Note-taking apps for students: how to pick one that helps you learn

If you take notes on a laptop or tablet, the choice of app matters less than how you use it, but the apps do differ in ways that suit some students better than others. Here are the main choices: whether to type or write by hand, which apps lean which way, what students can get free, and the habits that make any app worth using.

Typing or handwriting

Start with the biggest question, because it narrows the field. The case for handwriting comes from a 2014 study by the psychologists Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer. Students who typed their notes on laptops wrote more words and copied more of the lecture word for word, and they did worse on conceptual questions than students who wrote by hand, though both groups did equally well on questions of fact. Cornell University’s Learning Strategies Center still teaches that handwriting is more effective than typing, and that the physical act of writing helps you remember.

The picture is less settled than that. In 2021 a team led by Heather Urry repeated the main experiment with 142 students. The laptop users again wrote more and copied more word for word, but their quiz scores were no different from those of the students writing by hand, and a combined look at eight similar studies found the same. Two patterns held in both studies: students who wrote more did better, and copying the lecture word for word went with worse scores, though that second finding was weaker in the repeat.

So the method matters more than the medium. Whether you type or write, put ideas in your own words instead of taking dictation. A tablet with a stylus gives you handwriting and digital storage at the same time, and typed notes are easier to search and rearrange, so the apps below cover both: some are built for a stylus, some for the keyboard, and one does both well.

Apps built for handwriting

Goodnotes and Notability are built around writing with a stylus on a tablet. Goodnotes is designed so you can rest your hand on the screen, cross out words to erase them and convert handwriting to typed text. It also lets you mark up PDFs, such as lecture slides or readings, record and transcribe audio, and pick up a notebook on your phone or laptop after starting it on a tablet. Cornell’s study tutors name it among the low-cost apps they like.

Notability combines handwritten notes with live audio transcription, so a recording of the lecture sits alongside what you wrote. It also uses AI to generate practice quizzes and flashcards from your own notes. It is free to download on iOS, Android and the web.

Microsoft OneNote handles both styles. You can type, or use digital ink with a finger or stylus to write and sketch diagrams, then convert the ink to text. You can also record audio notes and drop in pictures and video.

Apps built for organizing

Notion is less a notebook than a flexible workspace. Students use it to build their own study planners, track deadlines with Notion Calendar and share pages with classmates for group projects; it also has templates for things like job applications. It suits students who like to design their own system and keep notes, tasks and plans in one place.

Evernote is built around capturing things and finding them later. Its web clipper saves pages you find online with a click, it can scan paper documents, and it has search, tasks and a calendar built in. Its free plan is limited to 50 notes and one notebook, synced on one device.

Obsidian takes a different approach. It stores your notes on your own device as plain-text Markdown files, an open format, so your notes are never locked inside one company’s app. Its strength is linking: you can connect notes to each other and build up a personal web of ideas over a degree. It is free without limits and needs no sign-up, with thousands of plugins to change how it works. Syncing between devices is an optional paid service.

If you use a Mac, Apple Notes is worth a look before you install anything else. On a Mac it can record audio inside a note and produce a live transcript you can search later, work out math as soon as you type an equals sign, hold PDFs and scanned documents, and organize notes with tags.

What students can get free

Check what your school already provides before paying for anything. Students and educators with a valid school email address can get Office 365 Education free, which includes OneNote. Notion makes its Plus plan free for individual students and educators who sign up with a school email, and thousands of school email domains qualify, not only .edu addresses. Obsidian costs nothing to use, and its makers offer students a 40% discount on their paid sync and publishing services.

Habits matter more than the app

Whatever you choose, the way you take notes decides how much you learn. Cornell’s center teaches the Cornell note-taking system, developed by the Cornell education professor Walter Pauk, and encourages students to try different methods to see which work best for them.

Its advice on digital reading applies to digital notes too. Active use of mark-up tools, such as highlighting, annotating and making notes as you read, is associated with higher grades. Highlighting without really paying attention is linked to lower grades, because it leaves students thinking they know more than they do. Do your reading and note-taking on a laptop or tablet rather than a phone: many tools work badly on small screens, and students remember more of what they read on a large screen.

Finally, pick one app and stay with it for at least a semester. Notes spread across three apps are hard to find when exams come, and the best system is the one you actually use every day.