You’ve decided that Google Keep is the right fit for you, what notes features can you make use of? Now it’s time to look at the other, less obvious features that really make it a useful program.
Reminders
If you’ve got things that need to be done by a deadline, it can be so easy to get caught up in other things and miss it.
Fortunately Google Keep has a reminder feature built in.
Whether you’re creating a new note, or editing an existing one – it’s the first icon at the bottom: the Bell
Click on the bell icon to see the list of options for a reminder.
You can select one of the standard options:
- Later today (time depends on when you create/edit the note)
- Tomorrow
- Next week
If the option that you want isn’t there, click on Select date and time to pick your own.
Note: While the reminder will alert you, Google Keep needs to be running – either on your computer, or mobile device for you to see it.
Location Reminders
This is an option that I haven’t seen in any other note program, and can be quite useful.
Say that you’re writing your shopping list. When do you need it? Well, that’s easy – when you’re at the shops.
Here’s where the location reminder comes in.
Under Remind Me, click Select Place.
Now type in the address/location where you’re shopping.
Note: It’s the ‘address’ rather than the store you’re visiting. For example, I can’t type in Sainsburys or Walmart, but I can enter the address. But you’ll notice it doesn’t pick up the shop name.
Click Save.
When you get to that location, the reminder will active.
Of course there’s one slight drawback – Google Keep has to realise that you are actually there. So, this option will only work if
- you’ve got Google Keep on a mobile device (phone or tablet)
- Keep is running (at least in the background)
- location services have been enabled
Without all of these options, the location reminder won’t work.
Drawing
Apparently, I’m a logical thinker – as I find myself taking written notes and lists.
However, occasionally I want a diagram or drawing to show connections or the flow.
Again, Google Keep Notes has additional features built-in to help – New note with drawing.
As you go to create a new note, notice the pencil icon.
When you click on it, the screen will change to an ’empty page’ with a mini toolbar in the top left corner.
Use the tools to draw, either with your finger, a stylus or even the mouse/trackpad.
Have a play around to see what each tool does. When you’ve finished your drawing, click the arrow (pointing to the left), to return to the note.
Your drawing appears in the top half of the note, on the right-hand side.
A few things to be aware of, with the drawing:
- you can go back and edit it – within the note click on the drawing.
- you can’t type into it – my handwriting is terrible, and I prefer to type, there’s no option for that.
- scroll down within the note, until you see the title and content, otherwise clicking will edit the drawing.
Collaborator
“No person is an island”
And that’s why you’re able to add people to individual notes, so that they can collaborate with you.
Note: Sharing is only available for individual notes. You can’t choose to share everything, unless you’ve got the time to add it to every note!
Click in ‘Take a note’ or hover over an existing note, to see the options/icons at the bottom.
The second icon (on the left) is the “person +”.
Your name will be shown at the top of the list, along with your address, as the owner.
Type in the email of the person you want to collaborate on this note with. Press return.
For more people, type in each email address to build up the complete list.
When you’re done, click Save.
A ‘circle’ with a letter, to represent them, will now be displayed at the bottom of the note.
How do they edit?
I’m going to be honest here – I’m not 100% sure.
To be able to get the images, I’m using my own account to work through things. You can guess that I’ve got several email accounts to let me practice.
So, I added a different email account and waited.
I’m still waiting – I expected to receive an email with a link to let me work on the note.
After trying various addresses, the only one that received a link was another Google account. Any other email address didn’t receive the email or link.
Therefore I can only conclude (sounds ‘posh’ don’t it) that collaborating is limited to other Google accounts.
I’m not impressed with this, while there are a lot of people with Gmail, it’s not everyone and feels limited to me.
Labels
The main idea with your notes, is not just to keep them, but more importantly, be able to find them later.
That’s where labels comes in.
Sure if you know/remember what you’re looking for the search will help, but what if you don’t remember enough to search on?
Other than colour coding (but you need to be able to remember what you assigned to each background colour), labels allow you to add some organisation.
For a new or existing notes: Click the 3 dots (ellipses) for more options, then Add Label.
Type in the name for your label and hit Return.
Quick Tip: Make the label meaningful, but not too long. Ideally you want to be able to group things together, which you won’t be able to do if the label is too specific.
A note can have multiple labels.
As you create new labels, they become available to use with all the notes. When you click on Add Label, existing labels appear in a list at the bottom.
If you want to use them, click to add a tick for the label.
Note: You can, of course, also untick the label to remove it.
I’ll add in, that the menu on the left has the option Edit Labels, where you can see all the labels that you’ve created, edit existing ones and create new ones (without applying them to a note).
Searching for a label
I also want to mention, click into the Search box (at the top of the screen), and (before you start typing) there’s a section called ‘Labels’.
It lists out any labels titles that you’ve created.
Click on the one that you want to search for, to see all of the notes that have that label added.
Integration with Google Programs
I’ve left this for last as I think it’s one of the most powerful options.
Depending on how you work/think, these ideas will probably come to you as you’re doing something else, and it’s at that point that you want a note.
Now, being a web page, you can always have Google Keep in a separate tab – so that you can switch to it.
However, as you work in the other applications that make up Google Workspace, keep an eye out for the Google Keep icon…
Notice a familiar icon on the right-hand side in GMail?
Not only, when you click it, can you see your existing notes, but you can also create new notes.
Take a look at Calendar, or create new Docs and Sheets files…
Next Steps
It’s time to try out some of these Google Keep Notes features. See what you like and what works for you.
If you’re new to Google Keep take a look at the first post – Google Keep: What do you need to know? to help you get started.
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