10 Hacks Every Apple Notes User Should Know

Apple Notes is a great note-taking app that often goes unnoticed because many of its best features are hidden. The app does a great job capturing your ideas and syncing them across Apple devices, but when you start digging deeper, you’ll quickly realize that it has some powerful features under the hood. As a user of the app for over a decade, I’ve discovered some of the best Apple Notes hacks on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Here are 10 that I think everyone should know.

Lock your notes with Face ID or Touch ID

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In Apple Notes, you can set a password to protect sensitive notes. You can do this on an iPhone or iPad by holding down any note and selecting Lock note. On a Mac, you’ll find the option by right-clicking on a note. When you do, you will see a prompt asking you to use the device password to lock the note. You can choose this or use a custom password. However, you don’t have to use this password or passcode every time you unlock the note. Instead, you can enable biometric authentication to open locked notes. On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Applications > Notes > Passwordand activate Use Face ID (or Touch ID, if you have an iPhone or iPad with a fingerprint sensor). On a Mac, click the Remarks in the menu bar, select Settingsand activate Use Touch ID. It should be noted, however, that shared notes cannot be locked.

Use Notes’ hidden scanner to add documents to your device

Your iPhone’s Notes app has a built-in document scanner, but it’s buried under a nondescript menu that makes it difficult to find. You can find it by opening a note and tapping the paperclip icon above the keyboard. Select Scan documentsand point your iPhone camera at the pages you want to scan. It will automatically detect the document borders, finish scanning, and open the viewfinder so you can scan the next page. Once scanning is complete, tap the yellow checkmark in the upper right corner and the file will be attached to your note. You can also long-press the Notes app icon to find the option.

Enable Offline Notes to Bypass iCloud Sync

Apple Notes is designed to sync notes across devices, but you can keep some notes offline by enabling the “On My iPhone/iPad/Mac” account on your device. When you do this, notes stored in this folder will not sync with other devices using the same iCloud account. However, these notes are not completely offline either. If iCloud Backup is enabled on these devices, Apple will save a copy of your “On My iPhone/iPad/Mac” notes to the cloud. To enable this folder on your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Applications > Notesand activate On my iPhone/iPad account. On your Mac, click the Remarks in the menu bar, select Settingsand activate On my Mac account.

Use handwriting mode to write with a stylus

If you have an iPad, you can use handwriting mode to turn Notes into a digital notebook. You can also use Scribble mode to automatically convert your handwriting to text. This feature works best with an Apple Pencil: tap the Pen tool in Apple Notes to select the Handwriting tool and start writing.

Once you’re done writing, tap the checkmark button in the upper right corner, then long-press on your handwritten text to view more options. Select To sort out to make handwriting flatter. You can also tap the three-dot icon in the upper right corner of the note, select Lines and gridsand choose an option to make it easier to write in a straight line. I prefer to use an unlined note, but you can choose a different option that suits you best. Other handwriting options include Refine (makes handwriting more readable), Convert a text object to handwritingAnd Paste the entered text into your writing. The last two features require your handwriting to be saved in a note, with at least 10 unique lowercase characters, which allows Apple to convert the text into your handwriting.

Some of these features are also available on iPhone. You can open any note in the app, select the pen icon in the toolbar above the keyboard, choose one of the tools and start writing. It’s not as intuitive as using an iPad with an Apple Pencil or other stylus, but it’s decent enough for quick doodling.

Use advanced search filters to find the note you’re looking for

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When you need to search for a specific note, use Apple Notes’ advanced search filters to narrow down results. On Apple Notes for Mac, click the search bar, then press Esc to view a list of available filters. On the iPhone version of the app, tapping the search bar at the bottom of the screen reveals all of these filters. This allows you to filter search results by shared notes, locked notes, notes with checklists, tags, drawings, scanned documents, and attachments.

Apple Notes can also perform basic calculations. Type a simple arithmetic operation like 625/5, then drop the “=” sign to see the result. By default, Apple Notes suggests the result in the note and you can press the spacebar to accept it. However, you can change this setting so that the application automatically inserts the result instead. To do this, click on the three dots in the upper right corner of any note and select Math results > Insert results. To turn off math results completely, select the option Disabled option in the same menu.

Notes supports basic arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), creating graphs and calculating tip amount in restaurants, and also lets you assign variables to calculate things. For example, you could write something like “Ticket = $80, Food = $45” and then enter “Ticket + Food.” The notes will tell you the total is $125. For more examples, see Apple’s support page for this feature.

Export your notes to save or transfer them

If you want to take an offline backup of your notes, you won’t find a bulk export option in the app. Instead, you will have to rely on third-party tools to get the job done. One of these options is Export, which can save all your notes for free. This method is best suited for offline backups, but if you want to move to another app, it’s best to use the bulk import tools offered by those apps.

Use ProNotes to turn Notes into a word processor

ProNotes is one of my favorite extensions for Apple Notes on Mac. The app brings Markdown support to Apple Notes, a pop-up context menu when you select text, and slash commands for commonly used actions. All of these features make it faster to perform common actions like adding a title, bullets and numbering, or inserting tables. The app is free to download and you only need to pay if you want to use its optional AI features.

Use Smart Folders for automatic sorting of notes

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Creating folders to sort each note manually can get tedious. This is where smart folders come in. This feature allows you to automatically add notes that contain a certain characteristic, such as a specific hashtag, checklist, attachment or creation date, among others. For example, you can create a Smart Folder that automatically includes all notes created in 2026, which will continue to update automatically as you create new notes. To get started, open the app on your iPhone or iPad and navigate to the Folders menu. Click the “Create new folder” button at the top, name the folder and select Change to Smart Folder. You can now select the criteria you like and tap the check mark in the upper right corner to complete the process. On your Mac, tap Command-Shift-N in Apple Notes to create a new folder, then select Change to Smart Folder for the same result.

You can also right-click any folder in Apple Notes for Mac and select Convert to Smart Folder to retroactively make any folder smart. On your iPhone and iPad, tap the To modify In the upper right corner of the folder list, tap the three dots next to any folder and select Convert to Smart Folder.

Link multiple notes together to connect similar ideas

Apple Notes supports contextual links, which allow you to link one note to another. Let’s say you’re studying a topic and taking notes in the app. You can use this feature to link to similar topics you’ve studied before, making it easier to return to those topics and remember what you need to. To do this on your iPhone or iPad, open any note and swipe left on the toolbar above the keyboard. This will reveal the hyperlink icon, which is next to the formatting options and the pencil icon. Tap the hyperlink button and enter the title of the note you want to link to. As you type, the app will suggest different notes corresponding to that title. You can select the note from the list, confirm your choice and a link to the old note will appear in the note you are working on. In Apple Notes for Mac, you can right-click in any note and select Add a link to locate the same functionality.