Google’s excellent and neglected note-taking app is getting some much-needed formatting options and overall love. Here’s hoping it’s not the last time.
Exportable markdown or it doesn’t matter
I am assuming someone will write a converter / exporter and that we’ll have at least a week’s warning before it gets its place in the Google Graveyard.
If Google Takeout outlives it, we might already have one.
I think Notesnook already has a converter
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Good news for Android-toting Google Keep users: you’re finally getting the text formatting options the app has so desperately needed for years.
Google announced this week that the ability to bold, italicize, and otherwise transform text in your notes is rolling out now, and you should start to see it in the app soon.
(I don’t have it yet, but Mishaal Rahman and a few others actually spotted the feature ahead of its official launch, so it seems to be coming fast.)
And actually, Google has been paying an unusual amount of attention to Keep recently: users got a new homescreen widget earlier this year, and you can now open multiple Keep windows at a time on your device.
That makes users reasonably worried that Google might at any moment kill the app, as it has so many others, as part of some cost-cutting or refocusing initiative.
The formatting options will presumably be available on the web and iOS at some point, and they make Keep even more powerful on top of that simple interface.
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I’m pretty certain they wanted to migrate everyone over to Tasks for a bit there, I got a few reminders to import my Keep lists to it, but for some reason they were struggling with basic feature parity with Keep and it overall didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, as it just seemed to be a more complicated tool that struggled to be integrated with voice reminders.
It’s impressive to me that the same company that makes Google Maps seems to struggle so much with a basic note taking app
The same company that makes Google maps can’t add search function to Google Authenticator on android (iPhone version has search).
Which is so silly because it should be relatively obvious that people use keep for more than Tasks. But this is Google we’re talking about so nothing should surprise me.
Little too late, switched to Obsidian and haven’t looked back.
Same here. I’m using Syncthing to keep states synched between my MacBook and Pixel. All I’m missing is a shared grocery list for me and my girlfriend.
If you’re okay with a low-cost annual subscription, AnyList is fantastic for grocery/recipe lists, and it’s cross-platform.
Any pitfalls you encounteres when setting up syncthing? Is that useful documentation you followed?
Setting up syncthing for Obsidian is super straight forward, you just point it to your vault folder and done. Haven’t run into any problems yet.
Same here!
I’ve been wondering if it could be accomplished using ignore patterns in Syncthing to only share a specific Obsidian folder/directory and put everything shared in there. Yet, this may probably be too much friction for a grocery list and Keep will work fine while it lasts.
I use both. Keep is way faster to create simple notes. Additionally, it has web gui, and nice features like voice notes and text extraction. BTW, Obsidian requires a subscription if used for topics related to you work.
I’ve been using Markor + obsidian for quicknotes.
I created a quicknote.md in obsidian and point markor too it. This allows me to very quickly open that note in Markor, copy and paste from apps directly into that file. Then later I can decide to flesh them out in obsidian.
I’ve been using one note at work and it’s actually pretty good and allows easy cross compatible sharing with colleagues.
Same.
I use Mega to sync between my laptop and my phone.
I find keep terrifically useful. But it is not supported by Google Takeout, so when they turn it off, I’d lose everything. I’m currently trying out sNotz from f-droid as a replacement.
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Obsidian is quite nice. No Boilerplate did a nice video on some of the cool capabilities of it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/DbsAQSIKQXk?si=ksprtwus5Tr_T8Yp
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
A lot of the reviews I see on the play store say it’s buggy. How true are they?
I haven’t really seen many of any issues but your mileage may vary.
I use it for my work notebook, it’s fantastic.
I really wish they didn’t have to kill third party integration with smart speakers for this. Google bait and switch at its finest.
there was a WHAT
You could use Google-assistant smart speakers to add things to specific non-Keep shopping lists - e.g. Any.Do and Bring are two that spring to mind. Google killed this integration a few months back to force users into using Keep if they wanted to retain this functionality.
I really liked AnyList, it was nice for shopping.
No interest in styling, I have docs for that. Big features I’m missing are:
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single-note 1x1 shortcut widget (not the full single note widget – which is nice! But not a simple homescreen 1x1 link to a specific note),
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better management for pictures attached to a note (brightness/contrast/crop, re-sorting them, etc).
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Copy-paste for checklists. How is that not a thing?
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bring back letting me use google Assistant to add stuff to my Keep shopping list.
- bring back letting me use google Assistant to add stuff to my Keep shopping list.
FYI they brought this feature back a while ago
Oh, thanks!
Edit: there must be a trick to it, I just checked and it still sends shopping list entries to that weird Google Assistant List thing.
Edit2: found it! There’s a Google Assistant setting. God damn the UI for this is so awful. First question it should ask when it finds I have no shopping list shouldn’t be “shall I make you a shopping list” but “hey do you use Google Keep to manage your shopping? Should I switch to that?”.
Yeah you’re right, I just checked and the way to set it up makes no sense. No wonder people don’t know it works again!
You still can add items via assistant. It’s just you get duplicates sometimes.
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Yay basic formatting.
Keep should have had MarkDown support from the start
I really enjoy this Google app it is my current one
In the FOSS world, Carnet is at parity IMHO and can import Keep notes.
I need to use Keep to share simple synced notes with my partner. I’ve not yet been able to find an app with feature parity. Does anyone know a good app for sharing lists?
It’s the only way I’ve found to have a shared shopping list we can also use via Google nest devices too - any other options?
Yep we use Home Minis around the house for adding to the shopping list and I have Tasker on my phone open the list when it detects a supermarket WI-FI nearby.
Thing is I’ve used all sorts of open source apps, I have Pi’s around the house running some stuff, but Keep just works with minimal interference from me.
I highly recommend Notesnook, it’s a very good open-source notes app.
Can this do shared lists?
Obsidian and Notion are decent.
They are nice, I use Logseq and Anytype which are very similar. They are a bit overkill for sharing a meal planner and a shopping list though.
Meal planner and shopping lists are a gateway drug. Next thing you know you’re 30 topics deep with embedded webpages and items in a database, planning world domination one step at a time.
In all seriousness, I started using notion because I have ADHD and needed something to keep me on track then I really over did it and have lists and planning set up for most of my daily life and I share it all with my GF who uses it for all of her notes.
Keep with show checkboxes any good for this? Works for me and my co worker.
Sorry should have been clear, I’m trying to not use Google products. Tired of their monopoly.
Zoho Notes has feature parity for everything I’ve seen, including letting you add collaborators to a notebook or note / list.
I’ll check it out, thanks
If you’re willing to self-host, Nextcloud notes is quite good.
I’ve not managed to figure out note sharing with Nextcloud Notes, and it seemed you needed to understand Markdown to get the best of it last time I used it.
“D Notes” is very similar to Google keep but better in every aspect except that you need pro for cloud sync (with Google you pay with your data instead)
Ah, so we have about 6 months to a year before they abruptly kill it off.
Their last update to the home screen widget ruined the styling and usability of it. Made all the controls and notes take up a ton more space by turning them into big dumb child buttons, leaving way less room for actual content. I switched to Zoho notes.
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Don’t care. Switched to Joplin and it’s so much better, it’s not even funny.
