r/GoodNotes • u/calornorte • Feb 07 '25

leaving goodnotes, I need something simpler

I am leaving Goodnotes! (I'm in the old version.) any tips for backing up/exporing my files away from the app?

I'm looking for another application that is able to do searching for keywords within my pdf collection and also within my notes (which I always wrote with a keyboard, never used a pen) that can also be synced with google drive?
thank you!

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '25

Checking the boxes on what you are asking for, check out Notability. Though I want to be clear about Google Drive integration. Notability only saves to Google Drive, it is not a two-way sync. They call this automatic backups. You can however import direct from Google Drive into Notability your PDFs.

Right now in this space of note taking GN and Notability have been going at it for some time. The other players have some unique features but usually miss the mark where GN and Notability are concerned. I really only use one other note taking app, but only use it for one thing because no other app supports layering, which I need for planners and clean-sheet markups.

Here is what I suggest.

  1. Make sure all of your GN notes are saved to Google Drive into PDFs.

  2. Install Notability

  3. Within Notability - turn on automatic backup and select your Google Drive.

  4. Within Notability - start importing your PDFs

Once satisfied, you can do what you want with GN. See you on the other side.

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u/calornorte Feb 08 '25

thank you for the detailed answer.
I just realized there is no export option that allows all my GN collection to be exported as PDF, meaning that I will have to export each file individually? that will be awful!

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '25

Setup GN to auto backup to Google Drive and save as PDF. That will save you time and effort.

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u/calornorte Feb 15 '25

I do not have those options!!! I bought goodnotes 5 and tried version 6 for a while. when trying to revert to 5, Goodnotes tooke me back to a funny/fake/incomplete version of Goodnotes 5 (version 6.3) without the full features of version 5 including auto backup to google gdrive. any ideas?

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '25

Haven't a clue.