Apple Notes for Mac: Beginner User Guide

We have covered Apple Notes on the iPad and iPhone and to help you really master the app, we’re now covering it on the Mac as well. This is my go-to note-taking app as of June 2024, and I use it on all three devices.

Orientation

Like on the iPad, the homepage and workspace in Apple Notes on the Mac are the same page. You have your three columns: for folders, notebooks, and notes. The folders and notebook columns are resizeable (put cursor on the demarcation line between two columns, then drag to adjust). When you tap a folder, the notebooks it contains show up in the notebooks column in front of the folders column. To open and see the notes, tap on them, and they will appear in the notes section. This is where you write and edit your notes in Apple Notes. Tapping the sidebar icon (top left corner above the first column) toggles your folders column.

You might also want to get rid of the notebook column. To do that, simply double-tap the notebook you want to open it. The only downside to doing this, is that you won’t have access to your folders anymore. So you will be forced to close the app and reopen it. Another way is to change the this list view of your notebooks to a thumbnail one (thumbnail icon). In the thumbnail view, any document you open (double-click) will not have the sidebar. You can easily go back to the notebooks in your folder. For each notebook you open, you have a toolbar at the top with all the different features for taking notes in the app.

Folders

You can save your folders in Apple Notes in two main locations: iCloud or On My Mac. This MacBook currently doesn’t have a local folder, so let’s add one. Go to the menu bar, Notes, then Settings. Tick Enable the On My Mac account. Now that folder is there in my folders column. All the folders (and their notebooks) in iCloud sync across all your Apple devices that are using the same Apple ID. I have all these notes on my iPad. You can, therefore, see the notes on your iPhone and iPad as well. Notes under On My Mac are local; they don’t sync across devices. It is great for notes you want to keep on a single device.

Before you can take notes, you must first create folders for your notebooks. Go to New Folder (bottom left corner), name your folder and save (tap OK). The app has added it to the iCloud account because I already had a folder selected in that location. When I select a folder On My Mac, the new folder I create automatically goes there.

New Notes

Creating a new notebook in Apple Notes on the Mac is quite simple. Click the new note icon, or simply press command N on your keyboard. The first few words you type automatically become your notebook title. Typing is the only thing that makes sense on the Mac, and so naturally that’s what we’ll focus on first. As you can see, this text is very tiny so the first thing you might want to do is to increase the font size. After selecting all text (Command A), you can then increase the font (Command +). Another way to do it is by going to Format on the menu bar > Font > Bigger. To decrease the font, use Command – or Format > Font > Smaller. You obviously don’t want to do this with every notebook you create, so it helps to set a default font size for all your notebooks (Notes > Settings > Default text size). So, you have five default font size options for your text in Apple Notes.

Titles and headings

The Aa icon can add structure to your notes. Place your cursor on a paragraph, go to the Aa icon to change it into a Title (Shift+Command+T). Both of these are title, but they look a bit different. It’s probably a bug in my beta macOS Sequoia that is doing this. To make the top one bold, I just have to repeat my format. You can also make headings Heading (Shift+Command+H), or Subheading (Shift+Command+J). You can change them back to Body (Shift+Command+B), or convert the paragraph to Monostyled  (Shift+Command+M). Whether you place a cursor or select a few words, all the options we’ve covered so far change the whole paragraph. So you can save yourself some time by not selecting anything.

Collapsible sections

In macOS Sequoia, titles, headings, and subheadings create collapsible sections in your notes. An arrow appears at the beginning of your title to indicate that you can collapse it (by clicking it). These sections can be nested, meaning they can go or be collapsed inside of each other. In these notes, Organisation is a title, so it collapses everything under it before the next title, which is Adding a title. Titles can collapse everything below them, except other titles. That is why the second title (which only has headings and subheadings) collapses all the notes. When I expand (click arrow) it, you notice that we have a heading below it. Clicking the arrow on the heading collapses everything below it, until the next heading. Logically, headings can collapse subheadings. Then you can also collapse subheadings. If you notice, the levels of the collapsible sections are easier to see just by looking at the font size of each. You have your titles, headings, and subheadings.

Formatting Notes

You can format your text in Apple Notes. To get started, select the text you want to format, go to the Aa icon and make it bold (Command B). You can also make it italic (Command I) , underline (Command U),  or strikeout. Strikeout does not have a keyboard shortcut.

Fonts and Colours

Apple Notes on the Mac also lets you change your font colour. Select your text, go to Format on the menu bar, Font, and then Show Colours (Shift+Command+C). You can also change your font (Format > Font > Show Fonts). The keyboard shortcut is Command T. You can then choose the Font, Style, and Size. Font and Colour options don’t disappear until you have closed them. So you can use them multiple times at once. The iPad and iPhone versions of Apple Notes don’t have font and colour options. But these changes do reflect on these devices when you do them on the Mac. It could be a decent workaround if you want some colour in your notes.

Highlight

Lastly, you can highlight your notes. After selecting some notes, go to the Aa icon and tap the pen icon to use the already selected colour ((Shift+Command+E). To change the highlight colour, go to the dot icon instead (after the pen icon). You have five colours for your highlighter in Apple Notes: Purple, Pink, Orange, Mint, and Blue. The highlighter also changes your font colour.