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notebook and pen

The Best OneNote Alternative for Mac

Posted on May 1, 2021January 16, 2022 by Greg Bulmash

I am a OneNote addict

I don’t know whether OneNote maps to how my brain works or I’ve mapped my brain to OneNote, but when it comes to organizing my thoughts, it’s my favorite tool… on Windows… in its 2016 Desktop edition, not the Windows 10 UWP app.

One Note Demo

It’s got multiple ways to subdivide and organize your thoughts: notebooks, sections, section groups, pages, and subpages. You can link internally between them. Additionally, the UI on pages is not a simple top to bottom text editor. Text, images, and attachments are added in blocks you can move around the page. You can make columns, make a detective board…

Detective Board

Gradually, over the years, Microsoft has made changes to the UI, moving things around. In the Windows Store version, everything’s now on the left and the section/section-groups are in a left-hand column rather than tabs at the top, but that’s not a deal breaker.

What is a deal breaker? When you use OneNote 2016 for Mac or the One Note Windows 10 UWP app, you can only create and save OneNote Notebooks in OneDrive. And if your employer hasn’t authorized (or even blocks) OneDrive for business purposes, Microsoft has effectively killed your ability to use OneNote in 3/4 of its OneNote options (web, Mac, UWP).

Why? Ask Microsoft. I’m sure their PR has worded a talking point around why there’s a very good, totally non-coercive and non-creepy reason they’re trying to force you to use OneDrive.

Enter Outline

I’ve used other note taking apps, but the hierarchy and the movable blocks are the killer feature my brain prefers. And Outline has them. In fact it supports the .one notebook format for OneNote and multiple cloud services for storing your notebooks, so I can store mine wherever I want and access them with Outline on my Mac and with OneNote on my Windows machine… at least with OneNote 2016 Desktop.

Outline screen cap

Downsides (at least for me):

  • It’s Mac only. That’s not a huge problem as the OneNote 2016 Desktop app remains compatible, but it could be a problem when that Microsoft app becomes unavailable or a security risk.
  • It does not have drawing tools. I don’t often use them and don’t make detective boards with lines between objects, but sometimes I will get a little sketch notey or flowcharty and those drawing tools are appreciated.
  • Outline costs $39.99 + tax after a 14 day free trial. Honestly, for the productivity boost, I think $40 is totally worth it and I’m glad to support the people who make it. But that may be a problem for some.
  • Unless your organization/team is using OneNote (or Outline), sharing out your notebooks is either impossible, pointless, or both, which can make a great OneNote replacement like this sort of a waste of time.

So if you’re a (former) Windows user and OneNote addict like me who is integrating a Mac into their work life, check out Outline. It will make the transition at least a bit more comfortable.

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