Notes
Notes is the best place to capture quick thoughts or save longer notes with checklists, images, web links, and more. Collaboration features—like shared notes and folders, mentions, and activity view—make it easy to work with others and stay updated about what’s happening in your note. You can also keep organized with Tags, or use Smart Folders to automatically arrange your notes based on criteria like whether your note has checklists or attachments, when the note was created or edited, and more. And with iCloud, it’s easy to keep all your devices in sync, so you always have your notes with you on any device where you’re signed in with your Apple ID.
Siri: Say something like: “Create a new note.”
Note: To create Quick Notes using a different Hot Corner, go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock, then click Hot Corners and choose a corner to assign to Quick Note.
Add content, lock notes, and share them. Use the Notes toolbar to quickly add checklists, photos, videos, sketches, tables, links, and more to your note. Click to lock your note with your iMac login password or create a separate password. Share a note with Mail, Messages, Reminders, or AirDrop by clicking , choose Send Copy, then choose how you want to share.
Tip: When you’re signed in with your Apple ID and iCloud is turned on for Notes, your notes are kept up to date on all your devices—so you can create a to-do list on your Mac, then check off items on your iPhone while you’re on the go.
Collaborate on a note. You can send an invitation to collaborate on a Note in Messages or Mail, or copy and share the link. Click in the tool bar, choose Collaborate in the menu, then select Messages, Mail, or Copy Link. If you share the link in Messages, everyone on the thread is automatically added to the list. Once you’ve invited others to join, you can track activity and manage collaboration by clicking .
Add tags. Use tags anywhere in the body of your note to categorize and organize them. Type the # symbol followed by your tag text. You can view your tags in the sidebar to quickly jump to notes with a specific tag or tags (for example, #vacation or #cooking). Custom Smart Folders automatically collect notes in one place based on the same tags.
Use mentions. Add mentions (type @ followed by a name, for example, @Leslie) to connect directly with your collaborators on a project or in a social setting. They’ll get an alert that they’ve been mentioned in a note, and they can jump right in and participate.
View a note’s activity summary. See the latest updates about who’s been working on a shared note in the Activity view on the right side of the Notes window. Swipe right on note text to view editor callouts showing highlighted changes and the date and time the note was edited.
Organize with Smart Folders. Smart Folders make it easy to quickly arrange your notes by the filters that you set up. You can filter by tags, mentions, the date a note was created or edited, if the note is locked or pinned, Quick Notes, and more. You can add multiple filters to a Smart Folder and choose whether all or any are applicable. To get started, click New Folder in the lower-left corner, name your folder, then select “Make into Smart Folder,” then add the criteria you want.
Add a Quick Note from anywhere. With Quick Note, you can create a note from any app or website on your Mac and view it in the Quick Notes category in the Notes sidebar.
To create a Quick Note, use the keyboard shortcut -Q or move your pointer to the lower-right corner of the screen, where Quick Note is accessible by default as a Hot Corner. In Safari, you can create a Quick Note by highlighting text on a webpage, then click Share > Add Quick Note to add the highlighted text to your note.
Adjust the size or position of your Quick Note (drag a corner to resize the Quick Note or drag the title bar to reposition it), so it doesn’t block what you’re viewing.
Customize your toolbar. Control-click anywhere in the tool bar to open the Customize Toolbar window. Drag your favorite items into the toolbar to make it work for you.
Learn more. See the Notes User Guide.