How to Organize Notes in Google Keep Notes

When all (or most) of your notes are in Google Keep, how can you organize them to match your needs? Otherwise how will you be able to find them.

Default Organisation

Before I start talking about alternatives, let’s talk about the default option.

Technically it’s date order.

Well, it’s the date that you created the new note or last edited it.

Each time you add a new note, it appears in the ‘top left corner’ of Google Keep, moving all of the others “down/along one space”.

As you can guess, Note A was the last note, until I created Note B.

Where they appear on the screen, will slightly adjust, depending on the size of the note (inc any images).

Open and editing a note, will also it’s move it into the first position.

Manually Arrange Them

This is not the most practical of options, especially as you get more and more notes, but it is an option.

Simply put – you can click and drag individual notes.

Note: I tried selecting more than one note, when it was dragged, only one was moved.

As you’ve probably guessed – click, hold and drag the message around the screen into a new position.

Note: While I’m doing most of this stuff on my Windows computer, it’s almost exactly the same on any mobile device (Apple or Android).

Pin Your Top Notes

For those notes that you use a lot, or that to keep at the top of the list, you can pin them.

They will appear in a section at the top of your notes, called Pinned.

The rest of your notes appear underneath, in a section called ‘Others’.

As you hover over any note, a ‘pin’ icon appears in the top right corner of the note.

Click on the pin to move it to the pinned section.

To unpin a note, hover over the note and click the pin icon a second time.

While it’s a simple option, how to organize notes in Google Keep, it’s one that you need to be careful of. Simply because adding too many notes into this section can just move the ‘mess’ to a different part of the screen.

Colour-Coding

Another easy option to help organise your notes, it’s not one of my favourites.

Why? Because I can’t normally remember what I assigned to each colour.

You can say “blue = X”, red = “Y”, but unless I have it written down, I’m not going to remember that in a few weeks time.

I suppose you could pin a note to help you remember, but that feels a little too sensible 😂.

While it is colour coding, it’s actually the background options.

Hover over or select the note, and click the paint palette icon.

From the list choose a solid colour, or an image.

Note: The images, as you hover over them, give you a name, which you could use as part of your notes organisation.

Not only will your notes be more interesting to look at (overall), but with a glance you can see related notes using the same background colour.

Labels Rule!

With Google Keep, when you’re talking about organisation for your notes, it’s setup primarily to use Labels.

Labels were mentioned in the previous post (Google Keep Notes Features that you want to use), but let’s look into it in a bit more detail.

Note: There is a bit of a difference between computers and mobile devices with labels – something to be aware of. 😊

As you might remember from the Google Notes Features (see link above 😉), on a computer, labels can be found in the ellipses (3 dots) ‘More’ options.

Creating a new label adds it into the ‘label list’ so that you can use/reuse it across multiple notes.

Creating a New Label

Just in case you don’t fancy going to the other post (not sure why not, but still); here’s a recap of how to create a new label.

In a New Note

Click on Take a Note, to create a new blank note.

Click on the Ellipses (more), and select Add label.

Type in the name for your new label – under Enter label name.

Then click Create <Label Name>.

The new label is added to your list, and a tick shows that it’s been applied to the current note.

In an Existing Note

Of course, as you create more notes, you might find yourself needing to edit or create new labels.

Click on the note that you need to add a label to, it will be opened.

As before, click on the Ellipses button, and select Add Label.

The same option as above is displayed.

Create your new label as above.

Adding a Label

You’ve got your labels created, and applied to one note. But what about the rest?

The point of labels is to help organise and find your notes.

A note can be assigned more that one label, in fact it appears that you can have up to 50 notes. Although I have a feeling that that is the max number of labels you can create, rather than the number that you can assign to a single note 😅.

Click to open an existing note.

Note: You don’t have to open a note, when you hover over one, you’ll be able to see the Ellipses button displayed at the bottom.

As normal, click on the Ellipses to open the More Options.

If the note doesn’t already have a label – click Add Label.

If labels have been added, you’ll see Change Labels.

The label titles appear at the bottom of the list, tick the one or ones you want to assign.

As you select the label it is added to your note.

When you’re done, click away from the list to continue editing, or from the note to close it.

Removing a Label

You can of course also change your mind, and remove a label from a note.

Follow the same steps, as if you’re adding a label.

However, when you see the list, click on the label (that’s ticked) to deselect it (i.e. remove the tick).

Labels in the Menu

All of your labels are added to the main menu, on the left side of the screen.

This gives you quick access – with a single click or tap – to all of the notes that have the specific label applied.

To return to all notes – click Notes at the top of the main menu.

Searching

When you click into Search, labels have their own line, with a button for each saved (label) title.

(How many times can I write ‘label’ in a sentence? 🤣)

Click on the button to display all of the matching notes.

Note: It’s basically the same option as clicking on the label name from the main menu.

Next Steps

Now you know how to organize notes in Google Keep, so that you can find them when you want to.

No excuse now 😁.

Latest Posts

• 
  Microsoft Loop – Time to Actually Use What’s Already in Your M365 Toolkit
  If you’ve been asking yourself what is Microsoft Loop, you’re not alone. It’s one of those tools that quietly appeared in your Microsoft 365 apps and left you wondering, “what on earth is that?” In this post, I’m going to break it down in plain English so you can decide whether it’s worth exploring. So,… Read more: Microsoft Loop – Time to Actually Use What’s Already in Your M365 Toolkit
• 
  Busy But Not Out of Office? Teams Has You Covered
  If you’ve ever wished there was a way to let people know you’re heads-down on something without setting up a full out of office, the Microsoft Teams status message is exactly what you need. It’s a small but mighty feature that sits quietly in Teams, waiting to be discovered. In this post, I’m walking you… Read more: Busy But Not Out of Office? Teams Has You Covered
• 
  The Quickest Way to Navigate Microsoft Teams
  If you spend a lot of time in Microsoft Teams, you’ll know the struggle — endless scrolling through chats and channels trying to find the one you need. The Microsoft Teams GoTo command is here to fix that. It’s a simple keyboard shortcut that takes you straight where you need to go, no scrolling required.… Read more: The Quickest Way to Navigate Microsoft Teams
• 
  Can’t Find Your Unread Teams Messages? Try This First
  Have you ever noticed a notification in Microsoft Teams telling you there’s an unread message, but no matter where you look, you just can’t track it down? You’re not alone — it’s one of those small but genuinely frustrating things that can eat up your time. The good news is there’s a really simple way… Read more: Can’t Find Your Unread Teams Messages? Try This First
• 
  Pin Messages in Microsoft Teams – and Actually Find Them Again
  If you’ve ever shared something important in a Teams channel and watched it disappear into the scroll, you’re not alone. The good news is that you can pin messages in Microsoft Teams so they’re easy to track down later. The slightly less good news? Microsoft moved where your pinned messages live, and it’s not where… Read more: Pin Messages in Microsoft Teams – and Actually Find Them Again

how to organize notes in Google Keep, organize google keep, organise google keep