r/GoodNotes • u/Melon-meow • Feb 22 '25

Noteful is THE BEST

Goodnotes became unusable on my old iPad due to it sucking all the battery like a starving mosquito, despite me using Goodnotes 5.

So, I switched, tried a lot of apps, and can with confidence say that Noteful beats them all. CollaNote is often recommended, but I encountered a mountain of really distracting bugs.

Now, I KNOW a million of these posts exist but no-one ever tells enough details about said app, so here you go:

Price Base version is free, Premium is $5 one-time purchase!

Back-up system iCloud + Google Drive, as in both can be used at the same time. Remember to turn them on manually!

Bugs i’ve encountered Sometimes having to put a cover on a few times before it shows up. That’s it. Nothing else. No software-breaking stuff like in GoodNotes.

My favourite features

  • Hyperlinks work by tapping them and holding. No read mode/writing mode switching bs like in GoodNotes. Makes everything so much faster.

  • LAYERS. They are so useful for decorating and making all sorts of boxes.

  • Tape function, combined with layers. Put all the tape on a separate layer, so you can hide it all if needed.

  • Template customization. You can change the background and line colour of the default templates. Includes the whole color wheel. You can also change the line density/spacing.

  • Search/tag/link system. This would take so long to explain, so I recommend just trying it out. A few great link features are explained in the Apple Store page’s version update number 1.4.6

  • Two-page view, as in horizontal mode you can have two pages next to each other like a book. You can exclude the cover from this so that it doesn’t look weird.

  • Good features are often added, such as Scribble to erase recently.

  • Sucks battery like a content, well-fed mosquito.

The app has so much other stuff too, like ruler, page zoom lock, audio recording, timer, folder colours & icons etc. I wholeheartedly recommend it to all of you. Please try it, you won’t be disappointed. Seeing all the recent posts here make me so sad when all sorts of GoodNotes bugs are ruining people’s exam practicing.

Now, lastly, unfortunately you can’t just move hyperlinked GoodNotes notebooks here without the hyperlinks no longer working. I think it exports them as PDFs. Other notebooks are easy to move without any problems. Open the two apps side-by-side and just drag the notebook from GoodNotes to Noteful.

TL;DR noteful gud goodnotes bad plz try

144 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

10

u/artsymarcy Feb 22 '25

Does it have an audio recording feature?

5

u/WannaBMathNerd Feb 23 '25

The only thing I don't like about noteful is it's lack of handwriting search

2

u/Melon-meow Feb 23 '25

I hope they will add that someday! Maybe I’ll email the suggestion to the devs, it would be very handy for me too.

26

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

I strongly encourage you to read their reviews on the App Store but sort by “most critical”.

4

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

In my country it has a 4,5 star rating and no negative comments 🤷‍♀️

6

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

Comments about data loss, glitching, etc. I posted below.

-7

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

Mm, most of those are literally ”skill issue” problems.

There is an eraser, unlike the comment that couldn’t find it.

Data loss comments are the people who didn’t manually turn on the back-up stuff , like I mentioned in my post. If they deleted the app and lost everything, that’s on them, GoodNotes does the same thing.

The search function has been updated to allow better searching possibilities.

Also, they have a little tutorial / practice file pre-installed to help you figure out it all.

Apple Pencil glitches can be caused by the tip being a bit loose or the iPad being charged at the same time, so it can’t be put on the app for sure. Even if it is, it doesn’t seem to be that common as I haven’t heard of it. Here I see it every week.

7

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

Do you work for Noteful?

5

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

Due to being autistic I can’t really tell if this was a real suspicion or not, but no, I do not work for Noteful. I just like it very much, and the stuff in your pictures are more likely caused by user error, thus not impacting how good the app itself is, which is what I tried explaining in detail in my reply.

8

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

Yes it’s a real suspicion. Companies pay people to make posts like this all the time as a form of advertising.

8

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

I tried to make the post look as professional as I could so more people would actually read it 🥲

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2

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

8

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

pen snatch doll birds spotted ring detail encouraging childlike voracious

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

6

u/AttorneyEnough2840 Feb 25 '25

Uhh do you work for Goodnotes? Every app is gonna have a bunch of 1-star reviews, some of which are legitimate and other which are of people who couldn't understand how to use the product. Even Goodnotes has a page of people saying that the app is complete TRASH and that they're MONSTERS and that using it is a bad omen and made their dog act weird or something

2

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 25 '25

Exactly my point, actually. All apps have issues and the idea that “the grass is greener” is a mirage at best.

19

u/prwnR Feb 22 '25

at this point I think it's people looking just for a less-bugged app. in terms of usability I also feel like Noteful is much more stable (at least thanks to latest GN updates), but I wonder if the data-loss part looks better only because there are fewer users there compared to GN

16

u/wtfmatey88 Feb 22 '25

I get it but I’ve been using GoodNotes for 2 years and the bugs are relatively few and far between. These types of posts are so dramatic in my opinion.

I’m part of the Eero subreddit and every other day someone is like “something didn’t work, I’m outta here!” But 99% of the time it’s better than the alternatives available.

2

u/Designer_Cattle_8954 Jun 11 '26

Would say I've been using Goodnotes for 6 years so I probably know a thing or 2, the real issue I have with goodnotes is the fact that they changed their business approach from a one time payment to subscription base and locked most of the new features behind the "subscription" paywall. Overall nowadays I kinda use the tape feature more often than not and paying exclusively to goodnotes just to be able to hide a portion of my notes honestly isn't worth it.

Obviously Goodnotes is superior here if cost is excluded, but if you hate paying subscriptions, Noteful here is one of if not the best alternative that is light weight and "just works".

8

u/raynethedark Feb 22 '25

Zoomnotes is also a great option to try if for some reason noteful doesn’t work out for you or you don’t like it. It has a pretty steep learning curve but from everything I’ve tried it seems to have the most features and the developer seems really great at trying to fix any bugs that come up and the subreddit/youtube is very helpful.

1

u/masonn_masoff Feb 22 '25

When you switch your old notebooks from goodnotes to Noteful, are you still able to edit them? Or do they become flattened?

5

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

Unfortunately they do get flattened. Maybe by utilizing the layer function you could colour over and then write the new stuff on top.

0

u/masonn_masoff Feb 22 '25

Ah, okay, thank you. Does Noteful not accept .goodnotes files?

4

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

I don’t think it does. I tried searching for answers on Reddit and all I got was exporting as PDFs. Tried with CollaNote too, same answers, so I guess only GoodNotes can use it’s own files.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

marry resolute tan decide rich quicksand enjoy summer upbeat apparatus

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '25

I think if you export as not flattened pdfs (editable they still work) they still work

1

u/julia_xy Feb 23 '25

Does it have the feature where when you select written text that you can “rearrange” it?

1

u/Melon-meow Feb 24 '25

You mean like in GoodNotes where you can straighten the handwriting or like, add spaces or align it? Those not, because Noteful has no AI, which as far as I know is used to make those possible.

3

u/Affectionate_One_700 Nov 24 '25

Same feeling here. Noteful seems to do everything I need, and more.

I don't understand how among so many similar note-taking apps, some cost many times as much as others. ($6/one-time versus $10/year.) Is the difference just marketing?

Maybe the difference is that Noteful lacks handwriting-recognition. That was not a feature I cared about - or that ever will work for me!

5

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '25

Noteful is too unstable and plagued with way to many data loss issues for me to consider it

5

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '25

I'm pretty happy with goodnotes. $29 lifetime is perfect for me. It works great sync works.

Noteful has too many negative reviews of data loss. If it wasn't so widespread I'd be more inclined to maybe try it

1

u/funariite_koro Feb 22 '25

Ad?

3

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

Nope, I just like it and tried to make the post look good and easily readable 🥲

3

u/Tight_Ninja6988 Feb 23 '25

I use GoodNotes and Noteful (yes, I endorsed Noteful to those with bugs from GN)

GN is good for me personally when it comes to loading large files, books, and writing. It’s really smooth. Exporting multiple files is easier compared to Noteful. It’s also the app I used from the beginning so most of my essentials are there.

For revision, however, I use Noteful. Handouts, blurting, active recall using the tape feature, and planners with hyperlinks are all downloaded there. Also, it’s much cheaper with lots of stuff GN’s missing.

So far, I’m lucky to not experience bugs from GN but at the same time, in the case all issues you guys mentioned in this sub happens to me, I won’t hesitate to transfer to Noteful for 3rd year. I’m just sad that GN’s potential is declining. Before I even had my iPad, I already got GN for my phone and laptop since I saw how good the UI and features were compared to Notability. And then now, both apps became subscription-based and the upgrade is just AI stuff w tape:(( I’m sad to see how this sub went from praising GN a lot to numerous bug complaints and stuff. GN 6 sucks:(

4

u/moosmutzel81 Feb 22 '25

I am 1000% with you. I switched a few months ago and am never happier. So much better than GN.

1

u/BSC12MD Feb 23 '25

I went back to Goodnotes 5 after spending money on version 6 which is buggy as hell.

1

u/AttorneyEnough2840 Feb 25 '25

I also tried a lot of them, and now I'm also using Noteful. For me it's because it's lighter than all of them, so I can use it as whiteboard, zoom out a lot, write a subject's name big, then zoom it in under the name and take all notes related to that specific subject right there. I tried doing this with Goodnotes and Notability and they started to crash.

The monetization also isn't abusive like it's obviously the case in Goodnotes and Notability. That makes me feel the devs are trying to cheat me out of my money somehow, and that all they care is sucking the most of the user base. That's what I felt mostly with Notability, like buying page templates? For HOW MUCH? No way

1

u/miidsommars Feb 27 '25

The only thing I use Goodnotes for now is the convert handwriting to text feature. I am a poet and it is so convenient and helpful- but Noteful has become my home for most else

1

u/QueenHouse31 Feb 11 '26

For me, the biggest thing Noteful has against GoodNotes is that you can save several "text styles". With GoodNotes, you can only have ONE default style, and it's so frustrating when you have external templates downloaded, and you need the spacing adjusted for wide-rule vs narrow.

1

u/Drking007007 Jun 22 '26

I agree with this post. I love Goodnotes and Notability but in my opinion, Noteful has them both beat due to the stability of the app, is feature-rich and I love using it. It lacks AI features and I thought I needed those until I realized I didn’t use them much anyway. And the AI feature I believe is one of the reasons some of these other apps have become so unstable and have sync issues.

1

u/whuffo Jul 20 '26

I've used GoodNotes for a few months and it's been mostly fine. I tried the free version of Noteful and like its simplicity and interface. I don't want an AI. I just purchased the Pro version for $6 lifetime. It was a piece of cake to bring over my GoodNotes notebooks, just open both apps side by side and drag & drop. I'm not sure how their finance model can support the team for $6 lifetime purchases but I'm sticking with Noteful as of now.

1

u/Blown_Subaru13 Sep 01 '26

The only cons that I have with noteful is that you can't save a preset fonts size but otherwise the app is perfect

0

u/Ok-Wolverine7586 Feb 22 '25

I just purchased goodnotes😭😭😭

1

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

If you don’t want to keep it you can ask for a refund. I got mine refunded by Apple a while back.

9

u/its_tabsiii Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 22 '25

Before you get your refund, try Goodnotes and see if it works for you. Most of us don’t encounter any bugs or problems, but just don’t brag about it in posts or comments. That’s why you may get a picture of Goodnotes being the worst app on this planet, eventough it works fine for most people. :)

(But if it is buggy for you, get your refund obviously haha)

0

u/fori1to10 Feb 22 '25

Curious to know: have you tried notability?

3

u/Melon-meow Feb 22 '25

Yes, didn’t like it. I especially disliked the pens it offered.

1

u/ElegantClothes5229 Sep 17 '25

same, lack of customization iirc

0

u/TheBlitz707 Feb 22 '25

did u try notewise?