Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup

• Noteful Pro, Lifetime — $6.99

Last verified 30 Aug 2026

4.8 23114 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Blown away

   I ran across Noteful by accident during recent pandemonium around GoodNotes/Notability updates that people hated. To be fair, I didn’t really hate either of those updates I didn’t really get the panic, y’all act like the sky is falling because a toolbar was improved, but still, it made me curious when I saw many really positive reactions to Noteful. I was curious enough to investigate, and I’m glad I did!! There are certain little annoyances that almost any app has and the same was true of GN/NB, both of which I went back and forth but never truly loved (actually Zinnia was in that loop for me). Incredibly, Noteful checks all the boxes and adds stuff I wouldn’t have thought of!! I actually love it beyond any of the others I used and that’s saying a lot because I love my journaling enough to pretend I love my notes app no matter how annoying it is but in retrospect overlooking minor inconveniences is not the same as loving an app and guess what? I deserve to love my notes app in addition to, not in spite of, my journals. I would almost take a star off for not being able to create links but, meh. They need to add that though, it’s a huge and as far as I can see the only glaring thing missing. Oh and actually I would like to adjust the shape outline and fill color/transparency separately. That’s all!!

   Mystic Mikester · 30 Aug 2026

2. 4/5It’s alright.

   I love using the app as a person who enjoys being creative in diaries and my note taking. Screenshots and pictures of diagrams/tables can be added to my notes and written over, the ability to move around and resize blobs of text, and the drastically reduced hand numbness from writing tons of notes on paper have really benefited me in my learning and hobbies. But I have a complaint. Recently, when i write, my text boxes glitch. Naturally, your sentences lengthen the box sideways when you write without manually resizing the text box. Usually, you’re gonna resize the box eventually because if you dont the text spills off the page eternally. But when you resize the box to fix this in any way, the words overlap terribly and become unreadable. Then, after i click off the box to fix its appearance the sentence or small paragraph I just wrote disappears. It’s really annoying that I have to actively stick to a strategy of pre-sizing and clicking out after every sentence just to avoid losing noticeable progress on writing. You can search through typed text and add tags to pages to help you sort them/get an idea of where to look for what. You can’t search through your handwriting, so my strategy is to type titles, definitions, and headers at least. The app is good enough as a free tool to use, but this recent bug is really on my nerves. And after reading a recent review about potentially losing all my information i am a little more dissatisfied than I was originally. So now I’ll be backing my pdf’s up to something like google drive and probably investigating app alternatives in my spare time 😬

   spacebrownies · 30 Aug 2026

3. 5/5I loved this app already…New update just made at countless times better!

   Noteful is already one of the most used apps on my ipad. It is a easy to learn program (coming from someone who is quite stupid and is very particular about app UI’s.) It is countless times easier to get used to than the other app I’ve tried. On too of that, I honestly felt discusted at how bad other apps were, especially for their pricing. This is a VERY cheap app (I think I payed $10 dollars) for all of the features you’re getting AND OH MY GOD IT ISNT ANOTHER SUBSCRIPTION! Everything is very customizable and is easy to move around to your needs, from the orientation of tools and notebook tabs, how you organize your notes and see them, and even the tools you use, which they have a ton of! Moving around pages within notebooks is really easy (this is a feature I use a ton) and exporting pages to print when needed is quite easy. I’m barely scratching the surface on features here. If you needed any sign or suggestion on a notetaking app, take it from here! I would honestly suggest this too almost everyone. The only downsides I can mention are the no synching with other devices (which isnt an issue for me personally) and no handwriting recognition. It does have a text searching option. (Text boxes are kinda finicky. With persistence, they’re fine but not for large chunks of notes) I just opened the app today, and I didn’t even know a new update was coming! It’s so good, and sold me on this app even more. I cant say enough good things about it. Please just go try it out, for your own sake. EDIT: YOU CAN ACCESS EVERYTHING FROM YOUR PHONE NOW! NOT SURE ABOUT MACBOOKS BUT AT LEAST PHONES! UGH THIS APP KEEPS GETTING BETTER

   AwkwardBasil · 30 Aug 2026

4. 5/5switching to Noteful, with LAYERS 😃

   I'm in the process of switching my notes into Noteful from Notability. I also tried Goodnotes which I disliked, and a couple of others. In this app, Noteful, finally I have LAYERS 😂😍😌!!! Also, you can have different papers for different pages in the same note. I just finished a note with three different papers, including one page with lines, and several pages with different colors. I also love the Folders. What they call "Notebooks" I call "Notes" (but can be either). I keep things organized in "Folders" and connect various things across Folders by using "Tags." Very cool. I also really have a lotta fun with the icons. I've been picking different icons for my folders, and then choosing colors for them!!! Love doing that 😍 One complaint though.......... Unfortunately there's a layer locking problem, but hopefully they will change this soon. For example, if I want to change the color of something on Layer 7, they make me stop what I'm working on, and go to all the *other* layers, and LOCK them, BEFORE I go back to Layer 7 and continue working. If I don't do that, the options for changing the color, etc., aren't available. (Even the tutorial makes you do this.) Having used Layers for years in Procreate (as well as Photoshop and Painter), I can't believe that such a weird requirement is intended. Must be a mistake. I look forward to an update that corrects this.

   Blue Pine · 30 Aug 2026

5. 5/5Love This App

   I have been using Noteful on my IPad since August this year, I wanted to give a really good honest review about this app. This app is really good at keeping you organized and being a stay at home mom and also homeschooling my kids I needed an app that would keep me organized and on top of my day to day life. I found this app through Happy Downloads in August this year and looking for apps that fit my purpose isn’t easy and I wanted to be completely digital this year. With Happy downloads and her planning and hyper links which work well with this app I was able to keep my kids grades organized as well as plan my day to day life easily. And after using the free part for a few days I bought into it and have used it since. I can upload my own planner and homeschool planner on it and being a avid book nerd as well I have my book journaling too on here as well as a scrap book and regular journal so I used a lot from Happy Downloads and this app together and my day to day has been easy going and well maintained I highly recommend this app to anyone who struggles with organizing and staying on top of everything but likes to use their phone or IPad you click into the app and you can organize your day to day swiftly and set up journals however you want with their pre planners and or notebooks and adding stickers is super easy if you want to make it cute while organizing. So this app is awesome and easy to use don’t miss out.

   Shea29Ashley · 30 Aug 2026

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