Apple Notes review: price, free version and privacy

Our verdict

Start with Notes if you want a free, private place for class notes, checklists and scanned handouts on Apple devices. If you annotate long textbooks by hand or need your notes on a Windows or Android device, a dedicated notebook app fits better.

What Apple Notes is

Notes is Apple's own note app, preinstalled on iPhone and iPad. It handles checklists, tables, attachments, scanned documents, audio recordings with transcription, and sketches or handwriting with Apple Pencil on a compatible iPad. Notes sync through iCloud and can be organized with folders, tags, links between notes and rule-based Smart Folders.

Who it suits

• Students who want a free note app that is already on their device
• Quick notes, checklists and scanned handouts

Strengths

• Free, with no in-app purchases, and already installed on iPhone and iPad.
• Search covers typed text, handwriting and text inside scanned documents and photos, according to the description.
• Records and transcribes audio directly into a note.
• Links between notes, tags and Smart Folders keep a semester of notes in order.
• Shared notes and folders allow collaboration, and the privacy label declares no tracking.

Limits

• No app for Windows or Android; on other computers you can only open your notes at iCloud.com in a browser.
• Notes stored in iCloud count against your iCloud storage.
• A note is one long scrolling page; the description mentions lines and grids but no notebook pages or paper templates.
• The listing mentions no flashcards or quiz tools, and some features are available only in select languages and regions.

What the free version does

Everything in Notes is free. There are no in-app purchases in the listing.

Price

Notes is free with no in-app purchases on the US App Store in November 2026. The only possible cost is iCloud storage if your notes and attachments outgrow your plan.

Privacy

The privacy label declares no tracking. User content and identifiers are linked to you, and usage data is collected without being linked to you.

What the screenshots show

The screenshots show a trip-planning note with headings, a checklist and a photo, and a "Fractal Geometry" note with a to-do list that links to a study guide note above an embedded textbook chapter.