There are tons of Notes app available in the playstore and f-droid. I have use my fair share of them these are my best 5 recommendations. All of these are free to use and have to pay extra if you want specific features.
- All in one - Wenote - This is the most powerful note app I have used. This has memo, voice record, calendar, sync, color coding, various fonts, categories etc. Some of these features are behind a paywall. But It is a one time payment. It looks minimal and is light weight.
- All in one but foss - Joplin - This is an open-source project. Available on almost all platforms. If you want a powerful cross-platform note taking application then this is the best bet. This is Completely free but has an option of premium sync option. You can use free sync service to nextcloud and webdav.
- Security - Standard Notes - This is a note taking application that focuses on security. This is an open-source private notes app meaning your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. It has a minimal and clean UI. It has dedicated apps for most platforms and syncs your notes securely across all your devices, including your Android devices, Windows, iOS, Linux, and Web.
- Modern - Bundled Notes - This is the most modern looking Notes app on my list. It is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive. A powerful notes, lists, reminders and to-do app. Easily organise notes, lists, photos, files, and more. A google keep alternative.
- For casual use - Notally - A lightweight note taking application. A simple and elegant open source notes app. Notally is a minimalistic note taking app with a beautiful material design and powerful features. Dark mode, Completely free, Adjustable text size, Auto save and backup, No permissions required.
My dude. This is so relatable.
I switched to Obsidian a while back after they introduced the Canvas plugin. As much as I love Obsidian, it’s not an entire replacement for OneNote. 🥹
The Inking support, the syncing.
On Obsidian, I’ve set up a custom solution… I created a Mega account (20GB for free). Then I set it up to sync my Obsidian Vault folder. Then, I got an app called “Auto Sync for Mega” for my Android smartphone. That I linked with the Obsidian Vaults folder on my phone. This is a rudimentary, but simple and cost-effective way of sync.
I read somewhere that you can use GitHub to sync stuff… 🤷🏻♂️
I have 10+ years and gigs of notebooks. Uggh, gonna be a bear to switch.
Try Syncthing-Fork. All encrypted, no web servers holding your data.
https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android
My heart skipped a beat. 10+?! All the best 🫡.
Is it local? I don’t have the capability to set up local servers atm… I’ll try it sometime soon tho… thanks!
It runs as an app/service on devices. So if you have any computer at home, Windows/Linux/iOS, it can run Syncthing. It’s easy to install and setup, installs like any other app.
I run it on all my family phones and laptops, and setup sync jobs that make sense for each user, e.g. Everyone gets a shared folder from their phone DCIM folder to a folder on their primary computer. Since it can sync 2-way,this makes managing photos much easier for them.
Edit: I admit to having been lazy with managing my notebooks. So I kind of see moving to a new notebook system as my opportunity to clean up/deduplicate, reorganize, etc.
Edit2: For Windows, SyncTrayzor makes things much easier to manage. https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor/releases/download/v1.1.29/SyncTrayzorSetup-x64.exe
But you’d have to be on the same network for the sync to work, I presume.