
Thanks to the beautiful displays, and the Apple Pencil, the iPad also doubles up nicely as a note taking device, and it’s very handy both in lectures, and in office meetings.
With so many note-taking apps available for the iPad, finding the right one can feel overwhelming. The app you use for notetaking can have a huge impact on the quality of your notes.
They don’t all support the same features or offer equal functionality. Some let you sketch and draw directly, while others force you to stick to typing. Some can only work with text, while others can also add in images, video, and audio.
Don’t worry; I have done the research and found the 12 best note-taking apps for ipad in 2026.
Some apps prioritize a natural handwriting experience. Others help structure typed notes, integrate calendars and to-do lists, or support live collaboration across devices.
By the end of this article, you’ll hopefully find at least one note-taking app that suits your needs.
The 12 Best Note Taking apps for iPad in 2026
Whether you’re a college Student, a business, or a professional writer, these are the top note-taking apps for iPads worth installing.
1. Goodnotes 6

Goodnotes 6 is designed for users who prefer handwriting but want the benefits of digital note organization. It supports beautiful handwritten notes, PDF annotation, and searchable writing.
For handwriting, Goodnotes supports writing and drawing with your Apple Pencil, as well as a third-party stylus. So it’s easy to enter complex mathematics and chemical formulas that can border on the impossible via a traditional keyboard.
You can pick from a huge selection of digital paper types to suit your needs. Options include lined, graph, design, music notation, and much more.
One of the biggest differentiators between Goodnotes and other competitors is its abundance of organizational tools. By default, Goodnotes allows you to create Notebooks and store everything within them.
You can add custom covers to your notebooks and folders, which is not something you see in many popular note-taking apps. Additionally, the Split Screen feature lets us put two separate notes side by side.
The GoodNotes 6 allows you to record audio, annotate PDFs, search handwritten notes and convert handwriting into text.
GoodNotes 6 doesn’t offer real-time collaboration, but the notes are also synced via iCloud, and can be backed up to your choice of cloud providers, including Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box.
Pricing: Free (limited to three notebooks, and 20 minutes of audio recording).
The cross-platform subscription costs $11.99 per year or a one-time-purchase of $35.99.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Android.
2. Notability

Notability is one of the more full-featured note-taking programs for the iPad. The app offers a delightful writing experience, yet it also makes it easy to embed images, annotate PDFs, and even record voice memos.
Notability comes with a bunch of features, including pretty much everything you can do with Goodnotes. You get support for creating “subjects” to categorize and organize your notes.
This app is most well-known for its audio syncing feature, which allows you to record audio and sync it with your writing. Later, when you review your notes, you can listen to the audio that matches up with each part and hear any important details you may have missed.
Sketching and drawing in Notability is downright delightful. You are able to doodle and quickly sketch out illustrations in it as the Pencil tool supports pressure sensitivity and tilt-activated shading.
Notability provides plenty of paper styles for your handwritten notes or sketches. The app also supports Multi-note, PDF annotation, the conversion of handwriting and math equations to text.
You also get support for adding stickers (including your own custom stickers), images, PDFs, GIFs, and even videos to your notes to make things more interesting and pretty.
With recent AI features, Notability has become even smarter. It can turn notes into summaries, quizzes, and flashcards while also allowing you to ask questions directly within your notes for better learning and organization.
However, Notability is limited to iphone,ipad, and macOS, with no real-time collaboration or full cross-platform support. Notes can be shared via links or PDFs, but edits from others won’t sync back.
Pricing: Free plan available with No iCloud syncing or backups, Limited note edits per month, Limited organizational tools. $7.99 per month or $19.99 per year for the premium plan.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
3. MyScript Notes

MyScript Notes (formerly Nebo) is a top note-taking app for iPad. It makes switching from handwriting to text easy. Ideal for students, professionals, and anyone who values both artistic note creation and productivity.
With advanced AI, it turns your handwritten notes into clear, editable text, which is better and more practical than that of Goodnote. The conversion is non-destructive so you can preserve both the handwriting and the text to check for any errors.
There’s support for multiple digital pen tools so it’s easy to make things look how you want them to. Support for adding photos and videos is also possible, along with diagrams, and various documents such as PDFs.
Unlike its competitors, this app doesn’t have templates. However, it offers two main types of pages: documents and notes.
The documents have lined pages for basic note-taking. On the other hand, the notes pages offer an infinite workspace where you can draw sketches and diagrams freely without any restrictions on placement or positioning.
You can export your note as text, HTML, PDF, or Word document, with syncing available through iCloud, MyScript’s own service, Dropbox, and more. But there is No real-time collaboration and audio notes.
Pricing: Free version available. $1.99/month or $7.99/year subscription for full access to all features.
$24.99/lifetime, one-time payment for full access to all current features and future updates.
Platform: Available on iPad, Mac, Windows, and Android.
4. OneNote

OneNote is a top choice for Windows and Android users on their iPad. It offers great organization, a smooth writing experience, and syncs across all platforms.
OneNote is very organized, complete with two folder sections on the left, a big typing area on the right, and all the customization tools at the top.
It offers a variety of multimedia features. You can type text, insert graphics, and even include voice recordings.
The app has handwriting and sketching tools that are perfect to use with your Apple Pencil. It’s simple to handwrite everything from important notes to quick reminders, to sketching out diagrams and ideas.
You can organize your notes in OneNote by creating notebooks, sections and pages. You can even use custom tags to label your notes and have full control over how you organize them digitally.
Handwritten notes, inserted PDFs, and even images are searchable thanks to built-in OCR.
OneNote supports real-time collaboration, so you can co-edit notebooks with classmates for shared study guides or group projects.
OneNote stands out because it syncs across all devices. You can get to your notes on Windows, Android, ipad or iphone.
Pricing: Completely free, so you can use all its features necessary to create notes without paying anything.
However, you can buy one of the Microsoft 365 plans to access the AI Math Assistant, increased storage capacity, and Office app integrations.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Windows, and Mac.
5. Simplenote

Advanced and feature-rich note-taking apps are great and all but, let’s be real, most of those features are completely unnecessary.
If all you need is a place to write down your latest idea, or craft a quick to-do list, then Simplenote has you covered.
It’s straightforward, super easy to use, and offers you only the most basic functionalities. But, chances are, that’s all you need. There is no Stylus support, PDF annotation, and other power-user features.
Simplenote does not support handwritten notes, the notes are plain text. However, you can scribble with the Apple Pencil and the app will automatically convert your scribbled text into typed characters.
Apart from that, the app supports markdown editing, you can interlink notes to each other by copying their internal links, and you can even publish your notes to share them as web-links.
Simplenote provides document ordering by modification timestamp. You can also pin specific documents to the top of the stack.
The app comes with a collaboration option, so multiple people can work on the same note, If they have Simplenote accounts.
All your notes are backed up and automatically synced across all your devices, Signing into your account enables file sharing and editing of the content.
Pricing: Completely Free
Platform: Available for iPhone, iPad, Android, MacOS, Windows, and Linux.
6. Bear

Bear is a simple, beautiful looking note taking app for iPad that supports markdown to capture, write, and organize your life.
It uses a tag-based system instead of traditional folders, and offers flexible formatting, export options, and a distraction-free writing space.
Its elegant interface let you focus on writing without clutter. Markdown comes with easy formatting options and more, which will keep your notes organized and looking good.
The app brings support for additional things, such as the ability to embed a whiteboard where you can scribble with the Apple Pencil, adding images, PDFs, links, and more to your notes in-line.
The themes are also worth a mention. They will literally make anything you write look cool and professional, which makes the app exciting to use.
Overall, Bear is perfect for users who value writing in plain text, organizing with nested tags, and staying inspired by a cozy design.
Price: Bear is free to use, and a monthly plan costs $1.50 or $15 per year subscription if you want to sync your notes between devices.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and MacOS.
7. Noteshelf

Noteshelf is basically Goodnotes’ slightly cheaper cousin who honestly does a lot of the same stuff just as well. You’ll find all the tools you need to take great notes on your Apple ipad.
The interface provides a streamlined experience that’s easy to navigate, with plenty of customization features — from page templates and notebook covers to different pen types and the colors and sizing of your tools.
Noteshelf uses advanced handwriting recognition and indexing to ensure that your notes are accurately captured and easily searchable. Some people actually prefer the handwriting feel in Noteshelf than Goodnotes, saying it’s smoother and more responsive.
Its notes can consist of your typing, handwriting, PDFs, images, and recorded audio. You can even annotate PDFs and write on imported images, switch to dark mode for late-night note sessions, and use focus mode to hide distractions when you need to concentrate.
AI features is a nice touch for students. You can ask the AI to translate text, generate study notes, summarize long sections, or answer questions based on your content. It’s not going to write your essays for you, but it’s useful for reviewing material.
iCloud sync across devices, export to PDF/image/text formats, import from Files app and cloud storage.
For security and privacy, you can add a passcode to protect important and sensitive notes, much like what Apple added to its Notes app.
Pricing: Limited free plan available with three notebooks.
One-time fee of $9.99 for the full version, which is less expensive than Goodnotes for premium features.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Windows.
8. Google Keep

Google Keep is a lightweight note capture tool that’s ideal for quick thoughts, ideas, or lists.
It’s not as comprehensive at systematic note-taking as other apps here, but it’s so simple to use that it’s very appealing.
The interface is simple and card-based, making it easy to pin important notes, color-code them by class, or label content for future reference.
You can set reminders by date, time, or even location, like triggering a note when you arrive at the library.
The app allows you to take simple text notes. You can add sketches, audio recordings, photos taken on your camera or import images from the gallery.
Plus, Google Keep allows taking handwritten notes on iPad. It is possible to draw and write on an image.
If you use Google regularly, It’s easy to write a quick note before accessing it from another one of your devices. Collaboration is also straightforward: just share a note with a classmate, and both of you can edit it in real time.
While it excels at speed and convenience, Google Keep isn’t built for long-form note-taking or structured study organization.
It doesn’t support folders or nested notebooks, and there’s no way to import or annotate PDFs, and has limited formatting options, which makes it harder to study the notes you take.
Pricing: Completely free
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and Web.
9. LiquidText

LiquidText is a little different from other note-taking apps on this list because it focuses on the ability to take notes from an uploaded document or PDF.
Importing web pages as PDFs is quick and easy thanks to the built-in web browser. By using the “multi-document” feature, you can open and view multiple PDF files side by side.
Once you import PDFs to the app, you can get a side-by-side view of your document and a workspace for notes. You can then take snippets, annotate the PDF, and take notes in the workspace to coincide with your document.
The annotate feature lets you freely draw on documents to highlight specific parts, draw whatever you want, and more. You can also use the Search option to find specific words on a document.
As you gather data from your document, you can consolidate it into groups, draw lines and make connections between those details, and much more, which make it easy to navigate between sections.
Overall, LiquidText helps you pull out key ideas, draw connections, and visualize relationships across multiple documents in a way that traditional note apps cannot.
This makes it especially valuable for researchers, students, legal professionals, and anyone working with dense source materials.
Price: Limited free tier; paid plans start at $7.99 per month.
Platform: Available for iPadOS, Windows, and Mac.
10. Evernote

Evernote is a fully loaded powerhouse on ipad for the serious note-taker. It is popular for research, productivity, and collaborative planning.
You do get the ability to create multiple notebooks here to organize information easily, and each notebook can contain multiple notes.
Within these notes you can obviously add any type of content like text notes, PDFs, sketches, clippings of web pages, and other multimedia like photos, and audio recordings.
But its audio recording doesn’t sync your writing with the audio so it’s not as versatile as something like Notability or Noteful’s audio recording.
Evernote brings support for adding scribbles on a whiteboard of sorts that can be embedded directly inside your note. You can also transcribe your scribbled information if you want to, which can come in handy while searching through notes.
It offers powerful tagging, search across text and images, and integrates tasks and calendar views to help you manage projects and daily routines.
Evernote supports shared notebooks, making it suitable for both solo and group work. You can assign tasks within a shared project.
Everything syncs across devices through cloud, including Windows, macOS, iphone, ipad, Android, and web, so you never miss a beat.
Pricing: Free tier available with significant restrictions (50 notes, 1 notebook, 250 MB/month, syncing only to 2 devices).
$14.99/month or $129.99/year for the Personal plan; Professional plans available.
With professional plan, you can AI feature to search, summarize lengthy notes, transcribe audio recordings or screenshots and more.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC, and Android.
11. Freenotes

Freenotes is a free note taking app on the iPad but offers advanced features like AI tools, handwriting, PDF annotating, note layers, split screen, picture-in-picture video, 100+ templates, custom brushes, and more.
Whether starting a note from a blank page, template, or importing a PDF, Freenotes is easy to use and as well-organized as the big name paid apps.
You will appreciate the ability to watch a video in picture-in-picture mode while taking notes and the layers feature to create quizzes.
Freenotes has a fountain and ballpoint pen. The handwriting experience in Freenotes is good. Your handwriting looks like it does on paper, and palm rejection is perfect.
Freenotes supports many fonts, some of the most I have seen in a handwriting note-taking app, You can also use custom fonts in the app.
Though free, Freenotes offers Plenty of helpful and unique features, such as a decent page template collection, Multilingual translation, and even AI content tools, making it stand out from the crowd.
Pricing: Free, but you need to see the ads once when you open the app. Optionally, $9.99 one-time to remove ads.
Platform: Available for iPad, and iPhone.
12. Apple Notes

Apple Notes is the built-in note-taking app on iPad that combines simplicity with powerful tools. It is especially great for users who want something dependable and integrated right out of the box.
You can jot down ideas, sketch with Apple Pencil, scan documents, and attach PDFs or images, all within the same note.
You can organize your notes into folders, and proofread and rewrite your notes with Apple Intelligence. Notes with personal or sensitive data can also be stored securely by being locked with a password or FaceID.
Everything syncs automatically through iCloud, so your content stays up to date across iPhone, iPad, apple watch, and Mac. However, if you do not own any Apple products, you won’t be able to use the app.
Starting and creating a note is immediate and intuitive, perfect for quick thoughts or to-dos. But it’s not made for long-form or aesthetic notes, limiting its real-life use cases.
It can’t compete with the customization and integration options available on other note-taking apps. For example, It does not offer pre-built templates, PDF editing features,etc.
Pricing: Completely Free.
Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
In Conclusion
There you have it, my picks for the top 12 best note-taking apps for iPad. Whether you want the ability to creat quick lists, handwritten notes, or collaborative meeting agendas, there’s a note-taking app for you.
The optimal iPad note-taking application depends entirely on your specific workflow requirements, preferences, and goals.
Students prioritizing handwriting quality should explore GoodNotes, while those needing audio context benefit from Notability. OneNote is completely freen and provides seamless collaboration.
If you’re focused on managing checklists or reminders, Google Keep and Apple Notes are lightweight, reliable tools.
Remember, most of these apps are free to download and use. So, before you dip into your pocket, consider taking these apps for a spin and finding one that works for you.
Explore More: The Best IPads for Drawing and Taking Notes of 2026



















































