Top note-taking apps for freelancers in 2025

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As a freelance writer, you’ll have to write or jot something down during the working day. Whether you’re a team leader, project manager, freelance writer, or freelance SEO expert, you’ll need to write a range of notes, such as emails or a simple to-do list.

If you want to avoid memorizing pieces of information, you have a choice in terms of how you want to write down the information. You could write things manually with good old-fashioned pen and paper. But for speed and efficiency, there are also quality note-taking apps that can ensure you stay productive and organized. Trying to find out which ones are the best? Let’s explore the best note-taking apps for Mac and learn how to take notes with them.

How to take notes quickly and accurately

We’ll get to the apps in just a minute, but it’s worth considering how to take notes quickly and accurately before you use them. Recommendations for this include writing phrases as opposed to full sentences and structuring the notes with headings and numbered lists. It also involves using abbreviations when you need to write very quickly and keeping them well-spaced.

These approaches are ideal when writing notes manually, but keep in mind that they’re top tips for using note-taking apps and can really optimize the note-taking process.

5 note-taking apps for Mac to jot down crucial information

A bunch of note-taking apps for Mac are available and worth checking out if you’re looking for an effective helping hand. The top recommended options are listed below, as well as their features and the benefits they provide.

All plans in one place

The NotePlan app offers a range of benefits for the note-taking process. A key feature it offers is the calendar and deadline automation process; when you jot down tasks and their deadlines, the app will automatically add them to your calendar. It’s a process that saves you time and manual effort, helping you handle two tasks at once.

Since you can also use the tags, checkboxes, and filters while taking notes, you can sort through the pages instantly and transform a selection of notes into a to-do list. This is beneficial for staying organized. So, if you’re a freelance writer, you’ll be able to make structured notes, such as the steps required to complete a blog article and tick off each step as you complete them.

This app will also automate the iCloud backup process for your notes. The main benefit this feature offers is that even if the hardware fails, you’ll easily be able to recover the notes you’ve made.

Quick notes on the side of your screen

The SideNotes app is beneficial for fast and effective note-taking. It’s a notes app that slides into the right-hand side of the Mac screen and is accessible with a simple two-finger swipe, so you can instantly take notes when required.

When you check out this app, you’ll see that it can organize the notes into folders and add new folders by pressing the + (Plus) button. This is ideal for freelancers who work with multiple clients and have several projects on the go. For example, if you’re an SEO manager and need to complete multiple content calendars, you can make notes related to each content calendar for each project and add them to separate folders, which will keep you organized.

If you need to, you’ll also be able to color coordinate the notes and change style aspects. So if you need to turn some text into a quote, add a bold format, or change text so that it has the strikethrough format, you can do this by selecting the markdown feature. It comes with code blocks, too, which is ideal for software development work or code-reviewing duties.

Flexible annotations for your files

There are several advantages of the MarginNote app. Not only does this notes app let you import documents in various formats, such as PDFs or from a URL, but you can annotate them using the pencil icon. You’ll also be able to add comments and excerpts that move from the document to a notebook. Comments work by highlighting the text; they’re ideal for freelance editors who need to glance through an article submitted in PDF form and highlight portions that require adjustments.

You’ll also be able to share the excerpts you accumulate by using the export button. The advantage of this export feature is that you can export the excerpts contained in common files such as PDFs and Word documents.

In terms of note-taking, the app offers a mind-mapping feature. The advantage of this feature is that you can add excerpts from multiple document sources. It’ll allow you to access the documents and the mind map so you can organize your ideas, perhaps for a presentation or to produce a coherent written document based on the research you’ve completed.

Better structure for your docs

The Craft app is ideal for taking notes and annotating documents. It offers the benefit of an easy-to-use markdown feature, which allows for clean formatting processes and the ability to add images or links effortlessly. Features such as these make the content look better. So, if you’re a freelance copywriter creating a plan for ad copy, you can use the markdown feature to format the plan or even a draft and incorporate the right images accordingly.

You’ll also benefit from offline mode. This ensures you can work offline and synchronize any note updates when you reconnect, so you’ll always have the most up-to-date notes whenever you need them, even when you’ve made changes.

When looking at Craft's other advantages, you’ll notice that it comes with 50GB of storage and extensive customization for each document. This ensures you can store plenty of notes after adding them to a document and customize each document using the new interface for styles. This can work for several drafts of a webpage, a blog, an author bio page, a landing page, and more.

Distraction-free space

Ulysses offers plenty of advantages for freelancers. Its handy and intuitive markdown editor makes formatting notes and documents simple. You can use hashtags to format each header in your notes into H1 and H2 tags. This gives the notes you make in Ulysses the right structure and makes them easy to navigate.

The app also offers annotations for PDFs and other documents. Navigate to the notes section on the right-hand panel to add a note, or use markdown to add an annotation to a live document.

Your annotations are viewable from the sidebar, and any notes added to the live document through markdown processes will not appear in the published version. These features are ideal for freelance writing projects where you might want to remind yourself to add an image to the published version of a blog post.

You’ll be able to export a wide range of documents from this app. No matter if you need to export PDFs, HTML docs, or documents in a Microsoft Word format, this is a smooth process. So, to export multiple blog posts, you can select all the sheets and click the Preview button. You’ll be able to change the format from the dropdown list before you share it with an editor.

Note-taking apps for freelancers: Searching for the right one?

Note-taking is a fundamental duty when handling freelance work. It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer or a web developer. You’ll want to jot down a reminder or plan ahead with the right notes. That’s where all the note-taking apps for freelancers in this article will help.

Now, if you’re unsure where to get these apps, they’re all available on Setapp. Here, you can get a seven-day free trial to get a feel for how these apps work. So, it’s worth checking them out more closely and then incorporating them into your note-taking process. Make sure you download these apps and try them out to begin taking notes quickly and accurately. Go to Setapp to find the best note-taking apps for freelancers!