Google Keep lets you create notes and to-do lists that sync across your computer and phone or tablet. It’s handy in a variety of ways: You can record voice memos, and Keep will transcribe them as text notes. You can include images in your notes, and if an image includes text, it shows up in search results. You can create time-triggered reminder notifications based on your notes. You can share your notes with other people and collaborate on them.
Keep is free for individual users and included with a subscription to Google Workspace. You use it through a web browser on your computer, and it’s also available as an app for your Android or iOS device. You’ll get the most mileage from Keep if you use both the desktop browser version and the mobile app in your daily workflow, so that you can take notes and access them wherever you are. Your Keep notes will sync to the cloud through Google Drive.
This guide walks you through how to quickly start using Keep. We’re focusing on the web version here, but most of the same features are also in the Keep mobile app, just laid out differently.
In this article:
- Meet the Keep home page
- Create a new note
- Enhance your note
- Finish your note
- Manage your notes
- Use keyboard shortcuts
Meet the Keep home page
Start by going to keep.google.com. If you’re not already signed in with your Google account (for Gmail or Google Workspace), you’ll be prompted to do so.
Keep’s home page comprises a main board in the center and a sidebar along the left. The first time you use Keep, this main board will be empty; once you start adding notes, they’ll appear here. The white bar in the center of the main board (with “Take a note…” inside it) is what you use to create notes.
Your first view of the Google Keep home page.
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Create a new note
Start typing inside the “Take a note” text box. As you type, the white bar expands down and becomes a new note. You can type in whatever text you want or paste in text that you’ve copied from another source.
Along the top of the note, you can type in a title for the note. To the right of this title line is a pushpin icon. Clicking it prioritizes the note by pinning it toward the top of the main board. (You’ll find more details about how pinned notes work later in this guide.)
Click the pushpin icon to pin the note near the top of your notes board.
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If you paste in a web link, a preview of the linked page appears along the bottom of the note as a thumbnail with sample text from the page. Clicking the preview opens the link in a new browser tab. To remove the preview, click the three-dot icon that appears at its right and select Remove.
Link previews appear on notes by default but can be removed.
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For each additional link you add, a preview for it is added to the bottom of the note, below the preview for the previously added link. This link preview feature may not work for every link you paste into your note, though. (It can also be turned off under Keep’s settings, described later in this guide.)
If you want to create a list of numbered items in your note, start a line by typing 1. Then type your text and press the Enter key; the next line automatically begins with “2.” You can delete this subsequent number by pressing the Backspace key. Similarly, typing an asterisk (*), typing text, and hitting Enter creates a bulleted list.
If you start a numbered list, Keep automatically numbers subsequent lines.
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5 more ways to create Keep notes
Here are other ways to create a new note in Keep:
- Start a to-do list by clicking the checkbox icon on the right side of the “Take a note” bar. Then follow the steps in “Turn a note into a to-do list” below.
- Draw a doodle to put into the note by clicking the paintbrush icon on the right side of the “Take a note” bar. Then follow the steps in “Add a drawing” below. Note that this tool is available only when you use Keep in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or another browser that’s based on Chromium, as well as the mobile app. It does not appear in Firefox.
- Upload an image to put in the new note by clicking the picture icon at the end of the “Take a note” bar. Then follow the steps in “Add or remove images” below. If you’re using the mobile app, you can take a photo with your phone or tablet.
- In the mobile app, record a voice memo. In the Android app, press the + icon and then the microphone icon that appears. On iOS, press the microphone icon at the bottom of the home screen. Start speaking, and Keep will transcribe your spoken words into text in real time.
In the Keep Android app, press the + button and then the microphone icon to record a voice memo.
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- Have Google’s AI tool, Gemini, generate a list: In the Keep app for Android, tap the + icon, select Help me create a list, and enter a prompt. This feature is available only if you have a Pixel phone or a Google AI Pro, Google AI Ultra, or Workspace Labs account.
Some Android users can enlist Gemini to generate task lists.
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Use the Keep Chrome extension to create notes
Google offers a Keep extension for Chrome that lets you quickly create notes based on web pages as you browse. After you’ve installed it, pin the Keep icon to Chrome’s address bar so that stays visible: Click the Extensions icon, and on the panel that opens, click the pin icon to the right of Google Keep Chrome Extension.
Now open a web page and click the Keep icon to the right of the address bar. A new blank note will appear at the upper right. When you’re finished filling it out, click Create Note, and this new note will appear on your Keep notes list. The link to the web page will be set at the top of the new note.
The Keep extension for Chrome lets you create a note without having to open the Keep web app.
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You can also use text on a web page to create a note: Highlight the text, right-click on it, and select Save selection to Keep.
And you can save an image on a web page to a new note: Right-click the image, select Google Keep Chrome Extension > Save image to Keep. A new blank note will appear at the upper right for you to fill out, as described above, with the image embedded on it.
The Keep extension lets you create a new note from selected text or an image on a web page.
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Enhance your note
At the bottom of a note is a toolbar that lets you take various actions on a note. Starting from the left…
Format text in a note
Click the icon of the underlined “A” to open a toolbar that lets you format text that you’ve selected in your note. There are three size options (heading 1, heading 2, normal) and three styles (bold, italic, underline). If you haven’t selected any text, new text that you start typing in your note will appear in the size and style that you’ve selected on this toolbar.
Change the background
The palette icon lets you change the background color of the note. You can choose from eleven colors and nine background images.
A background color can help a note stand out on your board.
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You may find it helpful to change a note’s background color to make it easy to spot on the main board, or to designate notes under a similar category with the same color. Or you could come up with a color-coded system — for example, red notes have the highest priority, while yellow notes get lower priority.
Set a reminder for your note
Click the bell icon to pick a day and time when you want a notification to be sent to your PC, phone, or tablet about this note. Select one of Keep’s suggested three reminder times or Pick date & time to set a custom time for the alert to appear. You can use this function to remind you of an appointment or other important event.
Remember important items or events by creating a note and adding a reminder.
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A reminder appears along the bottom of an opened note or a note on the main page of Keep. You can remove a reminder from a note by hovering over it and clicking the X by the reminder. To change the reminder’s date, time, or interval: Click the reminder itself, which will open a panel that lets you change these attributes.
Note: Reminders for your Keep notes are saved and can also be managed in Google Tasks, which you can access through its web app or mobile app for Android or iOS.
Invite collaborators
The headshot icon lets you share the note with others so that you can work on it together. These people can be from your list of contacts saved under your Google account (or your corporate directory under a Google Workspace account), or you can invite people by entering their email addresses. They’ll get an email inviting them to collaborate on your note; they will need to sign in with a Google account to do so.
Need help with a note? Invite collaborators.
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The people you invite to collaborate can change all aspects of your note, as described throughout this guide, except for deleting the note.
Add or remove images
To add images to your note, click the picture icon and select an image file stored on your PC. (In the mobile app, you can take a photo or choose an image stored on your phone or tablet.) It will appear at the top of your note.
Images you add to notes appear at the top.
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You can keep adding images; each subsequent image you add to a note appears to the right of the first image you added. When you click an image in a note, a viewer tool shows you the image in a larger size.
To remove an image: Move the mouse pointer over it and click the trash can icon that appears on the lower-right of the image.
Archive a note
Clicking the “down arrow in a box” icon removes the note from the main board and stows it in your Keep account’s archive. This is a good place to put notes for safekeeping when you’re no longer using them but don’t want to delete them.
Tag a note with a label
Tagging a note with one or more labels enables you to find them quickly later. For example, you can choose to see only the notes that you’ve tagged with the “Work” label on the main board. (Later in this guide we’ll discuss how to filter notes by label.)
To add a label to a note: Click the three-dot icon on the note’s toolbar and select Add label from the pop-up menu. (If your note already has a label, select Change labels from the pop-up menu.) You can type a new label inside the “Enter label name” box and press the Enter key, or select the checkbox for a label that you’ve previously created on the list below. When you’re done adding labels to your note, just click anywhere outside of the “Label note” pop-up panel.
You can select from existing labels or create new ones on the fly.
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Label tags appear along the bottom of an opened note or a note on the main page of Keep. You can remove a label from a note by hovering over it and clicking the X by the label.
Add a drawing
Remember, this option is available only if you’re using Keep in Chrome or a Chromium-based browser, or the Keep mobile app.
Click the three-dot icon on the note’s toolbar and select Add drawing from the pop-up menu. A simple drawing tool opens; you can use it to quickly sketch a doodle using a mouse, touchpad, or the touchscreen of your phone or tablet.
Add a quick sketch to illustrate a point in your note.
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When you’re finished, click the left-pointing arrow in the upper-left corner to return to your note. The drawing you sketched appears at the top of your note, and you can manage it like any other image.
Note: You can edit a drawing that you’ve made or draw over an image that you’ve added to a note. Simply open the note and click on the drawing or image. A drawing you’ve created will open immediately in the drawing tool. To open other images in the drawing tool, click the pen icon at the upper-right corner.
Turn a note into a to-do list
Click the three-dot icon on the toolbar and select Show checkboxes from the pop-up menu. Checkboxes will be set at the beginning of each line of text in the main body of your note.
(If you turn this function on for a blank note by clicking the checkbox icon at the right end of the “Take a note” bar, each new line of text that you type will start with a checkbox.)
Give yourself a feeling of accomplishment by turning your note into a to-do list and checking items off as you complete them.
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When you have a note with a checklist open, a six-dot icon appears to the left of each checkbox. You can rearrange the order of the items in the list by clicking and holding a six-dot icon, then dragging and dropping the item into another spot in the list. (In the mobile app, press and hold a six-dot icon, then drag and drop the item.)
You can use the same technique to indent items in the checklist: Grab the six-dot icon next to an item, then drag it to the right and release. This allows you to make a checkbox item appear as a subsection below the item above it.
Indent checklist items to make them subsections of your main list.
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Clicking an item’s checkbox crosses out its text and sends it to the bottom of the note. If you click the checkbox again to remove the checkmark, this sends the checkbox line of text back to the list of unchecked items. Its text will no longer be crossed out.
Checking off completed items moves them to the bottom of the note.
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You can delete a checkbox item (rather than marking it complete) by hovering the mouse pointer over it and clicking the X that appears over its right end.
To uncheck or delete all items you’ve checked, or to hide the checkboxes: Click the three-dot icon in the toolbar at the bottom of the note and select Uncheck all items, Delete checked items, or Hide checkboxes.
Extract text from images
If an image attached to your note depicts text, Keep can try to extract it. Click the three-dot icon, then select Grab image text to insert that text into your note.
Keep can detect text in images and insert it into a note.
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Send your note to Google Docs
When a note starts to turn into a missive, you can send it to Google Docs for more advanced editing options. Click the three-dot icon and select Copy to Google Docs. A copy of the note will be sent to your Google Drive, where you can further work on it in Docs as a normal document.
Finish your note
When you’re done tweaking your note, click Close. This shrinks down the note and sends it to the main board of your Keep home page. You can reopen a note by clicking it, make further changes to it, and click Close again.
Click Close to save your note and send it to the main board.
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Manage your notes
The main board of your Keep home page is where your notes appear. Imagine it as a big cork board that your notes are pinned to as cards.
Once you’ve created several notes, it can be difficult to find the one you want. But never fear: Keep has a number of ways to make them easier to find.
Arrange your notes
Notes that you’ve pinned (by clicking the pushpin icon to the right of a note’s title line) are set toward the top of the main board. More recently pinned notes appear first. Unpinned notes are pushed down toward the bottom.
Pinned notes appear at the top of your main board.
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To rearrange your notes, just drag and drop one note to another spot on the main board. The other notes will rearrange themselves to accommodate the note in its new spot.
If you want to see a certain note at the top of your main board, pin it and then, after newer pinned notes displace it, drag and drop it at the top. Or open the note, unpin it, and immediately re-pin it. This will set the note as the first one at the upper left of the board.
Search for notes
Along the top of your Keep home page is a search box you can use to search for text in your notes. Notes that contain your search query will appear on the main board.
Find notes quickly by using the search box up top.
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You can also narrow down the search to certain types of notes (for example, those that contain drawings or voice memos), notes that have certain labels, or notes that you’ve shared with certain contacts. Keep provides handy shortcuts below the search box that you can click to look for notes containing these and other criteria.
Keep has some search tricks up its sleeve, too: Remember how it transcribes voice memos to text? That text is searchable. What’s more, if text appears in an image in a note, Keep can search that text as well.
Choose List view or Grid view
To the right of the search box are three icons:
- Refresh (a circular arrow — click this to reload your Keep home page)
- List view/Grid view (two horizontal bars or four small squares)
- Settings (a gear)
By default, your Keep home page is set to Grid view, which arranges your notes in a grid layout.
Clicking the horizontal bars icon puts your main board into List view, which makes your notes wider and shows them in one long, single column. This can be better for scrolling through them on a phone screen, or if you’d rather see more information on individual notes at a glance.
When you’re in List view, the icon changes to four small squares. Click it to return to Grid view.
Click the List view icon to see more of each note at once. If you prefer the default compact view, click the Grid view icon.
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Navigate the left sidebar
Keep’s left sidebar helps you filter which notes are shown on the main board.
- Click Reminders to see only notes that you set with reminder notifications.
- Click one of the labels to see only notes that you’ve tagged with that label.
The left sidebar lets you filter notes by label.
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- Click Edit labels to create a new label, change the name of a label, or delete a label.
- Click Archive to see only notes that you’ve archived.
- Click Trash to see notes that you’ve recently deleted. From here you can restore a note to the main board. Otherwise, a deleted note stays in Trash for 7 days before it’s removed forever from your Keep account.
Select a note in Trash, then click the Restore icon on the toolbar along the bottom of the note to restore it to the main board.
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- Click the triple-bar icon at the upper-left corner to narrow or widen the left sidebar. When narrowed, the sidebar shows only the icons of these note labels. This may enable another column of notes to be shown on the main board, but it depends on your screen resolution, the size of your browser window, and your browser’s zoom level. You can try zooming your browser view in or out by pressing Ctrl + – (minus key) or Ctrl + + (plus key) to see how that affects the notes shown in the main window.
Click the three-line icon at the upper left to narrow the left sidebar and allow for another column of notes to be shown on the main board.
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Adjust settings
To the right of the List view/Grid view icon, click the gear icon and select Settings from the pop-up menu. A panel opens where you can disable note sharing, turn off thumbnail previews for links in your notes, and more.
Settings lets you tweak some of Keep’s default behaviors.
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Use keyboard shortcuts
You can save time in Google Keep by using keyboard shortcuts to trigger some actions. Below are some of the most useful shortcuts. To see more, click the gear icon at the upper right of the Keep home page and select Keyboard shortcuts, or just type ? when you’re on the Keep home page.
Handy Google Keep keyboard shortcuts
| Action | Windows shortcut | macOS shortcut |
| ON THE KEEP HOME PAGE | ||
| Start a new note | c | c |
| Start a new checklist note | l | l |
| Search notes | / | / |
| Move highlight to next note | j | j |
| Move highlight to previous note | k | k |
| Select highlighted note | x | x |
| Archive selected note(s) | e | e |
| Move selected note(s) to Trash | # | # |
| Pin or unpin selected note(s) | f | f |
| Toggle between List view and Grid view | Ctrl-g | ⌘-g |
| IN A NOTE | ||
| Copy | Ctrl-c | ⌘-c |
| Cut | Ctrl-x | ⌘-x |
| Paste | Ctrl-v | ⌘-v |
| Undo | Ctrl-z | ⌘-z |
| Redo | Ctrl-y | ⌘-y |
| Finish editing note | Esc | Esc |
This article was originally published in January 2019 and most recently updated in April 2026.