Microsoft OneNote
1150 likes
Comprehensive digital notebook offering organizers, shared notes, multi-device syncing, and optical character recognition, plus cloud-based data management for efficient information handling and accessibility.
Cost / License
- Freemium (Subscription)
- Proprietary
Application typeApplication types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Online
- Android
- iPhone
- Chrome OS
- Windows Phone
- iPad
- Apple Watch
- Android Wear
- Kindle Fire
Features
Highlights All activities
Microsoft OneNote News & Activities
Recent News
- Paul published news article about Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Mauricio B. Holguin published news article about Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Mauricio B. Holguin published news article about Microsoft 365 Copilot
Recent activities
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ICI added Microsoft OneNote as alternative to Mementa Notebook
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Project59 added Microsoft OneNote as alternative to Mintype
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MARCUS LARSEN added Microsoft OneNote as alternative to Cria Planner
Rodrigo García added Microsoft OneNote as alternative to Tisty
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Official Links
Install from the command line
brew install --cask microsoft-onenote
Developed by
Microsoft Licensing
Proprietary and Freemium product.Pricing
Subscription ranging between $30 and $50 per month + free version with limited functionality.Rating
Average rating of 3.2Alternatives
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AlternativeTo Categories
Office & Productivity, Photos & Graphics, Remote Work & Education, Audio & Music, Backup & SyncApple AppStore
- Updated
- 4.71 avg rating
Comments and Reviews
Doesn't matter if you use any of these which I also have extensively used for years / tested almost every workflow and extension you can think of related to onenote / its competitors:
OneNote has an evolved form of the native windows
Snipping Tool which is by far its best feature and the reason you should use onenote, even if you don't use it at all
Pressing WIN + S key to screenshot something natively in a windows PC is only achievable by onenote. I use it almost everyday. Nothing remotely comes close to its sheer simplicity and function
Pairs really well with other apps that I use like (which are my picks for best-in-class) as well
very handy for making crappy-but-effective UX doodles / diagrams so I can draft proposals in no time at all
[Edited by Kagerjay, July 07]
[Edited by Kagerjay, July 07]
[Edited by Kagerjay, July 07]
Sunset – better stop using it now!
Microsoft has announced that OneNote is no longer going to be part of Office 2019, so OneNote 2016 will be the last ever version. It's going to be supported until 2020, then it's over. One of many sources: RCP Mag
What Microsoft wants you to use instead is the UWP/Windows 10 version of the OneNote app. Of course, as everyone who has ever tried using it knows, that little app is barely a replacement for the powerful note-taking application that is/was OneNote. Like almost every UWP app, it's a glorified little phone toy that doesn't hold up to actual work requirements at all.
To understand that, you don't need to know anything beyond the fact that the OneNote app, the official successor of OneNote 2016, still doesn't, and probably never will, support offline notebooks. That's right, it's 100% cloud or go home. No more local backups, no more being in control of your own data, no more deciding yourself if, how, and where to store and sync your information. If you're okay with that, you might as well switch to using Facebook Notes.
R.I.P. Microsoft OneNote, 2003–2020. You were pretty decent.
Office OneNote is indeed a mile better. Usability is far ahead of UWP version - better ribbon, iconset, sections as tabs, colorized pages sidebar, better main color, offline notebooks. backups, export etc etc. UWP has quite depressive dark violet color. It's pretty sad. Instead of spending those years to improve Office OneNote, they are wasting it on reinventing the wheel doing it far worse than before. And OneNote does need improvements. At least format text as code with syntax highlight.
Update: Late in 2019, Microsoft seem to have changed their mind and started to update the desktop version of OneNote again.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/4/20947729/microsoft-onenote-2016-desktop-app-dark-mode-support-download
They're not explicitly admitting that they're changing course from what they announced in 2018, but it certainly is unexpected news considering that they were very clear about the future of OneNote being strictly in the cloud (I even remember an official Microsoft statement about the concern that this makes OneNote incompatible with the requirements of certain corporate environments, which pretty directly stated something like: "We understand, but tough luck.")
I'm not considering moving back just yet. Ill-considered quick-fire announcements like that have an effect, one of them being that people start looking for alternatives. I suspect I'm not the only one who has set up a new workflow for note-keeping in the meantime.
Thanks for the detals mate, I was having issues moving notes around. But seeing this thing now, it's concrete move for me and it felt great to have similar functionalities to Google Notes and Zoho Notes for whoever remembers those sweet antics of the past. Alas, this one takes the same route, quite unfortunate. I was bewildred how MS were able to actually come-up with something useful for once, and here we go it'll be gone, cause screw UX xD
Sync issues between devices. An old nightmare..
Microsoft and Google never make lightweight apps.
Exporting the page is useless because it doesn't form most of the images. It's not possible to simply move an image-heavy page to another app's format. This inconvenience hasn't improved in over a decade.
I took it for granted that Online OneNote would allow me to export to the MHT extension, so I synced a few pages as an experiment. Funnily enough, Online OneNote doesn't have an export feature, which seems to be their intention to lock you into the OneNote experience.
I will never use OneNote again.
I am aware of other alternatives for note-taking, like the Open Source app Joplin. But there are limitations that hold me back. For example, with Joplin it is brilliant if you're happy with using Markdown, but OneNote gives me a canvas to work with and is cross-platform so I can use my stylus to take handwritten notes on the Galaxy Tab, then add more bits to the same notes from my desktop (e.g. screenshots).
Other apps, I have considered:
OneNote has grown a lot and it is pretty amazing with what you can do with it. This is basically a daily driver for me, when I use it for learning or for work.
Combined with Teams, ClipClip, and draw.io, it's a powerful suite of productivity.
Unfortunately, it doesn't get 5-stars? Why? Because Microsoft has been pushing heavily on the UWP/Store version on Windows, which is not as powerful as the original. They've also done something to the macOS app, which is much more limited than the Windows version.
Owned by ((Microsoft)) Stay away from it.
Mac version is terrible...