Apple Notes User Guide for Beginners (Mac)

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.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence works offline, on your device. However, it is not available for everyone.

Proofreading

When you have written your notes, Apple Intelligence can help you proofread them. You can do this for the whole notebook at once, but I prefer to do it in smaller chunks; a paragraph at a time. Select your text and an AI icon should appear on the left side of your selection. If it doesn’t appear, or takes too long, bring up the right-click popup menu and go to Writing Tools, then Proofread. Apple Intelligence will tell you the number of changes it has made, and they will be underlined in your notes. Tapping a correction will give you a quick explanation of why it was changed. Tap Done to accept, save the changes, and close the AI proofreader.

Let us try this for a longer paragraph. If you don’t agree with the change, you can undo it (undo icon on the right corner of the popup). You can also toggle back to see the original text, without discarding the suggestions the AI has made. Revert removes all the changes and exits the AI. The arrows on the AI toolbar let you navigate through each suggestion, one-by-one. Tap Done when you’re satisfied with the suggestions.

Rewriting

Apple Intelligence also helps you rewrite your work in three different tones: Friendly, Professional, and Concise. For your rewritten work, you can toggle the original (arrow icon next to Revert),  or you can rewrite (rewrite icon next to the Done button).

Summarising

You can also summarise the notes in different styles. The first one is simple, in prose. Key Points gives you a summary that is bulleted with the main points from your notes. List converts your notes into bullet points, and Table converts them into a table. For the first two summaries, Summary and Key Points, the app doesn’t automatically replace your notes. It lets you choose to Replace or not. You can also Copy your notes for pasting them where you want.

Lists

Unnumbered

Apple Notes supports numbered and unnumbered lists. You can convert a paragraph to a list (place cursor > Aa icon > Bulleted List). Shift + Command + 7 is the fastest way to do it on the Mac. You can also just create a new list from scratch. The tab key on the keyboard indents your lists to add levels to them. Your bullet type changes with every level you add to your notes up to nine levels on the Mac. Then they start repeating on your tenth level.

Numbered

You can convert unnumbered lists to numbered and vice versa. Select your notes, go to the Aa icon and choose Numbered List. These have one type of numbering that doesn’t change with levels. Shift + Command + 9 is the fastest way to create a numbered list on the Mac.

Dashed

Dashed lists are great for taking notes. Shift + Command + 8 converts a paragraph or other list into a dashed one. You can also go to the Aa icon, and choose Dashed List. The dash bullet doesn’t change with levels, like with your numbered lists. tab is for indenting, to outdent, use Shift-Tab. But, when there are no bullets, use delete instead. The long way to indent is going to Format (menu bar), then Indentation and finally Increase or Decrease.

Checklists

Interactive checklists add simple to-dos to your notes. Place your cursor on a paragraph you want to change and then go to the checklist icon on the top toolbar. Shift-Command-L is the fastest way to create one. Like your numbered lists, levels (tab key) don’t change the checkbox type. As you check off completed tasks, they move to the bottom. You can turn off this animation by going to Notes (menu bar), Settings, then tick Automatically sort checked items. When you untick this, your checked items remain where they are. I like the animation, so I’ll just go ahead and put it back.

Quotes

macOS Sequoia supports quotes in Apple Notes. Place your cursor, go to the Aa icon, and then Block Quote. Command-Apostrophe is the fastest way to add a quote to your notes.

Tables

To add a table in Apple Notes, go to the table icon on the top toolbar. Option + Command + T is the fastest way to do it. The app creates a 2×2 table that you can add more rows (three-dots icons > down-facing arrow > Add Row Above/Below) and columns (three-dots icons > down-facing arrow > Add Column Before/After) to. You can check out the different shortcuts for this on our website. The shortcuts for that are as follows:

• Row above: Option-Command-up arrow
• Row below: Option-Command-down arrow
• Column before: Option-Command-left arrow
• Column after: Option-Command-right arrow

When filling your table, the tab key will move your cursor from one cell to another on the same row. The return key will move you from one cell to another in the same column. You can select rows and columns for formatting, like you do with text. It’s faster to place your cursor in any cell in your table and then go to the three-dots icon if you want to select a whole row/column.

To select multiple rows/columns, drag one of the yellow dots on the selection. You can pick up rows and columns to rearrange them. Just make sure that you have selected the whole row/column. You can also delete rows and columns (select > Delete Row/Column). Lastly, when you’re editing your table (that is if a cursor is active in a cell), you can convert it to text (table icon > Convert to Text). To bring back the table, simply click the table icon. The app deletes your tables in two steps where it first deletes all your content in it (select everything and press the delete key) then the table (press delete key again).

Photos and videos

The fastest way to add photos to your notes on the Mac is to drag and drop them where you want. This works for any attachment, not just images. The photos icon on the main toolbar also lets you add photos from the Photos app. Choose the photos you want to add and go to Add (bottom right corner). The app adds full-size images that you might want to resize. Right-click the image to bring up a popup menu, then go to View As and choose Small. The small size is very tiny, though. 

Another way to add photos to Apple Notes on the Mac is using your iPad or iPhone camera. Go to the photo icon on the toolbar, and you can see that my 12.9-inch iPad is close to my Mac with a few options. We want to take a photo (Take Photo), then go to the iPad or iPhone and Use Photo. Here, it got added to the bottom of the notes. To move it up, grab the image and use the cursor to direct where you put it. 

Right-clicking your image brings up a popup menu that lets you Cut, Copy, Paste, and Share your image. But we are more interested in the interaction you can have with your photos in Apple Notes. You can rename the photo (Rename Attachment > Save). A quick preview (Quick Look Attachment) opens a preview of your image with features to share (export icon) or use Live Text (live text icon, bottom right corner) for interacting with the text in your image. Open Attachment opens the image in a full Markup window, away from Apple Notes. As you can see, all your photos in Apple Notes go above or below your body text. They don’t mix at all with your body text. And their size options are not very practical either. 

Apple Notes can also add videos to your notes. Under the photos icon, go to Attach File and choose the video you want. Unlike your photos, the right-click popup menu doesn’t have the option to resize your video. You can play the video in full screen, rewind or fast-forward 15 seconds, and adjust the Playback Speed (under the two-forward arrows). You can stop your video to extract any text or handwriting from the screen using Live Text. We will cover Live Text in a separate video. Live Text also works even when you’re not in full-screen mode.

Audio Recording

The audio-wave icon on the main toolbar lets you record audio in Apple Notes. You can resize the audio recording window. Tap the record icon at the bottom of the screen to start recording. To pause recording, tap the pause icon. Apple Notes transcribes your audio in real time when you turn on the option (speech-bubble icon). 

The three-dots icon (top right corner) lets you Rename your recording. You can also add the transcript to your notes (three-dots icon > Add Transcript to Note), below your recording. Once in your notes, you can edit the transcription if there are any errors. Back to the three-dots icon, Copy Transcript copies it to paste it anywhere you like. You can search the transcript (Find in transcript…). 

Save Attachment lets you save the recording on your Mac. You can also Share the audio recording or Delete it. Summary uses Apple Intelligence to summarise your transcript and you can share (export icon) or copy (copy icon). When listening to your audio recording, tapping any part of the transcript skips to that part in your audio. Apple Notes syncs the audio playback to the transcription. The app has 15 second rewind and fast-forward options. Tape Done to save your audio and exit the recording window. 

When you don’t turn on live audio transcription, your three-dots icon only give you the option to Rename your recording. But the transcription is available for your recording and you can see it. Double-tapping your audio recording opens up the recording sidebar and with your transcription. You can now interact with it as you would the audio recording you transcribed in real time. The right-click popup menu is similar to the one you get for your photos. But, the quick preview (Quick Look Attachment) and open (Open Attachment) options will use different apps than that for images. 

Handwritten Notes

You can add handwritten notes to your Apple Notes using an iPad. Under the photo icon, go to Add sketch. A blank page appears on your iPad, where you can handwrite using your Apple Pencil. Tap Done to save the notes to your Apple Notes on the Mac. Here are the notes I just wrote, at the bottom of your notes.  

You can’t interact with your sketches, though because the Mac is not designed to work with handwriting. You will get more out of this from your iPad, so, let’s switch over to an iPad. These are the notes that have synced to the iPad, and our handwritten notes. If you notice, these are proper handwritten notes, in the handwritten section of Apple Notes.