Google Keep - Notes and lists Reviews

by Torqued!!

I used to love GoogleKeep. My wife and I kept a shared grocery list as well as others. The grocery list, by far, gets the most use. For the last year and a half, it has become pretty buggy for me. Lists would disappear, updates made by one collaborator would not show up for the others on the list. Now, lately, I can’t seem to add an item to my grocery list without GoogleKeep crashing. I’ve closed GoogleKeep on my iPhone, restarted it, shut GoogleKeep down, hard booted my phone, created a copy of a list and deleted the original to see if one was corrupted, you name it, I’ve tried it. Now, not only does GoogleKeep crash most of the time, when I do successfully add a line item, instead of keeping it where I added it, Keep tosses the line item down to the bottom of the list. I’m not able to move the item in the list order now as well. I’ve taken great pains to order the grocery list to coincide with the layout of my local grocery store. It’s WAY more efficient that way. Now it’s becoming an aggravation. I’ve got over 300 items in my list. Starting over would be a headache. I’m not really interested in using one of the other shopping apps that force a subscription or demand an account be set up for all members to share. I really liked the way Google Keep used to work. Google! Please fix GoogleKeep!!
For what it’s worth, I’m using an iPhone 6+ with iOS 11.3.whatever the latest is.

by NHGadgetLuvr

I love Keep, but GoogleKeep is very buggy. I open a note that says Grocery, but a list of errands opens instead. Sometimes as many as 3 or 4 copies of the same note are generated. Other times the notes shuffle unexpectedly. Would be great if it functioned like the Web version.

Update: Downgraded to one star. I am the only person using GoogleKeep it is not shared. Yet duplicate notes are created, they shuffle back and forth, the wrong notes open when i tap on it. I love GoogleKeep and it is so usable and functional, but these problems are driving me away. As much as i want to use it, I’ve even down presentations to others about it, the problems have to be fixed.

3/29: downgraded to 1 star. Duplicated notes and duplicated entries on notes. Web version is fine, but GoogleKeep is unusable with duplicated entries on checklists, wrong note opening when you tap on (tap on Shopping, laundry list note opens).

by Oberon526

I am hugely reliant on GoogleKeep. Unfortunately, since iOS 11, and especially with this most recent app update, GoogleKeep has become very unstable.
Syncing across my devices is sketchy at best, and information disappears. I’ve had to recreate whole sections of notes which sync my updates; rather, GoogleKeep took the updated note and synced it backwards to the previous version on another device.
Response to touch / type /cursor movement is slow at best, but usually impossible. You can’t move the cursor anywhere. To move in a note, you actually have to exit the note, re-enter it, carefully place the cursor at what you need to edit (nowhere else!), then exit again, and re-enter it at the next place to edit. Any attempt to move the cursor or tap elsewhere in the note has absolutely no response.
I hope this is rapidly addressed, as otherwise Keep is a lifeline app for me.

by One Of Millions...

Google Keep used to be my favorite app for making lists. I loved that if I switched devices, it would update across them seamlessly. However, the last two updates broke GoogleKeep . It started freezing while checking things off the list with the update prior to the most recent one. Now, with the newest update, GoogleKeep will not refresh and update across my devices, no matter how much I try to get it to work. It started with freezing and crashing upon opening, and now it tells me I need to “refresh”, but when I do it sits on a white screen saying it’s “Refreshing...” and then comes back to say the “refresh failed” and to try again later. It’s become more of a pain to use than it’s worth, so I just deleted it and will use the native list app on my iPhone for now. Hopefully when I check back in a couple months these problems are fixed, and I can start using GoogleKeep again.

by BoredMeteor

It feels incomprehensible that Google wouldn’t allow users of this great app to format text with bold, italic or underline. This basic feature, part of every word processing program since the late 80s is missing from GoogleKeep! It’s stupefying. You can do this in every other Google app but not this one. This missing feature is single-handedly keeping GoogleKeep from really competing with Microsoft OneNote. Google has an opportunity since OneNote for iOS has been badly broken for over a year. It won’t sync notes across platforms anymore! Authentication is completely bugged and your notes won’t sync unless you sign in every day which leads to all kinds of conflicts. GoogleKeep is unusable these days. Google keep could pick up that market. That’s how I know about it. I had to abandon Microsoft’s platform after they broke it.

by Ahmed Awsaf

Really enjoy GoogleKeep, used GoogleKeep from a very young age and GoogleKeep is really important to be. But the developers can you please make GoogleKeep feel bit more personal by adding better privacy features. Like, when we log into our gmails its automatically there right specially on desktop. Yeah your desktop is your personal computer but still other people in the house can still access it for important purposes and for printing stuffs( if you got only one in the household) just give an update on google chrome where we can hide/lock the tabs using passcode. And give us the ability to lock certain notes which we don’t want to share if someone have the hold of our personal devices. Thank you.

by DurdeeBurger

I still use this as my main note taking apps because if everything worked correctly it would fit my needs the best. I used to shared lists like grocery lists with my wife but we stopped doing that after too many syncing issues where we would get to the store and notice have the list is missing. I could get over that, however recently I have had this issue where when I’m trying to edit a list the keyboard keeps glitching where it seems like it’s constantly trying to create a new keyboard making it impossible to type. Happens way too often and kills the experience. Idk why this started to happen, worked great for so long. I would just use Apple notes but I want my checked items to get lumped together like GoogleKeep does...wish they would fix GoogleKeep.

by Iniyaaaa

I prefer using everything google from mail to photos because everything syncs up no matter what device you’re on and when I found out there was a notes app I immediately downloaded it,, I really like the concept and how you can have the checkboxes and colors however the labels and archiving don’t sync up very well. I like to have some notes for cooking or workouts and not have them clog up my main screen so I archive them and put them in their labels, but when I click the label and click the notes it brings me to the archive section, but the device still thinks It is in the individual label and I have to click out and click back it to get just the notes in the label to pop back and it’s quite annoying. I would prefer it if the labels acted like folders in drive rather than just labels or have the options for both.

by Xmanfreeman76

If you want to check the difference between iphone note and google keep, you will find that iphone note is great, because you can write arabic language from right to left without any issue and great emoji and good quality of emoji that is written in iOS note that defeat google keep, but wait google is good too for more space 15 GB good too.

Now the solution:
1- fix the alignment ( arabic and english)
2- create good emoji pictures different than iphone to be for google.
3- fix links issues and google map links too.
4- increase the security of google keep.
5- lets work with iOS company to merge between iphone notes and google keep easily. ( this need high step cooperation)
6- give a chance to share from iphone studio to google keep easily.
7- easy drawing note with iOS Cooperation between note and google keep.
8- more folders and subfolders and easy way to search for sub folders and easy lock for each secure note
9- each google keep note have a date and synchronized with calendar and easy create a link between calendar day and google keep note.
10- anything new will be great idea to help more in business or normal life
Like for example record a voice note or transfer voice note from iOS note to google keep note with option of recording voice.

My wishes for google 🌹

by Habits Are A Blessing

Love this. I use Keep, Sheets, and Calendar together as my digital Bullet Journal, and I swear Keep has made me more organized and self aware! Does it’s job and has lots packed in it that others take for granted (pinned notes/post its, GCal integration, reminders, etc)

However there’s lots of room for improvement.
I feel like Keep is in this productivity app limbo where it doesn’t know if it wants to be a post it note application or a note taking application. It doesnt capture long term notes but it doesn’t seem to feel like a true “post-it”/corkboard application either, and the integration with Google Docs in both web and mobile is lacking. I would appreciate it Google Keep expanded into more of a Trello/ Post-It hybrid and allowed for 1) Allow for Folder/Notebook categorization 2.) Adding font / RTE formatting 3) Ability to organize post it’s like a kanban board or grid board or any which way instead of the limited gallery view 4)Seamless integration with Google docs and Google Calendar (where searching for notes and accessing Keep notes within the Docs and Calendar app are easy )

by Sana Haider

I really love GoogleKeep, because I can access the contents from my phone or laptop because it’s connected to my google account. For that, I have no complaints. However, I wish there were more customizable options when taking notes. To be able to bold or italicize your notes so that they are more easier to read and more organized (like the apple notes app!) I think GoogleKeep is great to jot down quick notes, but it could be even better for the major neat freaks out there like me if there was more customization with the notes you are taking! If there are features to put notes under labels to organize it in that sense, it should have more document features a well!

by Redzone11

I like GoogleKeep and the fact that I can share a list with family members and we can each separately collaborate and update it. What I would like added is the ability to add subcategories within that list to sort items into. We use it for groceries and to be able to have them subcategorized into dairy, frozen, produce, paper products, beverages, etc as we wish and to work off of and maintain items in those categories as we check on or off each item would be so helpful as we wouldn’t be scrolling through 150 items to find one item, instead we could select a category and find the item much easier.

by Tomas 846

I stopped using Apple Notes after I started using Keep because Keep is a beautiful note taking app. I love how colorful, simple, and clean the interface of Keep is. The only thing that is missing is the ability to lock notes so others who might access my phone don’t get into it. I write personal things and I store passwords in Keep but there is no privacy mode where I can’t password protect or pin/fingerprint protect these personal notes, while Apple Notes does have this feature. I think more and more people would use Keep instead of other note taking apps like Apple Notes if this feature was present. Please hear me out! Will update my rating to 5 if this useful feature is added. Thank you!

by Shecasx

[updated] They finally seem to have fixed Keep, thank goodness. For about 6 weeks it was unusable. Now it seems to work fine, no longer deleting items and failing to sync. Glad Google fixed what they had broken, but better communication from the company to its users should have happened. 👎 on treating your users this way.

I used it daily. Still use it via the web. But the August iPhone update made it unusable. Can't connect. Screws up your entries. It's a disaster. And Google's been silent through it all. No acknowledgement anywhere -- support pages or forums -- of the problems. GoogleKeep support pages are worthless.

Hey Google, end the silence and let us know that you've heard us! And fix this used-to-be great app and the sync issues, please.

by Google.user.29283836

GOOD FEATURES
1. The labels feature and options to change the background color of each note is helpful for organization
2. It’s cool you can add drawings, voice recordings, images, reminders, and checklists. And the feature that grabs text from an image was very useful.
3. Of course the ability to share notes across devices and between people since notes are saved with your Google account and not just downloaded to your device.
4. Small thing but being able to copy stuff to Google Docs was nice
5. Aesthetically pleasing. Not that important but if an app looks old I’ll be less likely to choose it

IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Add bold, italic, underline, and text size
2. Make the option for images to be embedded at any place in the note instead of just attached at the top
3. Allow checkboxes in between paragraphs instead of requiring the whole note to be a checklist
4. Add a view option where only the note titles are shown (instead of the larger icons; like the list view in Google Drive)
5. Allow multiple reminders in one note (not as important as the other ones)
6. Automatically change links into their image previews, while still leaving the option to remove it. Usually I prefer the link icon over the long chunks of text.

by Dj Jon Bates

Keep could be an essential note-collection tool: it’s intuitive, simple, fast and offers valuable features like extracting text from almost any image saved to a Keep note.

What relegates Keep to a 3.5 star afterthought is its weaknesses in something Google arguably does better than anyone on Earth: search.

Perhaps there’s some super-strategy behind Google’s decision to make searching in most of its non-Gmail products worse than what we were able to accomplish in a 1980s DOS command. But the fundamental purpose of collecting notes in an app is to have key information available when we need it later.

I’ll concede that Keep does allow searching by content type, labels and the text within notes. But certainly Google (whose name is universally used as shorthand for searching) has the technical chops to include advanced search in Keep and all their products.

Where is:
›› Find notes created in a date range, or modified, or before?
›› Search for duplicate (or similar) notes?
›› Advanced search operators (AND, OR, NOT)?
›› Multiple search criteria, and saved searched?

None of these missing key features are blue-sky next-gen technology. They’re the foundation of what Google does, and users deserve tools with at least the capabilities of 1980s-era software.

by Lcm2222

I have need to be able to “see” my to dos and keep’s visual, sticky note like interface is great for that. (I have adhd and it works!) I am currently trying things 3 which is very nice and very powerful, but I am not organized enough to use it correctly — I basically just end up using one small to do list for everything. With keep I can keep different lists and can move them around so I can see them at the same time (a TODAY work list, a today home list, this week lists for work and home, etc. then current projects.) Tags and search and pinning make notes easy to find.

I would like my filter or last search to stay put when reopening GoogleKeep .

Most importantly though I NEED to be able to put Keep notes (via widgets) on my iPhone so I can glance at my to do lists when opening my phone. This is why I switched to things 3, but I have to go back to keep b/c I just can’t stay on top of everything. I really really need those widgets and my adhd brain will be happy!!!

by JohnAM32

I absolutely LOVE Google Keep and use it excessively. That said, I’ve been meaning to write a review about the two bugs that constantly annoy me: sometimes the keyboard pops up when scrolling through a note when I did not intend to edit it, just to read it, thus my annoyance when it pops up. I think it does so when I scroll only a small amount and it registers as a tap gesture instead of just a scroll gesture. Two: if I press the return key—creating a new line of text—when there are also other lines of text below where I am currently typing (whether I thereafter type or paste something in or just leave the line blank) after a few seconds the line below that one pops up, merging onto the end of the above line I just entered, and I have to replace my cursor and separate the lines again, putting the lower one back down where it belongs.

by Nbct.wright

GoogleKeep has quickly become one of my go to apps throughout each and every day.

It’s cross-platform approach makes jotting a note on my phone, revising it on my Chromebook, then converting it to a Google Doc on my desktop a snap. It is lightweight in terms of storage space and processor demands, yet it is robust in its abilities. Saving audio, photos, etc into notes is simple. Setting reminders, even recurring reminders, makes GoogleKeep outrageously useful for jotting quick reminders when adding something to a calendar is just too time consuming. And again, the cross-platform approach means that the reminder pops up on your iPhone, your Chromebook, and your Windows machine (or Mac) unlike Apple’s native reminder / to do apps. Of course, you have to be using Chrome on your computers as the internet browser. But why wouldn’t you? :-)

In all, it’s a very useful app for organizing and staying on top of personal and professional business!

by Sirenia Garcia

GoogleKeep is a great app for organization. Hi, I’m a teenager of the age of 14. In high school you really need to get organized, write down what homework needs to get done reminders on test dates. As of right now though it is summer and I don’t want to be just laying around in bed all summer watching videos or being lazy. I at least want to be a bit productive, so I was on the search for a to do list app that will help me feel accomplished in the goals I set. So I went searching and most organizer apps and to do list apps have a fee, which if your under 16 years old you can’t really do that. I downloaded a bunch of apps looking for the right one. For an estimate on how many I downloaded and deleted was about 8, which is a lot. On GoogleKeep I can put my to do list, write reminders, and put pictures to remind myself to love myself and remind me that people care about me to. Those inspirational pictures and encouraging pictures I’d say help me from going down into the hole of depression. (I might be overreacting to that but it’s true) so I wanted to thank google for making an app like this! ❤️

by BobHuRunqiu

1. Widget on the lock screen only shows the reminders but not the to-do list, that makes it meaningless to have a lock screen widgets. The widgets should be able to uncheck and check the to-do list and see various kinds of notes in Keep.

2. If you choose to use check box in a note, the entire note has to be the check box list. But sometimes say I am making plans of the day and I want the note to be like different elements containing in a note.([]stands for the check box)
———————————————————
Plans for today
[ ] Learning
[ ]Assignment 1
(done before 10 a.m)
[ ]Assignment 2
(submit before 11)
[ ]...
[ ] Shopping
[ ]Item 1
[ ]Ietm 2
(PICTURE of Item2 added here)
Make sure to come back at 5 p.m.
(only set reminder at this event)
———————————————————

3. The pictures can only be added at the top of the notes, making it impossible to record something with words and pictures in the notes. We sometimes take a photo of the powerpoint or add a screenshots in lecture notes, and then make some notes under the picture, but this cannot be done in Keep since the picture is on the top.

by Nathan Gene Morgan

Overall it is increased team productivity and communication on projects as well as personal issues by the grocery list and recipes. Sometimes especially later at night lists/notes won’t update with collaborators/other devices. My friends and some are staying up late one night and I had a couple notes for my product manager he lives in LA and I in New York, So he was a couple hours behind me. But that really didn’t make a difference because by the time he had gotten my notes it was already late his time. Sometimes it takes up to 20 minutes just for one slight alteration I’m at note. Now it’s not as important but the voice recorder needs a bit of work as well. For some reason it doesn’t continuously record, after a couple moments of talking it automatically stop recording. Instead you should make it something more like apples talk to type function where it will continuously record until you stop it as well as keeping the auto. Pr just have an option to make it manually via press+hold.