Goodnotes has always been the place to capture your ideas — from quick notes to big plans. Now, it goes even further.
With powerful AI and flexible tools built for your Mac workflow, Goodnotes helps you connect the dots, unlock insights, and turn ideas into action.
*Goodnotes 5 users can continue using it indefinitely or upgrade to the new Goodnotes. Either way, your notes are safe and fully accessible on Mac.*
For professionals: Supercharge your productivity on Mac
■ Text Documents + AI: Create intelligent documents that think with you. On Mac, enjoy a superior typing experience with inline blocks and flexible layouts that make the most of your screen. AI-powered summarization, automated note generation, and transcription support help turn rough notes and meetings into polished and shareable content.
■ Whiteboard + Goodnotes AI: One of our most requested features is here. Brainstorm, diagram, and mind-map freely on a spacious, infinite canvas that grows with your thinking. Perfect for larger screens and multitasking on Mac. Enhanced diagramming tools and real-time collaboration let teams workshop and problem-solve together, while Goodnotes AI helps capture and organize ideas instantly.
■ AI Audio & Meetings: Stay focused in your meetings while Goodnotes on Mac works behind the scenes. AI-powered transcription and summarization tools record your conversations and structure them into clear meeting notes, ideal for remote work and hybrid teams. Merge transcripts with your own notes to create polished, shareable documents in seconds.
■ Present directly from your Mac via AirPlay or HDMI to an external screen — no need for third-party tools.
■ Use Laser Pointer to guide your audience during virtual or in-person presentations.
■ Export your notes easily via email, print, or as PDFs.
■ Share notebooks via link for collaborative editing — perfect for async work or team brainstorming.
■ Import documents quickly by emailing them to your Goodnotes address — available on all devices, including Mac.
For students: Study smarter, wherever you are
■ Record audio notes that sync with your writing, perfect for lectures.
■ Instantly search across all your notes with Mac’s powerful tools.
■ Study Sets turn your notes into flashcards using active recall and spaced repetition.
■ Use AI to summarize, rewrite, or edit your notes with tone suggestions and corrections.
For planners & creators: Organize with freedom
■ Customize paper size, templates, and colors to match your workflow.
■ Add or design stickers, stamps, washi tapes, images, and more to make your workspace yours.
Digital notebooks on Mac: All-in-one workspace
■ Combine handwriting and typing on a single page, ideal for hybrid note-taking.
■ Choose from customizable templates like Blank Paper, Ruled Paper, Cornell, Checklists, Planners, and more.
■ Navigate long documents easily with outlines or imported PDF tables of contents.
■ Sync seamlessly across Mac, iPad, and iPhone with iCloud.
■ Back up everything to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
■ Edit handwriting with your mouse or trackpad — resize, recolor, or reposition effortlessly.
Privacy Policy: https://www.goodnotes.com/privacy-policy
Terms and Conditions: https://www.goodnotes.com/terms-and-conditions
This digital notepad and PDF markup tool covers all the bases. Create notes with your keyboard or Apple Pencil: the app transforms your hand-drawn shapes into perfect ones, and can even convert your handwriting to text.
It's amazing on the Ipad but Awful on Macbook
Dafiee
it works wonderfully on the ipad, and its really easy to read and write and take notes on there! The select function makes life easy when you need to move things around and there are diffrent options for highlighter colours and pen styles. writing is really easy and it doesnt cram the hand because you dont have to use as much pressure. Without a pressure sensitive pencil you wont be able to get bold, curvy lines like seen in the photo though. Reading textbooks is a breeze, and you can zoom in and write in a note on a diagram which is amazing. BUT!! on the Macbook its soooo annoying. it literally is so frustating it constantly is freezing, and its difficult to get the text box where i need it. the highlighting function on the macbook is useless i cant move my mouse in a straight line and it would be better if we could highlight with a text cursor, and you can kind of, but its impossible to select what your trying to highlight! another annoying thing is the side bar it can be removed but its annoying to add and remove or edit pages on here when on the mac, not on ipad. And the top bar with all the functions such as highlight text always goes into hiding and you constantly need to press the down key for it to pop out again. Its really great on the ipad, but if your buying it for macbook its a waste of money, pages would work better.
Best handwriting note app I have used
Horizon Archaeology
I started using an ipad full time in 2017 for fieldwork - once the Apple Notes app acquired a scaleable ruler with degrees readout. By then I had already played with quite a few different note taking apps, some free, some paid for, before I settled on one (not Goodnotes).Spring forward to 2019 and I had started noticing that the app I was using was becomoing more and more glitchy over time and was not seemingly able to keep up with the evolution of IOS. I even (gasp...) lost some data now and again - though not too much. I started doing some research again on what note taking apps were best to use. I finally chose Goodnotes 5 and have been exceptionally happy I did.After using it over winter here are some of the reasons why I have recommended it to both my son for university and coworkers...1) Stability. So far Goodnotes 5 has been rock-solid in my use. It has never ever crashed and I have never ever lost data (knock on wood). It also does not glitch when auto saving like other programs.2) Ability to open multiple tabs. When I am doing fieldwork I have multiple places where I have to enter data. This is a trivial thing to accomplish in a paper field note book with tabs... but not so easy with a tablet. Goodnotes 5 handles multiple tabs seamlessly and elegantly.3) PDF Handling. It works really well handling PDFs - especially when incorporating an existing PDF into an existing document. One can selecta PDF and open as a stand alone document, or elect to havwe it append to the next page of whichever Goodnotes document you have open. This is a great boon, especially for processing and collating the mountains of health and safety paperwork we have to deal with these days...4) Easy incorporation of images into the notebook. Many programs do this ok, and Good notes also does it just fine as well.5) The goldilocks level of writing options. The program I went to has a wonderful plethora of pen nib options and is quite lovely to work with and use - except for the crashing part. Goodnotes has a more limited colour palatte, but it is easy to use, and facilitates quick switching between nib types and colours. This is abotu as close as you can get to wrting on paper wiht one of those Bic multi colour selection pens.6) Just an overall level of clean, simple, elegant UI that is easy to navigate and understand. It shows that the Goodnotes team has definitley tried to meld the best of paper and tablet together to make a solid, ease to use product. It does not have the immediacy of pencil and paper, but it is as close as I have seen so far, whilst also leveraging the power of a tablet.
It's my top 3 most used app
Happy Savage
My life is in there. Literally. All my notes, journalling, workbooks, business plan, meal plans... it's all stored and accessible thought good notes.I don't even like writing on paper anymore. I can carry everything I need in one app and access it on any of my devices. Love it.
* Introduced Quick Diagramming. Tap any edge dot on a selected shape to instantly create a connected node and build flowcharts without switching tools.
* Connectors now automatically switch to a cleaner route when shapes are repositioned. Added the ability to add and remove control points on Connector paths for more precise editing.
* Added keyboard shortcuts for Text Document, including inline code, subscript, superscript, block quote, bulleted and numbered lists, to-do/checklist, add comment, paste without formatting, and table cell navigation.
* Fixed several visual polish issues across dialogs, coachmarks, and Search empty states under Liquid Glass.
* Fixed an issue where certain Vietnamese characters didn't display correctly when previewing files to import.
* Restored "More from Templates" in the Add Page menu for Education users.
* Education: Fixed the Ask Classroom button text being truncated, and the Search result bar moving from the bottom of the screen in Teaching mode.
* Fixed a visual glitch where shrinking a shape containing text could leave ghosting on the canvas.
* Fixed an issue where the Lasso object menu could stop appearing after using circle-to-lasso.
* Fixed an issue where the Laser tool could get stuck.
* Fixed an issue where accepting an org invite while already a member could show a misleading error.
* General bug fixes and stability improvements.
Version 7.1.12
The developer, Goodnotes Limited, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Used to Track You
The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:
Identifiers
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Identifiers
Usage Data
Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More