Best lightweight note-taking app?

Looking for an app for note-taking with the following features:

  • No ads ever
  • No nudges to upgrade, subscribe, unlock premium features, or any bullshit like that.
  • No recurring fee (ok paying up-front for the app)
  • Clean, simple interface

That’s it. I don’t need multimedia, multi-device syncing, cloud storage. I just need a place to write down ideas and grocery lists.

Recommendations?

sma3in,
@sma3in@lemmy.world avatar

Obsidian… forever

dwgill,

I’m a big fan of a small app called UpNote. It’s clean and simple with a few power features you can use if you really dig into it. It largely has the same baseline set of features as Obsidian, but it supports syncing across devices out of the box and has a one-time purchase of a lifetime membership.

Gamey,

It has a very optional but stupidly expensive subsctiption but even after long searching Standard Notes remains the best one I ever used!

krondo,

Obsidian is kewl cloud sync aint free though.

AaAaaaAaAA,

I just save my obsidian workspace in Dropbox/google drive/etc and that does the job for me

oxhead,

If you don’t mind self hosting, there is a community plugin for live sync backed to CouchDB.

grayman,

ColorNote

It meets every item on your list.

Discoslugs,
@Discoslugs@lemmy.world avatar

I use signal mesagaing app. They have a note to self feature thats awesome.

kellenoffdagrid,
@kellenoffdagrid@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Not sure how I never found out about this feature before but this is awesome, thanks for sharing it!

Hazdaz,

Great, now how about a sketching app that follows all the same criteria that OP mentioned. Something for quick and dirty sketches. Nothing fancy. One that can do sketches and notes would be even better.

Dagwood222,

According to this article, and others I’ve seen pen and paper is still best.

digitaltrends.com/…/handwritten-vs-keyboard-notes….

Ogygus,
@Ogygus@lemmy.world avatar

.txt file + syncthing

For true rebels: pen and paper

eco_game,

I use Another Notes App. It’s super basic but that’s exactly what I need.

Deftdrummer,

Google keep works fine for me.

maudefi,

Quillnote + Signal’s “note to self”

You can find Quillnote in both Droid and Google’s Play Store.

MargotRobbie,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

I use OneNote usually, easy formating and works well on PC and mobile. Notion is cool too, but has a lot more features than a simple note taking app.

guangming,

I’ve been using Notally for a while and I think it checks all your boxes.

HerbalGamer,

Very much agreed.

trimmerfrost,

Element for Matrix. I know weird, but that’s how I like it

azura,

Do you send messages to yourself? Is this a thing you can do? I never tried. That would be pretty cool. edit: um… yeah. create an empty room with just yourself in it. Now I feel silly.

trimmerfrost,

Something like that. I created a new space with just me, with encrypted rooms for each topic. Random Thoughts, Books, Movies I Like, etc

azura,

I think you’ve inspired me. I’m gonna try this.

AlmightySnoo,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

I used to do this a long time ago when I was still on Facebook. I’d write notes with visibility set to myself only.

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