Maximizing Your Use of Apple Notes

Apple Notes is a versatile app that can be used for a variety of note-taking and organizing tasks. While many users may not be aware of all the features it has to offer, this guide aims to highlight some lesser-known but very useful tricks that Apple Notes can do. Although the focus is on the mobile app, most of these tips can also be applied to the desktop version of Apple Notes on macOS.

One useful feature of Apple Notes is the ability to link notes together. This can be handy if you have two separate but related notes, such as one for trip planning and another for listing sights to see. By long-pressing on the insertion point in a note and selecting Add Link, you can link to another note by typing its title and selecting it. Another option is to type >> where you want to place the link, which will display a pop-up menu of available notes for quick linking.

Another feature of Apple Notes is the ability to embed PDFs within notes, which can be read and annotated if needed. PDFs can be added from other apps like Mail by tapping on the PDF thumbnail, selecting Share, then Notes, and choosing the note to embed it in. Once a PDF is embedded in a note, you can view it in full-screen mode, change the size of the embed, share or copy it, or delete it from the note.

To bring some order to your notes, you can add lines or a grid on top of them. With a note open, tap the three dots in the top right corner and select Lines & Grids to choose a style. You can also change the default style for new notes in the iOS Settings panel. Additionally, you can customize the formatting of new notes by changing the New Notes Start With setting in the Notes section of the Settings panel.

If you need to quickly jot down something, you can create new notes from the Control Center by adding the Quick Note option to the active controls. Locked notes provide an extra layer of security for sensitive information by requiring a passcode or biometric authentication to access them. You can set a distinct passcode for locked notes or use the same authentication method as your iPhone.

Tags offer a flexible way to organize notes, allowing each note to have multiple tags for categorization. To tag a note, simply type a hashtag followed by the tag you want to use. You can search for notes based on tags and filter them based on any or all selected tags. Collaboration is another feature of Apple Notes, allowing users to share notes with others and track changes made by collaborators. Tables can also be created within notes for organizing information effectively.