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Goodnotes

Third-party toolFreemiumProductivity

The handwriting notebook that made the iPad a paper replacement, now with AI that works on handwriting itself.

Highlights

  • Handwriting AI: spellcheck and word completion that operate directly on handwritten notes
  • AI Math Assistance that identifies mistakes in handwritten equations and suggests fixes
  • Handwriting recognition with search across handwritten, typed, and sketched content
  • PDF import, annotation, and organized, searchable digital notebooks
  • Audio recording synced to notes, plus shared notebooks for collaboration
  • Cross-platform apps: iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, Android, and web
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About Goodnotes

What it is

Goodnotes is a note-taking app built around writing by hand with a stylus, alongside typing, sketching, audio recording and PDF annotation. Its AI features work directly on handwriting rather than on typed text: spellcheck and word completion as you write, maths assistance that spots errors in handwritten equations and suggests corrections, and search across handwritten, typed and scanned content together.

Why it's different

Applying these features to handwriting is the genuinely hard part and the reason it stands apart from note apps that added AI to a text editor. Search that finds your own handwriting from three years ago is the feature people stay for. Two honest limitations. It is effectively an Apple-first product — the iPad with a Pencil is where it works properly, and other platforms are noticeably behind. And it moved to a subscription for the newer features after years as a one-off purchase, which longstanding users are entitled to be annoyed about. If you want plain typed notes, this is the wrong shape of tool.

How people use it

It is used by students, and by anyone whose thinking happens better by hand — annotating papers, working through problems, sketching alongside notes. The habit that makes it worthwhile is keeping everything in it rather than splitting between paper and app, because the value is entirely in being able to search the whole archive later. Recording audio alongside notes during lectures is the underused feature, since the recording indexes against what you were writing at the time.

Written by the n3os team. We are not affiliated with Goodnotes.

This listing was written from public information, without Goodnotes’s involvement. If you own it and something here is wrong — or you would rather not be listed at all — email us and we will correct or remove it.

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