Simplenote

• Free

Last verified 31 Jul 2026

4.7 4310 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Fantastic app, but confusing business model

   While the app and service are great, and I've been using them for years, mostly through nvAlt on the Mac, I just saw that the developers offer a 'sustainer' subscription. I'm completely confused since this doesn't appear to unlock anything. Not only that, the options are between crazy and completely crazy. What's going on in the world when someone asks for a $20 / month or $200 / year subscription fee? Have we all collectively lost our minds? Once again I need to bring up the poster child for reasonable software ownership cost, Affinity. Here, the universal license for all products on all platforms is $165. No, that isn't $165 per month or year, that's a one-time payment. Those apps are vastly more complex compared to a text-based note-taking app. I'm not dinging the app, mind you, since I am convinced that plain text is the way to go, but let's keep it real about the pricing and effort it took to program this please.

   Kid Rock C · 31 Jul 2026

2. 5/5Great app!

   I cannot believe how well thought out this app is! I love this app! I have TONS of post-it notes, many that are temporary, and many that I want to keep. But don’t have time to organize them into a filing system. With this app, I just save the information, and I’m done. I can find almost anything using the full-text search, and get instant results. Kudos to the developers! Thanks for such a good app! I’d gladly pay something for this app, like a voluntary donation through the app. Here are some hidden tricks that I use: To create a checkbox: Enter -[] with a space between the characters. As soon as you type additional text on that line, your three characters will be converted to a checkbox. To indent checklist items: Add additional spaces to the left of the checkbox. When you complete that item, and press the return key, the new checkbox will align with the one just above to outdent, just delete some of the spaces to the left of the checkbox. To create a bulleted list: Once you create an item starting with a bullet, and hit return, a bullet will automatically be created for the next item.

   Chazho · 31 Jul 2026

3. 5/5Absolutely simple, exactly what I need.

   I used Evernote for a few years, but it was a bit bloated and slow, and I really didn't need or want the formatted text or images that often resulted when I pasted text into my notes. Then I moved to Apple's Notes app, and for a long time, I tolerated its oddities and frustrations on my iPhone, Macs and iCloud. Duplicated notes and syncing issues were annoying and rampant. But when Apple removed the ability to sort notes alphabetically on iOS, I had had enough. My search for an alternative led me to Simplenote about a year ago, and I've never looked back. It's exactly what I need, and has the added benefit of having a Windows app too. Intuitive interface, built-in versioning, and solid as a rock. It still makes me happy every one of the 100+ times a day I use it to quickly jot down a shopping list, recipe, to do, movie to watch, book to read, or random thought. I don't think I've ever loved an app so much. And through Simplenote, I also discovered Simperium. :)

   katdev · 31 Jul 2026

4. 5/5Can rest easy.

   I was depressed once, and I kept some notes in the notes app that comes on the iPhone. I talked about how I was feeling, what I was thinking, as well specific events that happened. These notes were very valuable to me as they detailed my experience. I wanted to save them and be able to look back later in my life and review/ analyze what I had written during that difficult time. But one day, while trying to access my notes I discovered, to my horror, that the notes had disappeared! I still don’t know what happened and have found no way to retrieve them. They are lost. Valuable details and memories I can’t get back. I looked around for a new note app that would guarantee the safety of my precious notes. I found that app in Simplenote! My private notes are fingerprint and password protected. They are backed up and can be accessed from any of my devices! I love it! The app has a cool feature that saves not just the current note, but also the original version of the note and all versions following! I feel assured knowing my notes are safe with simplenote!

   curdycoccopuffs · 31 Jul 2026

5. 5/5The best app on my phone

   This is literally the best app on my phone. That is saying a lot, but this app just gets me. It is just so common sense with its functionality and lack of stupid extra bs, and it just works the way it's supposed to. It's free, your notes are safely stored including old versions of notes saved, and it syncs between devices. There's a version for every os including desktop os's. It's got some other useful functions I don't use like the ability to share a note with collaborators and writing in markup or something, but I can't comment on them because I haven't used them. I bet they work great though. This is probably the least buggy app I've ever used too. It's lack of stupid extra bs means it just works right. Download it right now. It's a strict upgrade from your dumb default notes app, there are no downsides to replacing it with this. The simple fact that if you ever accidentally delete a note you can just look at the saved history version is all the reason you need, and is the reason I sought this app out in the first place. Just DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!

   Floipoid · 31 Jul 2026

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