Looking for the best notes app for iPhone? This guide compares 8 top picks to help you find the right fit for your notes, tasks and planning.
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Your iPhone already holds your calendar, reminders, ideas, tasks and maybe a dozen half-finished notes scattered across different apps. The best notes app for iPhone keeps everything in one place: quick to open, simple to use, reliable when it counts.
It should handle notes, to-dos, time blocking, voice input, synced across devices and all wrapped in a clean, intuitive interface that makes staying organized feel effortless.
Sounds too good to be true? Maybe. But some apps come impressively close.
In this guide, we’ll look at 8 of the best note-taking apps for iPhone—how they work, what makes them stand out and which one might just fit into your life better than the rest.
The right notes app helps you stay organized, act quickly, and keep everything where you need it.
Here’s what to consider:
There’s no single “best” notes app, but some will clearly work better for you than others.
Let’s take a closer look at how the top apps compare on your iPhone.
Juggling notes, to-do lists and your schedule across different apps? NotePlan brings it all together—built specifically for iPhone users who want a clean, structured way to stay organized on the go.
It’s designed to help you manage your day without distractions, whether you're planning ahead, checking off tasks or capturing ideas as they come. Everything lives in a smooth, mobile-friendly space that fits right into your daily flow.
Templates and reusable layouts: Save time with custom templates for meetings, daily planning or recurring check-ins. You can create your own or use built-in ones, speeding up your workflow.
NotePlan costs $8.33/month for annual payments or $12/month for monthly payments.
App Store rating: 4.7
Apple Notes is the basic notes app on iPhone, offering a familiar, no-setup-required space for capturing thoughts, lists and links. It’s tightly integrated with iOS, which means your notes update automatically across your iPhone, iPad and Mac through iCloud. Notes can also be started directly from the lock screen, making it easier to jot something down without unlocking your device.
While not as feature-rich as some dedicated note-taking apps, Apple Notes is well-suited for quick notes, simple organization and users who want something that just works out of the box, especially if they're already deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem.
Free for all Apple device users.
App Store Rating: 4.9
Evernote offers a structured way to capture notes, tasks and ideas from your iPhone. Its app supports multiple content types, including text, images, checklists and voice memos and organizes them using notebooks, tags and reminders.
It’s built for users who manage a high volume of notes or want one place to store everything, from meeting outlines to scanned documents. With cross-platform access and offline editing, Evernote is suitable for those who regularly switch between devices and need flexible input options.
Evernote offers a free plan with limited features. Paid plans start at $10.93/mo.
App Store Rating: 4.4
OneNote has a flexible, notebook-style layout for taking and organizing notes on your iPhone. It uses a structure of notebooks, sections and pages (similar to a physical binder) allowing you to keep personal notes, to-do lists and reference material together.
OneNote works well for users who prefer a more visual, open-ended approach to organizing their notes. Its free-form layout can be useful for creative workflows.
See also: Obsidian vs OneNote
OneNote is available with a paid subscription to Microsoft 365.
App Store Rating: 4.7
Notion brings its block-based workspace to the iPhone, offering a flexible way to capture and organize notes alongside tasks and other content. Notes can be structured as simple pages, checklists or part of larger dashboards, depending on how you prefer to work.
It’s designed for users who want to customize their setup, link related content and build systems that go beyond basic note-taking. While that flexibility allows for more advanced organization, it can also take some time to configure and navigate on a smaller screen.
Notion offers a free version for individuals to organize personal projects and life. For more features, paid plans start at $10/month/user.
App Store Rating: 4.8
Bear provides a minimalist interface and Markdown support that promote distraction-free writing, while tagging and linking features facilitate organization. Notes can include text, sketches, checklists and media attachments, with the option to export in multiple formats. Syncing across Apple devices is available through iCloud with a Pro subscription.
For users who prefer a straightforward, cloud-based solution, Google Keep offers similar simplicity with the added benefit of integration with other Google services. Bear may appeal to users who prefer a simple, distraction-free environment and don’t need complex project or task management features in their note-taking setup.
Bear offers a free plan, but to access some advanced features, you have to subscribe to Pro version that costs $2.99/month.
App Store Rating: 4.7
GoodNotes brings a notebook-style experience to your iPhone, focused on taking notes by hand. It supports both handwriting and typed input, letting you sketch, annotate PDFs and organize pages into folders or notebooks.
It’s designed for users who prefer writing things out the way they did in the past, but want the convenience of digital access. Beyond taking notes, the app also handles other things like scanning documents, inserting images and converting handwriting to text.
See also: GoodNotes vs OneNote
GoodNotes offers a free plan with up to 3 notebooks, while paid plans ($9.99/year) unlock unlimited notebooks, AI features and cross-platform access, with a 7-day free trial included.
App Store Rating: 4.8
Notability combines handwriting, typing and multimedia integration in a single note-taking app for iPhone. It supports audio recordings, PDF annotation and drawing features, making it suitable for a variety of note-taking styles.
Notes can be organized into subjects, backed up to the cloud and synced across devices through iCloud. Users who rely on handwritten input, voice notes or need to mark up documents may find its feature set especially useful.
Notability offers a free Starter plan with core features and limited edits. The Notability Plus subscription ($7.99/month) unlocks unlimited note-taking, cloud sync, handwriting conversion and advanced study tools.
App Store Rating: 4.7
Scroll through the internet and you’ll find no shortage of note-taking apps, all claiming to be your next digital brain. However, most of us download one, poke around for a week and end up back where we started.
So how do you choose an app that actually sticks?
Start by thinking about what you need your notes app to do, beyond just storing text. Here's what to consider:
See also: Best planner app for iPhone
After exploring these eight top-rated note-taking apps for iPhone, you’re probably not surprised that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Some apps shine at simple text capture, others lean into handwriting and a few, like NotePlan, try to bring everything together.
If you’re the type of person who’s juggling notes, tasks, and meetings across the week, we’d personally suggest giving NotePlan a try. It’s basically built for iPhone users who want clarity, not clutter and it’s flexible enough to support both quick ideas and detailed planning.
| App name | Key features | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
Notes, tasks & calendar Time blocking & task scheduling Markdown-based notes AI summaries & voice input Backlinks & connected notes Sync, privacy & customization Search and tag filtering Templates and reusable layouts | 7-day free trial $8.33/month | |
Apple Notes | iCloud sync and ecosystem integration Quick capture and formatting tools Media and document attachments Handwriting, drawing and audio input | Free with Apple devices |
Evernote | Notebook and tag organization Rich media capture Search across content Offline access and sync | Free plan Paid plans start at $10.93/month |
OneNote | Notebook structure and organization Free-form input options Handwriting and stylus support Collaboration and sharing | Free with Microsoft 365 subscription |
Notion | Customizable workspaces Linked databases and templates Quick capture and mobile inbox Notion AI (Pro plan) | Free plan Paid plans start at $10/month/user |
Bear | Markdown-based editor Tag-based organization Sketching and checklists Encryption and sync (Pro) | Free plan Paid plan: $2.99/month |
GoodNotes | Handwriting and typing support PDF annotation and document markup Handwriting-to-text conversion Custom templates and notebook organization | Free trial $9.99/year |
Notability | Multimodal input Audio recording with synced playback PDF annotation and markup Handwriting recognition (OCR) | Free plan Paid plans start at $7.99/month |