didn’t pin them in any respect.

You cannot solely add pictures to notes utilizing the picture icon on the backside of the notice however it’s also possible to extract the textual content from them as properly. Within the net model, simply click on the three dots, then Seize picture textual content. Within the cellular model, faucet the picture, then the three dots within the higher proper and Seize picture textual content. So long as the letters within the picture or in your drawing are legible sufficient, you get a duplicate of them printed beneath — one thing that may be very helpful in case you are, for instance, taking a photograph of a enterprise card.

You possibly can add hand-drawn scribbles. Within the net model, click on the three dots after which Add drawing; within the cellular model, click on the plus icon and Drawing.

Notes might be rapidly transformed into paperwork in Google Docs by clicking on the three dots on the backside of a notice and selecting Copy to Google Docs. (Within the cellular app, click on the three dots and choose Ship > Copy to Google Docs.)

There are a few extra options which might be out there in Maintain’s cellular apps for Android and iOS.

Replace June fifth, 2025: This text was initially printed on October sixteenth, 2019, and has been up to date to account for modifications within the OS and so as to add extra options.