A lot has happened with Windows OneNote in the last year around its versioning, and it’s now getting confusing for many people. This version confusion can influence several things that 1MTD and MYN users might be doing. So, let me sort out these different Windows OneNote versions for you.
Especially now with Onenote being a featured app for those of us using the Duo, it looks pretty lackluster compared to the iOS or Windows apps. Onenote is a great tool, and it really limits its usefulness when basic features aren't supported across platforms. Simplenote is more similar to Notepad than Onenote. It's basically a plain text editor that lets you store your notes online. Some of the very basic features of OneNote can be approximated, such as inclusion of images, links and text formatting, but it requires learning markdown, which is extremely cumbersome to use and time consuming to learn. No basic formatting like bold, italics. Makes it harder to do things like meeting notes. Keep is intended as a minimal and quick note taking app, but sadly for those that are looking for something more robust, the features are just not there. Onenote is sufficiently different from other note apps that I'd say no, the web app is actually your best bet. Unless you want to switch note apps, then just try them to see which you like best. I use Keep, for its simplicity and excellent integration in the Googlesphere, but it's lacking the organization of onenote.
First, let me say that I really like OneNote, which is Microsoft’s notetaking app, and I recommend it often to my 1MTD and MYN users. I use it for a lot more than just notetaking. I use it for shopping lists, for saving web links, for collecting ideas for books, and more.
In my video courses, I also recommend OneNote for small project management and for email archiving. Which video courses? I discuss using OneNote in my One-Minute Project Management Video Course and in my Outlook Inbox Ninja videos. Picking the right version is important for both courses. So for those courses, and for other reasons, let me explain current Windows OneNote versioning.
This is a relatively long article by the way, but the first few paragraphs may tell you all you need to know, so at least read the beginning.
Two Primary Versions of OneNote
There are currently two primary versions of the Windows OneNote application in use. One is called OneNote 2016, and the other is called OneNote for Windows 10.
The best place to see these is in the Windows 10 Start Menu. Look at the Start Menu screenshot below. While the OneNote 2016 naming in clear, notice that the OneNote for Windows 10 icon simply shows the name OneNote.
Also, you should know that both versions run in Windows 10.
When you open these apps, they look quite different.
Here is a screenshot of OneNote 2016 once it’s launched:
And here is a screenshot of OneNote for Windows 10:
Each of these versions has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, notice in these screenshots that the page and section navigation user interface is quite different between the two, and you may have a preference. But beyond that, there are many other differences between the two versions.
I’ll go over many of those differences ahead but let me cut to the chase. For both of my video courses that I mention above, I recommend you use OneNote 2016. It has needed features that are not present in OneNote for Windows 10.
And in general, OneNote 2016 is my go-to choice nearly always. Read on for more details.
Determining which Version You Have
Be aware that both versions may already be installed on your Windows 10 computer, but perhaps not.
And it may be initially hard to tell which versions you have. For example, even if you do have both, you might not have large tiles for both installed on your Start Menu. And text searching on “OneNote” in the Start Menu sometimes only finds one—even if you have both.
The best way to tell what you have is to open the Start Menu (e.g. click the Windows key), and then scroll through the alphabetical list of apps on the left side of the Start Menu; that’s the vertical list with the small tiles as shown in the first figure above. Scroll down to the section for the letter O. If you have both versions installed, you will see both in that section, as shown in that figure.
How to Get OneNote 2016
Again, I recommend you mostly use the Outlook 2016 version. However, if you confirm that OneNote 2016 is not installed on your Windows computer you might be concerned. Well, the good news is you can download it for free from Microsoft at this link:
Delineating the Two Versions
Okay, so why is Microsoft distributing two different current versions of OneNote? It’s a long story but I’ll try to make it short and clear.
First, let me state that there are two different types of apps represented here. OneNote 2016 is a normal Windows desktop application (also called a Win32 app), like Word, Excel, Photoshop, and so on. These types of apps have been around a long time—literally for decades—and most have accumulated tons of great features over years of updates.
The second type was started around 2012, and it is what used to be called a Windows Store App, or a Trusted Microsoft Store App, or a Modern App. In the technical press they are mostly called UWP apps these days (I will explain that acronym below). They are simpler and have fewer features than the full-fledged Win32 apps. They are usually designed to work well on tablets. Of the two OneNote apps, the one called OneNote for Windows 10 is a UWP app.
Why the UWP Version?
As I said, UWP apps are primarily created to work well in Windows tablet mode (but they have other reasons to exist, as well). In the beginning days of Windows 8, these apps were full-screen, very simple, and primarily designed to be used with touch or a pen. Microsoft released UWP versions of several of its Office software products (Excel Mobile, Word Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and OneNote). There is no Outlook UWP app per se, but Microsoft created Mail and Calendar apps that link to your primary servers. Many other software sellers have created simple UWP apps that correspond to their more feature-laden desktop apps.
However, you also might recall that the tablet version of those apps never really took off with most Windows users. And the count of software developers that bothered to make UWP/Microsoft Store versions of their desktop software was not as high as Microsoft had hoped.
Furthermore, for those UWP apps that were made to match their older cousins, the UWP versions were usually hobbled and feature-poor in comparison to their desktop equivalent. That’s because, to make them work with touch on a Windows tablet, the developers had to eliminate a lot of the features. Many of those features were normally embedded in tiny menus, and such menus did not work well in touch mode. And the tiny dialog boxes that controlled many software features were also hard to work with in touch mode. So, most of these software packages were greatly dumbed-down compared to their original versions. Plus, it can take years to recode an entire application from the ground up to capture decades worth of features—it was a big task.
Switching Back to the Keyboard
At first it was a novelty, being able to use a touch-based Windows tablet with their Microsoft Office software. At least with me anyway. But over time, I and most other Office users switched back to the full-featured Win32 desktop apps that worked better with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad. We needed the features there. So, the corresponding tablet business software languished, as did other software categories you’d normally expect to see on a tablet.
Perhaps the best (or worst) example is this: about two years ago Amazon killed its UWP version of the Kindle app. Amazon now only distributes the desktop (Win32) Kindle app for Windows 10. To me that really represented the decline of the tablet apps in Microsoft Store. If you can’t even read a Kindle book when in true tablet mode, what can you do with tablet mode? OneNote might be one answer, which I’ll come back to in a moment.
Catching Up with Tablet Apps
Microsoft saw the issues and tried several things to supply its users with a true tablet experience in their business software without compromising features. First, they quickly added a Touch Mode to all their standard Win32 desktop Office apps. By clicking a single control in the upper left of the app, you could toggle between a keyboard/mouse friendly interface and a touch friendly interface. There was a huge advantage to this in that the user retained full-feature functionality but could also use touch. In my mind, that was a very good solution, and I still use it today.
Microsoft also continued trying to improve the simpler UWP/Microsoft Store versions of Office apps, adding over time many features that were missing. Plus, UWP became the common coding platform for Windows Mobile (phone) apps and a lot of other new Windows hardware like Surface Hub, Xbox, HoloLens, and more (thus its UWP name: Universal Windows Platform). So, a single app could run on all these devices. That was pretty useful, and until recently, there was a lot of hope for UWP business apps.
But perhaps that UWP attention was too little too late for two reasons. First, those tablet apps still never really caught on with PC users. Let’s face it, if you are doing typical Excel work you are likely to have your PC in desktop mode, with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad. And you are likely to favor using the desktop version of Excel. That’s also true with most of the other Office apps.
Second, Microsoft abandoned Windows Mobile, and that entire smartphone OS market, which was a primary motivator for creating UWP apps. Given these two realities, Microsoft is reportedly not developing the UWP versions of Office apps any further, at least not now.
Why OneNote is Different
But there is one class of products that does make sense to continue expanding and improving for the Windows tablet, and that’s ink notetaking and drawing apps. Windows 10 in tablet mode, when used with a pen, is perfect for making ink notes and ink sketches, and the UWP version of OneNote shines in this area. It’s optimized for that. And as of recent, the UWP version of OneNote also works okay as a desktop app (though I prefer the user interface and extra features of the OneNote 2016 app).
Perhaps because it’s not bad in its desktop mode, and perhaps to save money and define focus better, Microsoft has decided that the touch-optimized UWP version of OneNote is the primary version they are going to support, develop, and distribute, going forward.
OneNote Version Detached from Office
In fact, Microsoft has announced that all new features and app development for OneNote are only being made on the UWP version. The Win32 desktop version will supposedly have no more updates made to it. In fact, at last announcement, there will be no Win32 OneNote 2019 released to accompany Office 2019.
Reportedly, OneNote has been “detached” from the Microsoft Office suite, and the UWP OneNote is now installed as a part of Windows 10 (the OS) instead. Which explains its formal name: OneNote for Windows 10.
That said, as of this writing, if you go to any of Microsoft’s Office products sale sites, OneNote is still shown as being part of the Office suite. So, it’s a bit confusing. And note that it’s the UWP version that you will get if you install Office 365 or Office 2019 today.
What does this mean feature wise, and which version should you use?
I think each of the two OneNote versions has its own strengths and so I keep both installed. The UWP version is being enhanced with many new features that are not in OneNote 2016, most of them ink-based. So, if you use OneNote with a pen on a Windows computer in tablet mode, you should launch that version. Its user interface is optimized for such.
But in terms of interoperability with other Office apps, the older OneNote 2016 version works better. It also still has way more general features. And I feel its interface works better with a mouse and keyboard.
So for now, I always launch OneNote 2016 when I use OneNote if I am using a keyboard and mouse/touchpad (which is 99% of the time). Not only does it have more features, but I like the top-tabbed section interface much better than the side-tab design of the UWP version, which seems to eat up much more screen real estate (see the screenshots at the start of this article to see what I mean).
Why Do I Need the OneNote 2016 Version for my Video Courses?
Okay, back to why I recommend you use the older Win32 OneNote 2016 app with my video courses. Simple: it has some important needed features that the UWP app does not have.
For example, in my One-Minute Project Management Video Course I rely on the use of OneNote templates to create project pages. This greatly speeds up adding new project pages to OneNote. But as of this writing, the UWP OneNote does not support such templates. Only OneNote 2016 does. Support for templates is supposedly planned for future releases of the UWP app, but it’s not there yet. Other features are missing in the UWP app like the Link-to-Outlook-tasks button.
Also, in my Outlook Inbox Ninja videos video Lesson 7.4, I show using OneNote as an option for archiving Outlook email. In that video I state that to make that practical you really need to store your mail archive OneNote Notebook file on your local hard drive, not in the cloud. Unfortunately, the UWP version of OneNote does not support local notebook files and never will. It will only support cloud files. So, OneNote 2016 is what I recommend there, too.
Is Using OneNote 2016 a Dead End?
You might be wondering, is your using OneNote 2016 leading you to commit to a dead-end app?
Well, the fact is, even though Microsoft is not further enhancing OneNote 2016, they did say they will continue to support it (think security and OS updates) for many more years to come, reportedly through 2025 even. And they will continue to allow you to download it free (at the link above). Too many people rely on its advanced features to simply drop it at this point, so, it will remain a viable app for some time.
Also consider that Microsoft has changed its strategy many times around UWP/Microsoft Store apps. Given that the market has been so lukewarm toward them, it would not surprise me if in a few months Microsoft reverses its position again on this and starts releasing new Win32 versions of OneNote.
And finally, since Microsoft recently announced it is no longer developing the UWP versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—rather they are currently focused on the Win32 versions (and the Office Online versions) instead—that tells me it’s quite possible Win32 OneNote could also get fresh attention in the future.
In the meantime, I’d say you should continue to use one or both, whichever version best solves your needs on your hardware.
In the comments section let me know your thoughts. Do you have a favorite between the two versions, and why?
Michael
Are you looking for a OneNote alternative?
Don’t you hate when your brain conjures up ideas at the wrong moments?
Like when you’re about to go to sleep.
In the past, when this happened, you either had to forego the idea and go to sleep or get up, look for a book and pen, make a note, and ruin your sleep cycle.
But nowadays, there are apps that simplify things. You can just reach out to the phone that ‘sleeps’ next to you and use an app like OneNote to jot down your idea.
The light from the screen might ruin your sleep (hint: turn on your phone’s night mode), but hey, you will at least have the idea that will make a massive difference in your business.
What is OneNote?
OneNote is a digital notebook app on steroids. You can scribble quick notes, prepare checklists, draw, and even incorporate other items such as photos in it. It also makes it easy to collaborate with your team.
Pros of OneNote
- Take various kinds of notes, in text format, audio notes, drawings, etc.
- Add highlights and ink annotations to get important bits to stand out.
- Notebooks, sections, and pages make it easy to organize your notes and navigate.
- Share notes and collaborate with your team.
Limitations of OneNote
- You can’t buy it individually. You need a Microsoft Office 365 plan, which comes with a suite of all their apps like Skype, Word, OneDrive, and Excel.
Best suited for: Freelancers and businesses already using Microsoft Office 365.
Pricing: You can start with a free one-month trial. After that, you can go with the $6.99 per month plan or the $9.99 per month plan.
OneNote is a great tool with a lot of wonderful features. But it is mainly for people who already have a Microsoft Office 365 plan and want to combine it with the other apps. If you use something else like Google’s apps, there are better OneNote alternatives. I have listed some of them.
The Best OneNote Alternatives
1. Sticky Notes by Ukiv
Sticky Notes by Ukiv is a simple note-taking app with over 1.5 million users. It’s great for saving your ideas and making to-do lists. It’s not as advanced as OneNote, but it’s a good choice if you want something straightforward.
Pros:
- Very fast and easy to use.
- Browser extensions for Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
- Makes it fun to take notes with beautiful themes and fonts.
- Notes get backed up on the cloud automatically.
Limitations:
- Only works on browsers with the extension.
- No mobile version available.
- No collaboration/team features.
Best suited for: Solopreneurs and business owners.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are $9.99 a month, $99 a year, or $999 for lifetime access. Discounts for students, schools, and nonprofit organizations. But on AppSumo, you can get it for life for a one-time payment of $49.
2. Ideanote
Ideanote is an idea-generation software for businesses. It helps customers, team members, partners, and guests brainstorm ideas and collaborate. It ensures that your company is only working on plausible features that your customers want.
Pros:
- Contains 100+ templates that help create the right idea-collection campaigns for product improvement, boosting productivity, marketing, sales, etc.
- Helps capture the right ideas.
- Collaboration features help you filter the best ideas and set timelines.
- Helps you track ideas, too.
Limitations:
- Doesn’t suit most businesses. Mainly meant for online businesses such as SaaS companies.
Best suited for: SaaS companies.
Pricing: 7-day free trial. Plans range from $249 per month to $2,899 per month. Or you can get an exclusive annual deal on AppSumo for only $59.
3. Evernote
Evernote is one of my favorite note-taking apps. It works on multiple devices, you can take many types of notes, and it has several other features.
Pros:
- You can record audio, take notes, prepare checklists, save pages on the web, and more.
- Automatically saves your notes to the web.
- Access them from multiple devices via the web version and the app even when you’re offline.
- Easily search for your notes.
Limitations:
- Notes take time to sync and appear on the other apps.
Best suited for: Individuals to large businesses.
Apple App Like Onenote
Pricing: Free plan available. 14-day free trial for paid plans. Paid plans are $7.99 per month and $14.99 per user/month.
4. Simplenote
As the name suggests, Simplenote is a simple note-taking tool. It’s free and available on multiple devices.
Pros:
- Completely free to use.
- You can use the web version or an app. It has apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Linux, and Windows operating systems.
- Notes get backed, synced, and shared across all devices.
- Tag notes to make them easy to find.
- Team members can access shared notes.
Limitations:
- Too simple
- Dropbox sync no longer supported.
Best suited for: Freelancers.
Pricing: Free.
5. Nimbus Note
Nimbus Note is a comprehensive platform for organizing notes, documents, and projects from multiple sources into a collaborative digital environment.
Pros:
- Easily manage all workspaces, team members, and notes in a nest structure
- Scan documents with your phone and add them straight to your notes
- Embedded widgets and websites like Google Maps, YouTube, Google Docs, and Google Drive
- Whitelabel capabilities when you’re on a Team plan
Limitations:
- Limited calculation options for tables
- The lack of backlinks (this feature is currently in the roadmap)
Best suited for: Project managers, marketers, and creative teams looking to organize and collaborate on all their documents and info.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are $3.99 per month for personal use and $6 per user per month.
6. Encryptic
As the name suggests, Encryptic is a note-taking app with a focus on encryption. The security is so high on this app that only you will know what you type.
Pros:
- The app runs directly on the browser. Your writings are stored in the browser’s cache using encryption. It never leaves your device.
- The markdown formatting syntax makes it easy to take notes.
- You can create to-do lists with progress bars to see how far you are from completing goals.
Limitations:
- Too simple.
Best suited for: Freelancers and solopreneurs.
Pricing: Free.
7. Google Keep
Google Keep is a note-taking tool from Google. You can use it to take a variety of notes on multiple devices. It also integrates with Google docs.
Pros:
- An excellent app for taking notes. You can create checklists, add notes to images, color-code notes, and do so much more.
- Helps you get the most out of Google docs, Drive, and other Google tools.
- You can also set reminders and invite collaborators. It makes it easy for multiple people to work on a project.
Limitations:
- It’s not too simple, but it isn’t as sophisticated as Evernote or OneNote.
- Formatting needs improvement.
Best suited for: Google Docs and Drive users.
Pricing: Free to $10 per user per month. You don’t pay for it separately. You pay for it when you subscribe to Google Workspace.
8. Roam Research
Roam Research is an excellent note-taking tool, but it has many more purposes. For example, you can use it as a writing tool to write pages of text. It’s good for writing and researching as a team because of its robust collaboration features.
Pros:
- You can either use it as a note-taking tool or a complete writing tool.
- You can use it for various other things like tracking goals, as a personal CRM, and for organizing your research.
- Create several notes and connect them using “networked thought.”
- Useful drag-and-drop features.
Limitations:
- There’s no mobile app.
- Requires a bit of a learning curve to get the most out of it.
Best suited for: Individuals to small teams.
Pricing: 31-day free trial. Plans are $13.75 a month (billed annually) and $8.333 a month ($500; five-year commitment). Discounts for researchers, those under 22, and others.
9. Notion
Notion is more than just a note-taking app. It’s an all-in-one workspace made for teams. Individual teams or the entire company can work on projects together on it. It can actually replace popular project management tools like Trello.
Pros:
- You can use it to execute tasks such as product visualization, running design projects, planning your marketing and sales, etc.
- A team wiki helps organize knowledge into easy to find answers.
- Kanban-style boards help plan and manage projects.
- Create notes and docs and share them with your team.
Limitations:
- The mobile version needs an upgrade.
- Because of the many features, there’s a learning curve to understanding and getting the most out of the software.
Best suited for: Small businesses to enterprises.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are $4 and $8 per month, billed annually. Free for first responders and others fighting COVID-19. Custom enterprise plan available.
10. Bear
Bear is the note-taking app for writers, as you can take simple notes and write detailed essays with it. It comes with beautiful themes, typography, and a dark mode that make writing a pleasurable experience.
Pros:
- Has extensions for Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera and apps for iPhone and iPad, making it accessible on multiple devices.
- You can organize notes with hashtags and even link them to each other.
- Focus mode and advanced markup options make it easy to write.
- You can also check word count, read time, paragraphs, and characters if you want to meet a writing goal.
- Very affordable.
Limitations:
- There’s no app for Android
- No collaboration/team features.
Best suited for: Writers and bloggers.
Pricing: Free plan available. Free trial. Paid plans are $1.49 a month and $14.99 a year.
11. Notes
Notes is a simple note-taking app from Apple. There’s nothing special about it. But if you are looking for a OneNote alternative just for taking notes, it will suit you.
Pros:
- Create simple notes and format them with checklists, titles, tables, etc.
- Add photos, maps, and other elements to illustrate your points.
- Collaborate with others.
- All notes get backed up into iCloud.
Limitations:
- Only available for MacOS and iOS users.
- Very simple.
Best suited for: Apple users.
Pricing: Free.
12. WorkFlowy
WorkFlowy is an app for taking notes, organizing your workflow, and planning simple projects. You can use it on multiple platforms.
Pros:
- Create notes and tag them into groups.
- Create lists and place them in other lists to create a hierarchy.
- Apps for desktop, iOS, and Android.
- Use templates to create complex structures.
Limitations:
- Mobile versions’ user interfaces need upgrades.
- Features are limited.
Free App Like Onenote
Best suited for: Small businesses.
Pricing: 15-day free trial. Plans are $5 a month or $49 a year.
13. Notejoy
Notejoy is the note-taking app for teams. 40,000+ professionals around the world use it. It also integrates with many apps and works on several devices. These options make it very convenient to use.
Pros:
- The focus view helps with distraction-free writing.
- Create checklists with action items.
- Team members can offer feedback on each other’s notes.
- Easily organize content to make stuff easy to find. If you still don’t locate something, you can use the search option.
Limitations:
- Requires a learning curve. It can take some work for your entire team to understand how to use it.
App Like Onenote For Ipad
Best suited for: Businesses with small teams.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are $4, $8, and $12 a month, billed annually.
Which OneNote alternative do you like most?
These are the 12 best OneNote alternatives. They range from extremely simple ones that just let you jot down your ideas to sophisticated apps that let you write essays, plan projects, and more.
So, think about your and your team’s needs and decide which one will suit you best. All of the above apps offer either free trials or free plans. Some are even completely free.
You might also want to give the pen and paper option a go. I use it and am completely happy with it. I reserve apps for when I am on the go and don’t have access to a book. I also use them to set reminders.
If you are on the lookout for note-taking apps and other productivity tools, make sure you check out the AppSumo store. It regularly has lifetime deals that provide access to top-quality tools for a fraction of the price.
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