Why Joplin is my favorite note-taking app

I spend much of my day on the go, whether walking around my village or traveling nearby. During those walks and drives, I often listen to podcasts or just think about the content I read on blogs and other sources of information. It is useful to have an app where I can jot down a few notes or paste web content to refer to later. Sometimes, I email interesting articles to myself, but more and more, I use my favorite note-taking app, Joplin.

Taking and sharing notes

I love Joplin because it works across all of my platforms, including iPhone, MacBook, and Linux desktop. Joplin is an open-source note-taking and to-do app that allows you to organize your thoughts and ideas efficiently. It supports markdown and syncing across devices and offers various features like tagging, searching, and encryption.

In the screenshot above, you can see that a note can be shared from my mobile device in a text message, email, or social media, no matter how or where it was created in Joplin. I can add tags and attach items like photos or files. 

Joplin is available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Before I started using Joplin, my notetaking was limited to an assortment of different applications depending on which platform I was using. Joplin aims to remain independent of any specific company or service, such as Evernote, Google, or Microsoft. Its synchronization system is designed to avoid relying on any particular platform. 

Joplin supports synchronization with various services, including Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, S3, WebDAV, Dropbox, OneDrive, or the local filesystem. Synchronization occurs in the background when it is running or when you click the ‘Synchronize’ button in the Joplin interface.

I can create new notes easily by touching the 'New note' button at the upper left of the display. I can add an entire "Notebook" by depressing the plus sign at the left of the display which helps me to organize my note-taking. Once opened, a new note is started and my notes are automatically synchronized. I can rely on the auto-synchronize function or synchronize them manually by pressing the button at the lower left of the display. I have a complete text editor I can use or I can choose to write in Markdown if I want to by depressing the switch at the upper right of the display depicted below. 

It is easy to install Joplin as the project has excellent documentation regardless of your particular platform. The project also provides extensive documentation on how you can use Joplin on your particular platform.

Get started with Joplin

Joplin is open-source and has an AGPL license. The project maintains a news site where you can discover the latest news about the application. You can support the project in a variety of ways and follow Joplin on social media.

This article is adapted from Joplin is My Go-To Note-Taking App by Don Watkins, and is republished with the author’s permission.