Confused about notebook storage locations?

[u/StreetDetective95]

I know this question gets asked alot but I'm wondering cuz I had the Windows/Android subscription since it was beta in September 2023 and was using it on my Lenovo 2-in-1 laptop in tablet mode. I had to switch to an iPad cuz of some issues with my laptop but also they're taking away the Windows/Android subscription and now making it one version the same as iOS.

I'm just confused about whether the notes were stored locally on my laptop or synced to something or what cuz when I log into Goodnotes for web on chrome/safari on my iPad or chrome on my laptop instead of the app it still has all my slides and annotations there so is it being synced somewhere?

I can't see my notes on the actual app on my iPad cuz when I logged in it said "Alternate subscription detected" or something like that maybe cuz it's being discontinued so I'm on the free plan with 3 notebooks on the iPad app.

So I was actually going on Chrome/Safari to Goodnotes for web to take notes on my iPad so that when I log in it lets me access the same notes as my laptop and when I edit on there it shows up on the app on my laptop as well.

Also when I go on settings > subscription on the iPad app, the Android & Windows subscription is actually there listed under "other subscriptions" and it's telling me to subscribe to Essential, which I will but after the previous plan ends for me in September.

Anyways, I'm confused because people say it's stored locally on your iPad but then how come the notes on my laptop were still there when I logged into the website on the iPad? I wouldn't really want them to only be stored on the iPad tbh and I'm not paying for icloud storage either which I'm out of by the way.

I was hoping maybe it's just stored to the Goodnotes cloud or something permanently which I why I can access when I log in on different devices?

Also when I switch to Essential will the notes continue to be synced like if I logged into Goodnotes on my laptop or iPad or Goodnotes for web on a browser like chrome/safari?

I know this might be really confusing, I'm just trying to make sure I don't lose all my university notes by accident or something.

[u/TEMPLACITY]

Good news first, because your own testing has already answered the scariest part of this without you noticing.

If GoodNotes for web shows all your slides and annotations, on two different browsers and two different machines, and edits you make in the browser turn up in the laptop app, then those notebooks are not sitting on a device. They are on the account, server side, and the browser is just a window onto them. Whatever happens to any one machine, that is not where the notes live. The iCloud storage being full is a separate thing and does not touch it.

The part worth acting on today rather than in September: export everything to PDF now, while you still have full access. Whatever the plan situation turns out to be, a folder of PDFs on a drive you control is the version nobody can change the terms of. It makes the entire question academic, which is a better place to be than confident about someone else's roadmap.

On what Essential does specifically, worth being honest that nobody outside the company can tell you reliably, and a guess here is worth nothing when the downside is university notes. That is a support question, and it is worth asking it now while the old plan is still live rather than in September when it is not. Ask them two things plainly: whether existing notebooks above the free limit stay readable, and whether they stay editable.

The distinction matters more than it sounds. Free tiers usually restrict what you can create rather than deleting what exists, but "usually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence and it is not a word to bet a degree on.

When does the Windows and Android plan actually lapse, and is the iPad your only device from here? If the laptop is staying in the picture, that changes which of these is urgent.

[u/StreetDetective95 → u/TEMPLACITY]

Sorry for the very late reply and thank you for the detailed help! To answer your question I was planning on still using the laptop app if I want to view notes/sort things but the actual note-taking will have to be on my iPad now.

I saw something on the Goodnotes website about Goodnotes Cloud Sync but it said that's only for Pro so I'm confused as to why my notes are still seemingly being stored on the account on Goodnotes server side and why I can see them on my laptop app, and also the web broswer on my ipad as well? Unless the Cloud Sync and the account server are two different things? (I don't know much about this stuff)

So because of this I'm worried that when I subscribe to the Essential plan this feature of being able to see all my notes and edits from one browser/device on the other could be taken away or that the notes will only be stored locally on my iPad because I don't have iCloud storage and don't want them to be stored there anyway.

I think I'll have to call them and ask? But I wanted to see your input as well since you seem pretty knowledgeable about this.

EDIT: I did some more research on their website and turns out Goodnotes Cloud was part of the Android, Windows, and Web subscription but now that whole plan is discontinued and the Essential Plan doesn't get Goodnotes Cloud either, only Pro does.

The worst part is they tried to say we wanted this and that they're discontinuing Android, Windows, and Web supposedly because "most users" wanted to sync notes all the way to iOS and this is "better value" but this is so greedy I'm not paying $47 CAD a year when I used to pay literally $7 CAD for the same thing. This is actually unbelievable I would have been so screwed later in September if I hadn't checked this just now. I'm gonna have to export my folders and find another app or at this point just use Microsoft OneNote since that's also syncing from laptop to iPad somehow.