How to use Notes on Mac

What are Notes and how do I use Notes on my Mac?

The Notes app is the ultimate note taking app for iPad, iPhone and Mac computers. With the Notes app jotting down your important informaiton, ideas and thoughts is really easy. And the best thing, with the Notes app you can sync notes on different device.

The Notes app will be useful for everyone who needs to write down addresses, phone numbers, references, notes, recipes, plan daily tasks, work on projects, make reports, to-do lists, and more. Students can use Notes to write lectures and class notes, plan revisions and keep research notes. Teachers can use the Notes app to write down and store lecture notes, lesson plans and other information.

Whether you need to plan your daily tasks, manage a project or just organize recipes, the Notes app provides you with everything you need. The Notes app not only provides a quick and easy way to write down quick info. You can add photos, videos, and other files into your notes and then quickly view them in the Attachments browser window. Just create a new note and add any information you need. You can also share your notes with many other apps.

How to create notes

All notes are arranged in folders. To create a new note, select the folder where you want to place the note and click the Create a note button in the toolbar or press Command+N. For more convenience, the first line of the note becomes the note’s title.
The Notes app lets you set up the default settings for newly created notes. You should choose 'New Notes Start with' from the Format menu and set up the necessary options.

How to format notes

You can easily format text - change font style, size, text alignment, apply paragraph styles, add checklists, select the writing direction choosing different options in the Format menu and more.

Attachments

With the toolbar you can easily add photos, videos, movies, documents and other files as attachments to your notes and then filter notes by attachment types. If you want to attach a file from the desktop, simply drag it into a note.

If you have notes written on paper scraps, you can simply take a photo and import it to the note.

To add files from Photos, click the Add a photo or video button in the toolbar and drag the file(s) from the Photos window into your note.
To add information from applications like Safari, Photos, and more, click the Share button and choose Notes from the list.

You can easily view all attachments by selecting Show Attachments Browser from the View menu or clicking the "Browse attachments such as photos, maps, and more" button in the toolbar and selecting one of six categories - Photos & Videos, Sketches, Maps, Websites, Audio and Documents or you can use the Command+1 combination.

To open the note that contains the attachment, control-click and choose Go to Note.
Please note that you can view the list of attachments from local notes stored on your Mac or upgraded notes from an iCloud account.

To return to the list of notes, click the Browse Attachments button again.

How to sync Notes

The Notes app is a cross-platform note-taking app that lets you create as many notes as you need on one device and then access on other Apple devices.

Created notes can be synced with all your devices using the iCloud service so you can easily access your notes from any device (signed in to the same iCloud account) you are using.
If you need to set up the Notes app to use your Internet account, select Accounts from the Notes menu or open the System Preferences window and select Internet accounts, then put the check mark for Notes for the account you want to use.
If the account you want to use is not added, click the Add button, select your account type and set up the account, then select Notes in the list of services.

How to organize notes

The Notes app organizes notes in folders to quickly access related information. With the Hide folder and Show folders button in the toolbar, you can quickly hide and show the list of folders.
Creating a new folder is a one-click job - simply click the New folder button in the bottom left corner.
To delete a folder you do not need any more, control-click the folder and choose the Delete Folder item. It will delete the folder with all notes.

Using the Search option, you can quickly find notes with necessary information. The Notes app supports search in the body of notes and in the names of attachments.