Goodnotes
Goodnotes is a iPad focused note-taking application with AI and handwriting tools.
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Goodnotes
Top Features, Pricing & User Reviews
What is GoodNotes?
GoodNotes is a digital note-taking app that allows you to handwrite or type notes on a virtual paper using the Apple Pencil on iPads or other iOS devices. It offers an intuitive and distraction-free environment for taking organized notes for work, study, or personal use. GoodNotes uses styluses to help make you more productive on the go.
GoodNotes wants to manage your notes visually with handwriting notes. It is popular amongst Apple users with Apple Pencils and iPads, but it now comes on web, Android, and Windows devices, too.
A studio for your mind | A place to make sense of the world and create amazing things.
Best For
It's free. No credit card required.
How does Goodnotes work?
Goodnotes is similar to Apple Freeform; however, it offers natural handwriting and organizing, whereas Apple Freeform provides a free-form canvas for open-ended notes.
Many people create Goodnotes templates like journals, diaries, project plans, etc. These templates help you get started with Goodnotes, boost productivity, or learn something new.
Goodnotes is fantastic for personal use. It turns your iPad into a paperless device, replacing note-taking, drawing, brainstorming, and more with a digital space for which you can customize, share, and download templates.
Pros:
- Ideal for those who use iPads
- Works well with styluses to make sketch notes
- The reasonable $9.99 per year pricing
- Great for student note-taking
- Abilities like ruler, scaling & customizations for toolbar
Cons:
- It might not be for everyone
- Can be difficult to use if you aren't good at sketching
How much does Goodnotes cost per month?
Goodnotes is free with some premium pricing options:
Plans | Pricing (approx) |
|---|---|
Basic | Free |
Premium | $9.99 per year |
Is Goodnotes good for student productivity?
Goodnotes is a note-taking application perfect for handwriting on the iPad.
Students can use It to create notebooks or journals for each topic they are studying. It's also great for drawing pictures to accompany notes to help further learning.
You can draw, add text, graphs, diagrams, or whatever you need to help with learning. Still, you can also use Goodnotes as a daily journal for mindfulness and to keep track of how you feel throughout your university or college experience. You can download tons of templates and PDFs to begin journaling using Goodnotes.
Is Goodnotes worth it?
Goodnotes is a really nice app for creating notebooks for journaling, studying, making notes, editing PDFs, and much more. It also offers much flexibility and customization to create a place you want to work.
Using templates is also great, as this helps users get started and create a workspace that suits their note-taking needs.
Students love using this application to help with their studies, exams, lectures, and everything else they need. You can create any kind of document using whatever visual methods of note-taking you enjoy.
Creatives enjoy the visual and experimental abilities of taking notes, too. There are tons of tutorials online on how people use Goodnotes differently, some for journaling, planning, learning, creating, and much more.
A studio for your mind | A place to make sense of the world and create amazing things.
Best For
It's free. No credit card required.
Ty Thomas
Nov 24
ADHD Strong | PhD Student
8.6 out of 10 stars
A students best friend
I have tried nearly all of the hand-writing notes apps, but I always return to Goodnotes because of its refined features, including audio recording/transcription, handwriting recognition, and simple stylus gestures like scribbling to erase and circling to select. The Goodnotes team has added AI features recently, which can create questions for testing yourself on lecture material or search your notes for details you are curious about— both of which are great uses of AI. All this to say, Goodnotes is a students best friend.
Adam Hoffman
Dec 24
Time-Management Titan
8.4 out of 10 stars
Goodnotes: An Essential iPad App
*Please note my review is based on Goodnotes 5 for the core features as I have not upgraded to the subscription model of Goodnotes 6* Goodnotes was one of the very first apps I downloaded when I got my iPad in 2020. It has worked great for me since then, but I have noticed my use of it has changed over time. Full disclosure, I am not a student so some of the available features such as the record feature are not of use to me. As well, I'm not building notebooks for studying purposes, but more for daily note-taking. I'm also not drawing with the app, but using it for text purposes. For the most part, Goodnotes has settled in as my go-to pdf reader and mark-up tool. Organizaion is simple with their file system and the thumbnails of documents make it easy to find what you need. The app writes wonderfully and I like having a selection of go-to colours to colour code my thoughts while reviewing. Writing is very responsive and feels even more immediate than writing with pen and paper at times. The snap-to feature for straight lines when striking-out text or highlighting is very useful for my purposes. My only real issue with the app is that it is bound by the "notebook" format. Each page is only a traditional page and doesn't have the option for continuous scrolling. I prefer a system such as Apple notes for handwritten notes, where each note is as long as I need it to be. I find it cumbersome to have one thought across multiple pages in a digital format. This format can make it harder to find a particular note if it's buried in a notebook, even with the outline tool. The value has also decreased for me since Goodnotes switched from an extremely affordable one-time cost model, to the yearly subscription model. The additional features didn't justify the cost of the upgrade. I still recommend the app as essential for the iPad, especially for it's pdf capabilities. I have just found myself looking for alternatives for taking daily notes.
Kamil Koza
Oct 24
Chief Efficiency Overlord
8.4 out of 10 stars
My basic handwriting tool
It's a fantastic tool, much better than the native Apple Notes. It works really fine with an Apple Pencil. I don't like that a sync is so slow and the style of the main menu/dashboard is old-fashioned, but I can't live without it.
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