A Notes app window on Mac, iPhone and iPad, all showing the same note from iCloud.

Get started with Notes

Jot down a quick thought or take longer, detailed notes. Learn what it takes to get started with Notes on Mac.

Get started with Notes

A Notes app window on Mac showing an audio recording in the note body. The Show Transcript button is on and a live transcription of the audio recording is shown.

Record audio and see live transcriptions

Record audio sessions right in your note and generate live audio transcripts. Transcripts are searchable, so you can find just the moment you’re looking for.

How to record and transcribe audio

A cropped Notes app window on Mac showing various expenses — including passes, kayaks, sunscreen and water. The note solves addition and division problems automatically inline.

Crunch numbers, evaluate expressions and more

Calculate answers to basic arithmetic and complex expressions, and even work with variables — right from Notes. As soon as you type an equals sign, Notes solves expressions inline.

How to solve maths

A Notes app window on Mac showing different coloured highlights. For example, a blue highlight shows a key word and an orange highlight shows the definition.

Colour code your world

With the new highlight style feature, quickly mark up your notes and make text stand out.

How to format and highlight text

A Notes app window on Mac showing collapsible sections — two collapsed and one open. The closed sections show only the title with the open section button. The open section shows a subheading, body text, a tag and an image.

Collapsible sections

Simplify and hide text with collapsible section headers, making it easy to manage your most text-heavy notes.

How to organise with collapsible sections

A Notes app window on Mac showing a note that includes a large photo of a hill and a river.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Drag and drop pictures, videos, PDFs and other files into your notes. You can also add content to notes right from Safari, Maps and many other apps.

How to add photos, files and more

To explore the Notes User Guide, click Table of Contents at the top of the page or enter a word or phrase in the search field.

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