GoodNotes for Android

Goodnotes for Android is a digital notebook and PDF editor that combines handwriting, typing, and document markup in a single workspace across Android, iOS, Windows, and the web. It suits students, professionals, and anyone who prefers structured, handwritten-style notes over basic text entries.

Writing and sketching tools built for stylus users

On supported Android tablets and Chromebooks with stylus support, Goodnotes focuses on handwriting. You can write with a pen, pencil, ball pen, brush pen, or highlighter, or switch to keyboard input when you need more formal text.

The app offers a set of creative tools that help notes feel like custom notebooks rather than generic documents. You can:

- Use layers and the lasso tool to rearrange or resize handwritten content

- Reuse frequently needed elements instead of redrawing them

- Apply decorative covers, stickers, and different paper styles

- Adjust folder layouts to match how you prefer to organize classes or projects

For journaling or planning, you can download templates tailored for bullet journals, daily schedules, or more visual note-taking styles.

Deep PDF annotation integrated with your notebooks

Goodnotes treats PDFs as part of the same environment as your handwritten notebooks. You can import PDFs such as textbooks, assignments, business documents, reports, or presentation slides, then highlight, draw, underline, or type directly on the pages.

The built-in PDF tools also include:

- Adding handwritten or typed comments and notes

- Reviewing and signing documents

- Presenting from your device using a laser pointer tool

- Exporting your notes or marked-up PDFs for email, printing, or cloud storage

You can convert handwritten pages into searchable, shareable PDF files, which makes long handwritten notes easier to revisit and distribute.

Organization, search, and collaboration

Goodnotes is designed for people who manage a large volume of notes and documents. You can create unlimited folders to build a structured, easy-to-browse digital library, apply tags to related content, and use powerful search to locate specific material across notebooks and PDFs.

Students can create interactive notebooks for each subject, keep class materials together, and share selected notebooks with classmates. The app supports both real-time and asynchronous collaboration on shared notebooks, which helps with group assignments or shared study guides.

Professionals can store meeting notes, reports, and slide decks, and keep everything in one place instead of juggling multiple apps. Annotated files can be exported in a format suitable for colleagues or clients.

Some advanced options, such as collaboration features and the ability to create unlimited notebooks, require an active subscription.

Cross-platform sync and backup

A central strength of Goodnotes is that your notes are not tied to a single device. The app supports automatic cloud backup and sync across Android, iOS, Windows, and the web, so your notebooks and PDFs can be accessed from whichever platform you use during the day.

In theory, this makes it possible to take handwritten notes on a tablet, review them on a laptop, and keep everything current across platforms. In practice, that experience depends heavily on the stability of the Android app on your particular hardware.

Android implementation and reliability concerns

While the overall feature set is ambitious, the Android version currently shows serious reliability issues on some devices, especially phones and foldables.

One user with a Galaxy Z Fold 4 reported that after a recent update, none of their notebooks would load on Android, even though the same library continued to work correctly on an iPad 8. Another user, who enjoys the app on iPad, described being stuck on the introductory preview screens on Android and unable to interact with anything beyond swiping through the feature images, even when using the Galaxy S24+’s included pen. In both cases, the Android app became unusable for its core purpose, which is a significant problem for paying customers expecting cross-platform access.

The developer lists supported hardware as Android tablets with at least an 8‑inch screen and 4 GB of RAM, plus Chromebooks with stylus support. That focus on larger devices may partly explain why experiences on phones and foldables feel inconsistent, but it does not change the fact that some users cannot access their notebooks at all on Android.

If you rely heavily on Goodnotes across platforms, these issues on certain Android models can undermine the promise of a unified note-taking workflow.