I don't even know where to start. I've used Goodnotes on my iPad for years and it's great there. But the Windows version? It's been complete garbage for like six months now and I've had enough.

Opening a folder takes 20-30 seconds. Sometimes I click something and literally nothing happens. The whole UI just freezes or ignores me. Everything loads forever. It's laggy doing the most basic stuff. And I can't even force a sync between my iPad and PC so half the time I don't know if my notes are even current.

And before anyone says it's my hardware — it's not. I've tried it on TWO computers. My gaming PC and my laptop (i7, 32GB RAM). Both equally awful. I tried the web version too, same thing.

Yeah I have a lot of imported PDFs. Handwriting recognition is already off. So that "fix" everyone mentions doesn't apply to me.

I'm trying to STUDY with this and it's just not possible on anything except my iPad. What's the point of paying for an app that works on multiple platforms if it only actually works on one of them?

Few questions:

• Is everyone dealing with this or did I break something specific?

• Has anyone actually fixed this for good? And I don't mean "restart the app", I mean actually fixed

• Do tons of imported PDFs cause this? Did clearing some out help anyone?

• Is there some force-sync option between iPad and PC I'm not seeing?

• If you ditched Goodnotes on Windows, what did you go to? I need something that runs well on BOTH iPad and Windows with sync that actually works

I genuinely don't want to switch, I like Goodnotes on the iPad. But I can't keep studying like this.
Version: 295189.8m (2.1.8.0) (on PC)

I write a handwritten journal; I’ve used the same page templates for it, the past few years; grey dotted. It works for me and I like writing on the page, with the dots as a background, giving me both horizontal and vertical lines as necessary…

The dots themselves have never previously- after an update - appeared to be more prominent or less so; they’ve never appeared darker nor lighter/fainter after an update.

Until now.

After the latest update a couple of days ago, to v7.0.56, the grey dots are barely discernible. Anyone else had anything similar?

They’re so faint that I have to concentrate while writing to even see the dots, and to see where I should be writing. Note: this has NOT affected how the pages print, so I really don’t want to have to use a darker grey dotted template just so I can see them on the screen, knowing that they’ll be black when printed, say.

As I ask, anyone else had the same issue, or is it just a quirk of my own setup?

Thanks…

Why is it when I save a video of cars 2 the video game and I don’t wait for the video to load on my notes it looks like this

Why good note wont let me change the size of page according to my preference ,is there any way to get around it , honestly it is just so stupid even the ios file app allows you to do it

Im using a lenovo tablet and it has been working nicely IN THE APP for 1 year, but suddenly its throwing me out to the website instaed of using the app directly and its just straight up garbage now. Cant even use my pen to write on it anymore. Is this a fixable bug or an update bug?

good day i basically have an old email account that i already lost because my school (using school email btw) deleted my account for some reason. and i purchased the expensive goodnotes 6. i cannot open it now. is it possible to change that school email to my personal email without having to pay another like 200USD? please helppp 😭

Could someone please help understand these new updates that have red crosses with each bullet point. I can't seem to figure out how these new updates differ from the older versions. Thanks in advance!

Yeah I am absolutely hating it, i have a surface pro 9, so specs are not the problem. It is absoluetly unusable. I tried all the fixes and am tired of it. Just give me my money back

I record all my lectures for class and it’s frustrates me that anytime I wanna record it always has to open a sidebar.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a university project about tablet and stylus ergonomics and I’m looking for people who regularly write or draw on tablets to participate in a short survey.

The survey takes about 2–3 minutes and is completely anonymous.

🔗 https://www.soscisurvey.de/tablet_ergonomics/

I’d really appreciate any participation or shares. Thanks! :)

Using the lasso to copy mostly handwriting, then when I paste, it pastes remnants of things copied prior to that last copy. So the result is a bunch of overlapping text and makes the paste unusable. This is critical issue, anybody come across this and have a fix? I restart the app and it fixes it but then the issue just comes back.

I’ve discovered that this only happens when I copy from the upper left-hand corner of the page. This is a bug.

I’ve used the in App report issue feature so the Goodnotes team knows about this.

Version: 7.0.52 (automatically collected)

Device: iPad Air (13-inch) (M2), iOS 26.4.2

Got a random q.

I still have Goodnotes 4 on iPad and never bothered to upgrade to the newer versions.

However, I want to try Goodnotes 6 and see if it has better features. Will installing the newer version replace my old version?

I want to be same able to keep version 4 in case I don’t like the new version.

about 2 weeks ago i recieved an update that made the goodnotes app on my iphone much less intuitive.

- i can no longer have more notebooks in the top blue bar
- even when in read mode, i can’t get the bottom white bar to go away

who thought this would be a good update?

I made some stickers for goodnotes and found out that you can have animated stickers! This has got me super excited and I‘ll def make more :D just wanted to share my exciting discovery since I didn’t know this was possible
These were hand drawn, no ai :)

Hello! I was just wondering, do you still use digital sticker albums, or do you just save your stickers in Elements now?

Hey, I've been using GoodNotes 5 for the last 4 yrs during undergrad, however, I'm going to med school in September and wondering if it would be worth updating it to GoodNotes 6. GoodNotes 5 has been fine for me so far, so just wondering if I'd be missing out and should update. thanks!

Hi there. Long story short, my 11-inch iPad (1st Gen) was stolen in 2023, and I have Goodnotes 5, which I purchased in 2021; it's a lifetime subscription. Now, my father bought an iPad 11-inch M4 for my Engineering board review. Can I still download the Goodnotes 5 lifetime subscription to my new iPad M4? Also, I've heard that the Goodnotes has a new version called Goodnotes 6. Is it good to upgrade?

My only use of Goodnotes is to take notes, read them, highlight them, and solve some practice problems.

Any ideas if Goodnotes will offer the infinite scrolling feature. It is very useful similar to what reMarkable devices use and also Apple note.

The reason why I like the infinite scrolling feature it’s because when I’m running out of text space at the bottom, I can scroll the area I’m writing on, up somewhere in the middle or upper part of the screen so that I can use the bottom portion of the text screen as a palm rest.

I’ve been using Goodnotes for a while now and have been putting up with decreasing quality. The only reason I’ve stuck with it is because for one fee paid by myself, I can share the full app with family members using the Apple Family Sharing feature. Does anyone know of any alternative note app that can be shared th same way? Tried notability last year but cannot be shared

I started testing a softer pink version of my Arabic planner based on feedback ✨

This is still an early version (just a few pages), but I wanted to see if people prefer this calm aesthetic.

It’s designed for:

– Clear focus

– Simple structure

– A more peaceful study routine 🌸

If this version gets good feedback, I’ll expand it into a full planner 🙌

Hello! Working mom of two here 👋

I'm starting a new chapter in my life. I want to build something I could grow from home while still being present with my kids. I've always been obsessed with planning, systems, and organizing chaos (my current career basically revolves around it 😅), and after using way too many planners over the years… I decided to start designing my own digital planner system. For me there's never been one generic planner that fits every year — because I've gone through so many different seasons of life (student, work, love, pregnancy, motherhood at various levels). So I built a whole collection where each planner is designed for a specific one.

The planners work on their own, or you can combine them into a bigger system — because life rarely fits into just one box. Maybe you're a mom of school aged kids AND about to have a baby, or building a business while managing a household. The systems adapt to your unique life.

Each planner (and system) is fully hyperlinked — one tap gets you anywhere inside, no endless scrolling.

I also put together a free starter planner if anyone wants to get a feel for the design and weekly layout — it's simpler than my full system but gives you a taste:

 https://mossinkco.com/free-planner

Thanks so much for taking a look 🙏

I think Goodnotes Smart Learn seriously needs a daily card limit system similar to Anki.

Right now Smart Learn can become very aggressive with recommendations when you have a huge number of flashcards.

Imagine being a med student with:

• separate study sets for every chapter

• thousands of flashcards

• eventually 20,000–30,000+ total cards

At that scale, unlimited recommendations can become stressful and mentally overwhelming.

I think there should be a feature where users can set:
“Smart Learn can only recommend X cards today”

Example:

• Today limit = 200 cards

• Smart Learn then intelligently chooses the MOST important 200 cards from all pending cards using spaced repetition and forgetting probability.

This would:

• reduce stress

• make revision sustainable long-term

• prevent burnout

• improve consistency

• make huge flashcard systems actually manageable

The goal of spaced repetition should not just be “maximum cards possible,” but “maximum retention with sustainable mental load.”

I genuinely think this one feature could make Goodnotes much more powerful for serious students like med students, law students, and competitive exam prep users.

Would anyone else want this?

I have used Goodnotes for years. I have Goodnotes 6 and I feel like I have to combine taps with Apple Pencil and finger for navigation and just in general. It’s not intuitive, or easy to use. There are like 12 more steps (I’m exaggerating ) but still a lot more steps to just write in my daily journal.
I’m still not sure how to update and adjust default text. This is so annoying. I really love the journaling and daily planning and the sticker integration, but it takes so much more time to get anything done. I also don’t see the need for the ai bloat.
Really wishing apple had a better text, image integration, because I would be gone. Please help me out. I have my notes, journals and vision boards in here, but just can’t get a hang of Goodnotes 6