MindNode - Mind Map & Outline Reviews

by Chris.me

1. When the trial runs out, there is a prompt to buy the full version. What they don’t tell you is the full version isn’t enabled for family sharing - there is a different version you buy through MindNode Store for that. So, I spent the money getting a nice app, but doesn’t do what the trial did.

2. I was going to buy the full Mac version, but after this experience I read more carefully. While the trial is enabled for family sharing the “full” version is not. While the IOS version has a bulk licensing version you can buy to get family sharing, but the MAC version does not. In short, the experience you get while running the trial is not the experience you get after buying MindNode .

I’ve since read through the comments, I’ve seen the reasoning for why family sharing doesn’t work after purchasing. App Developer: You should disable family sharing on the trial so you don’t set false expectations.

To make it worse, I go through the process to get a refund, and of course the automated process through Apple will always say, “you don’t qualify for a refund”, or contact MindNode developer with a link to their site.

by Tradersam

I deleted my last review because I thought maybe I didn’t spend enough time with it after tearing my hair out, but tried again tonight and just as frustrated. Completely counter-intuitive interface, to me anyway. Why can’t I drag a rectangle to a rectangle to connect Ideas. How do I get a new rectangle. Double tap? No, that would be too easy! No, I don’t want to extend that line over and over. How do I get a menu of choices, not pushing the plus that’s for sure, just get another line. Even finding a tutorial or help was fruitless. It must be somewhere. AND a subscription model on top of that? AND you can’t even see what some icons do because you’d need to subscribe to unlock those unnamed mystery features? Maybe one of those icons lets you create a new idea rectangle, but who knows? I still feel like there’s something (A LOT) I’m not getting, so very willing to be educated and change my review and rating again. Until then, I played around a little with simple minds which so far IS extremely intuitive. (Drag box to box, get line between boxes!) And not a subscription. And I have no connection to that app or company, just a relief to use it after this one.

by Poor Revoews Blocked

What happened to the ‘detach’ option? I like to rearrange thoughts or points to settle on the right architecture of my presentation, but that’s gone. I have a mess of lines and empty boxes as I try to figure out how to use the latest version. Guides are of no help on this, btw. Extremely disappointed. Mind Node used to be easy and intuitive. Looking for another app. Nothing in the response was helpful or even accurate. Update: I haven’t used Mind Node since my first review; they dropped the ball. I have been extremely happy with XMind: Mind Map. Update 2: The beauty, the genius, if you will, of early Mind Mode, was the relationship between two text boxes. You inserted text into one box, then tapped the + sign and another text box appeared. You could then simply detach that new box, right then and there, to drag it somewhere else, to arrange and rearrange your presentation, the architecture of your thesis or presentation. Your work flowed, as you didn’t have to tap three dots to get a drop down menu; you could keep working, seamlessly. The designers got too cute and turn a simple idea into a sloppy mess.

by MASFATNINJA

This is probably the 4th or 5th time I’ve downloaded MindNode since the first version that I paid for.

Eventually the developers went to this in app purchase crap that they are all going to these days and basically wanted me to repay for everything.

So after trying the restore button and being denied for some reason, I deleted MindNode .

Here and there periodically over the years I’ve re-downloaded MindNode to attempt to restore my purchases with no success.

I’ve even contacted the developers in the past about this and they told me that I have no purchase history, which was frustrating and infuriating.

So here I am again downloading this version of MindNode and I hit restore purchases and I get a message that my “account has no previous purchases” again.

At this point I feel I’ve not only been robbed but scammed.

The developers could have at least grandfathered original users in and possibly charged for things in future updates but they didn’t even do that.

They just took our money and ran.

MindNode is a great app and I’m sure much improved since the original version but I’ll never know be I refuse to pay for it again.

Best of luck to the rest of you guys now having paid for MindNode , hopefully they allow you to keep what you paid for.

by Cody P!

I WANT to love it, but I’m still better off drawing mind maps manually.

It’s the best mind-mapping software I’ve seen so far, but it doesn’t go above or beyond in anyways.
It’s difficult to control, not very intuitive. Hard to edit existing nodes, and very touchy controls.

The best thing about it is its design! But again, a bit hard to control and hard to read with the standard setup. Everything gets very small very quickly.

But the one thing that would make it NEXT LEVEL.
What I would forgive all of these sins for is the following:

Apple Pencil support on the iPad.
And not like... kind of. Like full on ability to draw on it anywhere and mark it up, without exporting as an image and remaining fully editable.
It just feels like a very limited app compared to what the iPad really ought to be capable of.
And for $20 per year?
Maybe $20 ONCE, and I would leave a higher review.
But the “Apps as a service” model falls apart if you don’t service it.
MindNode is barebones, and they have yet to “service” it with any updates of any kind.
It’s far from a one-stop-shop for my notes and is purely only useful for grand overviews and mapping.
But COULD be used for so much more.

I like it! It’s good for what it does.
But it does not go above it’s call of duty in any fashion, but its priced as though it would.

Meh... 3 stars.

by Catspajamas532

Gone are my files.

Three stars based on old version. Lost my files so can’t really comment on the latest version.

Was prompted by a splash screen to upgrade to the latest version. Upgraded and discovered it did not overwrite the old version. Opened my mind maps and was prompted to upgrade those to the latest version which I did. Deleted the old app, only to find it deleted my newly upgraded mind maps as well.

Bad on me for not having a backup someplace else. But kind of frustrating that even though the files updated to the new version,they apparently were still controlled by the old version and stored in its folder not the new version folder. And making backups is not intuitive in MindNode .

Loved the old version. If this one was a good as what I had I would have given 4 stars. But not sure I want to spend the time to see what the new version is like just to recreate my old mind maps. I at least have an older version of one of them in a different app. And PDFs of the lost ones. Time to decide which app to recreate my mind maps in.

by Kristinawhitr180

I found myself immediately frustrated when I couldn’t drag and drop the boxes in directions I want things to go. Sure it’s neat and cute but it only allows things to flow certain ways. Or I could only find certain ways after fifteen min of messing with it. I started to feel like—> oh my this is more work then the idea I’m flowcharting. So sorry to say although they make it look cute an fantastic by the time your operation MindNode in the way they show your idea will probably completed.

So I did a search on flow charting found another idea flow charter and I can just make a box circle triangle connect it to the same (DRAG AND DROP IT) where (I) want it to be having the line connecting adjust to (me) accordingly ending up with an idea half way done in the same fifteen minutes. Most importantly it looks the way (I) want it to look.

by CJBPM

I have used MindNode and another almost equally as much, and found this one to be slightly better. It is responsive, and I can keep up with quick paced meetings. The design options are fine, albeit limited, but manual layout is a charm.

There is one oddity. You can adorn your topics with stickers. Other mind maps do this as well, but the collection of stickers for MindNode is, well, TERRIBLE. They are ugly (childish) and most of them have NOTHING to do with business. Carrot, apple? No printer, nothing for teams or collaboration and NO QUESTION MARK or other punctuation. It seems odd that such a good program in other areas in so awful in this one. That is why it only gets four stars instead of five.

by Puppet Nonsense

Just decided to check MindNode out again and see how it’s developed over the years, and...wow! I absolutely love how easy it is to use a bluetooth keyboard and quickly blast out a mind map.

The only issue I have is that my brain wants to see the information flowing down, and Mind Node only allows horizontal maps, as far as I can tell. This horizontal real-estate also means it’s not very well suited to split-screen mode on the iPad, which is something I need to use while brainstorming.

by Zander Bayne

I am in love with MindNode as it is extremely difficult to organize my complex thoughts and ideas while working on projects. My only frustration is that I work on both iOS and PC, not Mac. I understand that you are a small dev team, but even a web based version that syncs your files would at least be a great work around. I know I share an opinion with most, that in order to incorporate this as a business solution (which it absolutely should be) we NEED windows support. Please!! Also... not very many small businesses will want to easily adopt a subscription model, and I see that as your largest potential user base.

by MEB1938

I have been using this program since it was first introduced. Until now I have used it for every condition where I needed to relate unrelated things. As promised, I am rewriting my review since MindNode support people discovered that my problems are not caused by MindNode. I had begun using iCloud with all my this app documents. One document, in particular, I updated daily and frequently updated from different devices. My problem occurred because iCloud did not handle my more complex documents property. Worse than wrecking my document, iCloud is set up to delete any documents that iCloud does not control. So if I turn off iCloud from holding and updating my this app documents I cannot recover them to my local device (iPad or iPhone). There are tricks I could play to keep or recover a single document, but I have over 30 this app documents so that is impractical.

The this app support staff were extremely helpful and emailed me with questions until they narrowed the problem to iCloud. From there they had no suggestions except to not keep my documents in the cloud. I will continue to use this app if or when I can get my documents back, but I won’t create new documents or update existing ones until iCloud is out of the picture.

Solved my iCloud issue by emailing my this app documents to myself. Then turned iCloud off.

by Mare.jp

I was so glad to have found MindNode! It helps me a lot when I write papers, but it helped me the most with my PhD thesis. Only after making a mind map was I able to visualize all the chapters that I needed and how to put them in order. Also it’s so easy to have everything reviewed - I just bring my tablet and I “drag and drop” or add new bubble.

The only thing that I wish was possible is branch length adjustment and better (manual) position adjustment or control over the position where I wanna move the whole branch with side branches - especially when I need to move around bigger branch. This would help a lot when printing a big map - it would be possible to use the the surface of the paper better.

Otherwise great app and I would recommend it to others! Also, kudos for trial period - you can really see in two weeks if you’re gonna use MindNode or not, so you don’t waste money.

by Abbrown

Each time I use MindNode, I'm impressed again at how intuitive I find it. For example: When using a keyboard, cursor keys navigate to the most likely node in any given direction - even if it's attached to a different root node.

Somehow that's just what I want and expect, and this app engineers and designers got it right.

I also love how I'm not overwhelmed with unwanted distractions while using MindNode : by making the interface and mechanisms familiar to iOS users, and by keeping the menus short and focused on the primary task, I am able to transfer my ideas to the canvas as quickly as possible.

by JPhone6#

Keep up the good work.

Suggestions:

(1) Simultaneous Sync / Multiple Device Access
It would be awesome if you could open a file on different devices simultaneously and edit. For example, you can open the same document with the new Office products using different devices. (e.g., OneNote can be opened and edited on iPad, iphone and desktop all at the same time).

(2) Apple Pencil / Handwritten Nodes

MindNode needs support for Apple Pencil (or stylus) input for the iPad. It would be so nice to be able to draw, drag and modify this app using the Apple Pencil.

As of now, the process to create and manipulate notes is too slow. It doesn’t allow the free flow of ideas and thoughts (as it should be for a mind note process).

I wish there was a way to make connections between nodes (e.g., Microsoft Visio) and then be able to drag, edit and move around the sheet. A similar solution would be something like an unlimited canvas with GoodNotes where you an jot an idea down, and then move it but the important feature of ‘mind mapping’ is the ability to keep the connected lines.

by Cblicsw

- I’m a therapist with post-grad certificates in neurobiology
- I never leave reviews in which I cite my “credentials” - I think it’s obnoxious
- I am hyper-skeptical of any product that claims to be able to effortlessly increase productivity

That said, I’m here breaking my own rules because MindNode is incredible! After playing around with it for about 45 minutes, I perfectly mapped a three-pronged, multi-layered small business plan that has thus far taken up about a dozen notebooks and still not fully come together.

MindNode works because it maps information with the same type of structure/pattern that our brains use - there is no gimmick, just a smart person who figured out who to translate that into a user friendly program. Bravo to that guy/gal!

I won’t be waiting for the free trial to end before I purchase this gem, and you can bet my team will be getting it for Christmas! If there isn’t a desktop version, I hope it’s in the works!

by Ken Starlight

I am researching a new nonfiction book I plan to write. I had loads of material, but was confused about how to organize the material. I did not know what story to tell. An acquaintance suggested I try mind mapping. After reading many reviews, I chose this app.

A few hours later, I had my information organized and categorized nicely. I figured out what story to tell. The tool kept out of my way. Customizing colors and fonts and adding images was easy. Sending images to other apps was easy. Everything was easy.

I was so impressed that I decided to take one facet of my topic (about a chapter’s worth) and analyze it by drawing a second mind map. Within a few hours, I had not only drawn the map, I had discovered new insight into my subject! The new ideas that sprang from that gave me a unique angle that I plan on using to frame the entire book. None of this would have been possible with a clumsy tool.

Paul C.
Software Engineer & writer

by Richbajo

I picked up the mind mapping practice from a productivity podcast (AE) I listen to. I ended up trying out a few of the mind mapping apps on the store and settled on this app because it’s available on all of my devices, it’s available natively, and it’s darn beautiful.

I originally used MN to map out and prioritize goals for a “12-week year” sprint I was doing (also a recommendation from the podcast). I’m a visual thinker and learner (like most people), so it was instrumental in helping me to decide which of my goals would have the most impact. They make it so easy to move things around and enter new thoughts. The tool just gets out of my way and lets my mind run free.

I’ve since expanded my use of MN to include doing book summaries to make sure I remember and implement what I read, longer term planning by putting a parent node for each quarter of the year, trip planning, and just about anything where I just want to brainstorm and see what ideas come up. Using this app alongside my BestSelf journal, Omnifocus, and a wall calendar, and I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

Great job, this app, great job! Keep up the fantastic work!!!

by Krotch341a

I used to subscribe and use mind node about3-4 years ago already (apparently under another email than my current one since I had to purchase again) However,
I am soooo much more in love with it! I’m on the spectrum and processing thoughts is difficult and time consuming for me. I write and use several writing apps /word documents but nothing is even close to MindNode! It’s one of a kind ...still. I use mind node template for everything and now there’s so much more it can do! It will take me weeks to learn it due to my learning curve. But it will be a daily for me. It helps me organize and prioritize my thoughts and ideas which is a difficulty for some on the spectrum. Thank you mind node- you are once again my go to app for brainstorming and capturing ideas - providing a space for me to see my thoughts and ideas more clearly. I will use this for my everyday life. It reminds me of the “nursing process” template that I used in nursing school 😅ty mind node!❤️

by Murphenkos

Update: issue was resolved after IOS update, but it seems to be a recurring issue from what I read from other people complaints online. It would be really nice to try to keep things working better between MindMap and IOS, because app is really great - I rely on it every day.
I love MindNode but recently (January 2020) files do not open on my iPhone, I also can not create new files. Everything works on IPad though. It also used to work on iphone

by Torchprincess

I’ve been a this app user since this app 3. Out of the many mind mapping apps out there this app is my favorite. It strikes a perfect balance between agile + powerful. With the recent updates, I’ve been able to add information faster than most note taking applications.

Furthermore, I appreciate the team’s business model. I am truly thankful that I wasn’t tricked into a subscription model when I had already purchased their previous versions several times — everything is written in plain English. I believe a trustworthy company deserves a consistent user base that pays for their great product and services.

I am happy to purchase the next release and sub for extra features

by Fsool

There is a small problem with MindNode and i've been email the support team for so long and nothing fixed, the problem is when i type node note that have to be read from right to left i have make the indentation right but when i exist the note and return to it the indentation automatically return to the left indentation, and it is frustrating for me as a rtl language reader that every thing go opposite i hope it will be fixed

~ Sorry about my english، I already send pictures to the support team about the problem, but nothing fixed unfortunately.

by Skytouch

this app has been my spatial planning tool of choice since Version 4. Now V6 has been released with some important updates, at no charge for recent V5 purchasers. One feature that I specifically requested is being able to edit multiple items on iPad like the Mac OS app. Thank you for listening and adding this feature. Of course I appreciate the free update; I’m also good with purchasing major upgrades when the time comes. Just keep doing what you do best.

Here are a few quick comments about the product. It has been rock solid with a very uncluttered UI. Import / export modes simplify moving data between apps and quickly creating a complex mind map in this app. Theme chooser and outline view work great and stay out of the way until needed. Kudos

by MikeJ-49

This software can be used for simple documents like lists. It can be used to identify tasks, precedence tasks, etc. with the simple touch of the screen the this app document in pictorial form can become a checklist. I was able to create a 25th anniversary meeting planning document with one hand while donating blood from my other hand. I appreciate that both the MacOS and iOS versions can share documents and natively output PDF.