How you take down notes during online meetings depends on your interests. They can be a mixture of words only you can make sense from, or a neat assembly of different topics, organized into detailed sections. You could write them on a random page in your notebook, in the back of a napkin, or even on a ticket stub. But since you’re working from home, what about getting a note-taking app that could solve this problem in seconds? So, what are the best apps to help you take down notes during online meetings?
Taking notes used to be simple. You grabbed a piece of paper, a pen, and started writing. But then a group of nerds got together and developed all kinds of apps that can automatically organize everything for you. That’s when note-taking got complicated.
Millions of apps could pass as notes apps. You could go through all of your notes in a Google Doc or open several Gmail drafts to keep them somewhere safe. But what you need right now are explicitly designed apps for notes. So, how can you find the perfect app for notes during online meetings?
What makes a great note-taking app?
Apps for work should make our lives easier and help us deliver tasks faster. They have to do what you expect them to and succeed. If not, why would you download a new app if it’s not to win something in return?
Sadly, not every note-taking app has image-to-text features or support for different styluses, but if they do, they could save you hours of work time. With the millions of note-taking apps you can find on the internet, it only takes a few seconds until you realize the one you download doesn’t work, and you have to try a new one.
It’s the speed and ease of the apps that determine if you’ll keep them on your board or take them to the trash and download a new one. Note-taking apps have to be as quick as possible. Picture it this way. You’re in an online meeting with your team; you’re brainstorming all kinds of ideas, suggestions come and go instantly. But still, you need to write down some of those interesting points you and your team are mentioning.
Your note-taking app is something that needs to be constantly available, whether you’re at your desk working or on a plane flying to Russia. You’ll need this app to be available on one desktop, one mobile platform, and to have offline functionality for those times when you’re buying some groceries and new thoughts pop up, on your mind.
Best Apps to Take Down Notes During Online Meetings
1. Evernote
This cross-platform note-taking app is fantastic for processing hand-written notes and clipping articles from the web. Since 2020, it has become one of the most powerful options for remote workers since it can handle notes in almost any format you want.
What’s great about Evernote is that it gives you one safe place to keep everything you need to save during online meetings. It provides multiple file formats for different tasks and holds anything you want: PDFs, PowerPoints, images, audio clips, Slack conversations, emails, and more (only on the paid plan). This platform can also be a scanner for mobile, so you can take photos of book pages instead of paying for photocopies.
Evernote’s aim is you can quickly sort and organize your notes. You can create a new note by clicking New Note, type whatever you need, and at the bottom of the screen, you can add tags. Once you’ve already set up several tags, they’ll be auto-suggested. And in the sidebar, you can click Tags to visualize a searchable list of every label you’ve used.
- Price: if you use Evernote to scan documents and save research papers, the 60MB included in the free plan won’t cover it. And if you want to use it with more than two devices, you’ll have to go for the Premium Plan for $7.99/month.
- Compatibility: Browser, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS.
2. Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft’s free cross-platform note-taking app was the perfect answer to those complaints about Evernote’s paid plans. It’s the freest app for remote workers who need to take notes during online meetings and don’t want to get stuck on any platform modality.
In OneNote, all Notebooks come from the ring binder model, divided into Sections with subsections called Pages. These pages are like a canvas where you can add any kind of note you like. You can also drag and drop in images, click beside them to add some text notes, and if the meeting is getting boring, scribble some funny drawings on faces, or add some power quote bubbles to make the meeting more bearable for you.
With OneNote, you get unlimited devices - a feature that other note-taking apps, like Evernote and Bear, keep for their premium subscriptions. It feels like a solution purpose-built for anyone who has to take long, discursive notes about something. Also, you can put boxes everywhere on the screen; you can draw; you can even change the background to look like a ruled notebook!
- Price: you get 5GB included, which is more than enough for most people. But if you use OneDrive to store your photos or thousands of images and audio notes, you might hit that limit. If you do, you can increase 100GB for 1.99/month.
- Compatibility: Browser, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS.
3. Fellow
Fellow is a meeting note app where teams gather to have productive team meetings and meaningful one-on-one meetings, build collaborative meeting agendas, record decisions, and keep each other accountable. Through the meetings that Fellow helps facilitate, you can determine key action items for your team to tackle later while sharing feedback and notes.
Fellow acts as a team hub for meeting agendas and notes, plus any feedback and action items that result from your meetings. You’ll get access to numerous meeting-related templates and idea streams that replace paper notebooks. You’ll also get full integrations with dozens of apps, ranging from basics like Google Calendar to HR platforms like Workday. Fellow is a great complement to your project management app. With both organized task lists and streamlined events for identifying and assigning tasks, your team will swiftly ace all its goals.
- Price: Fellow is free for a maximum of 10 users. The Pro plan is $5 per user per month, and custom-priced plans are also available.
- Compatibility: Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera
4. Google Keep
This cross-platform note-taking app plays well with all other Google tools. Google Keep is available on every platform since with your Gmail account - assuming you might have one- you can access your Keep notes
There are different reasons why people take notes during meetings. It could be to remind you of your to-do list, help you keep all the tasks you’ll need to assign to a colleague, or keep track of the topics you discussed during the meeting. But what makes Google Keep such a fantastic choice for Google power users is you won’t require the help of any other app or device, like sending an email or assigning a task on Basecamp. With Google Keep, you get all of these together!
Imagine all those sticky notes you have all over your desk to remind you to do all kinds of things you’ll never do. Google Keep will make sense to all of these. You write down thoughts, stick them in a place you’ll remember, and later transfer them somewhere permanently. Keep even looks like a wall of stickies.
- Price: completely free!
- Compatibility: iOS, Android, Browser
5. Notion
Notion is a powerful note-taking app that’s different from the rest in several aspects. Notion provides flexible pages. This platform has a template engine that allows you to turn almost anything into an easily duplicated template. It also has media embedding, previewing tools, and a gallery view for all visual content.
What’s excellent about Notion are its fantastic tables. And though these sound like regular charts, they’re not. These tables are databases. Data-what? Don’t panic; think of these tables as Google Docs combined with Google Sheets. Every row in a table is its Notion page that you can access and update.
Notion provides a nested hierarchical organization. You can turn a set of text into a dropdown so you can get information out of the way whenever you need to focus on a single item. This platform also lets you write in markdown or use standard keyboard shortcuts for your writings.
- Price: Notion used to be pretty expensive, especially for team plans. However, the Personal Plan is now totally free.
- Compatibility: Mac, iOS, Android, Windows, Browser
What Note-Taking App Are You Choosing?
You know the features, the different prices, and the compatibilities of each note-taking app. Now it’s time to decide what app you are choosing first.
The app should provide you the speed and ease you need to organize your thoughts, ideas, and other notes you might write about during online meetings. These characteristics will become essential when you determine if the app is worth staying on your board or not. And the price - unfortunately - too! In case you’re wondering to create an app like the note-taking apps we have in this list, you can connect with any mobile app development company and get an app build for you. Mobile app surveys can improve understanding of how your customers use the product or service you offer them, what they like about it and which features would be most useful, these insights can shape future products for better customer experiences.
Remember, it’s essential you feel comfortable with the note-taking app you choose. So, if something feels out of place or hard to organize, maybe you should try downloading a new one. You have to handle it as easily and fast as you take a napkin and a pen from your bag, and write down your idea.
About The Author
Abril Lombardi is a writer and content editor for Think Remote and DistantJob. Based on her studies on communications and her passion for real-life stories, she became a journalist and an expert on experienced-based reports. She focuses her writings on work-online guides and digital nomad´s lifestyles.
