[Guide] [How to] Use Google Keep

Golfdriver97

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Google Keep: The Guide

In a nutshell, Keep is a note taking app. Google kept it simple. You take notes, make a list, and even set reminders.

Keep 1 (640x479).jpg
This is the main menu of Keep, showing the three features.

[TIP]Even though this is the main menu, the default screen is your notes screen. To access the menu, tap the upper left hand corner of the screen. [INFO]You can Archive any note or Reminder. Using the menu buttons at the upper right hand corner, you can choose Archive, Delete, Show Checkboxes (I will touch on that later), Share, Settings, Feedback, and Help.[/INFO][/TIP]



Keep 2 (640x480).jpg
This is my own Archived list.

Archived notes allow you to save them for whatever reason as opposed to deleting or keeping them in your main Notes section.

Reminders can be set one of two ways. Method one is clicking the menu at the upper left and clicking Reminders. There you can create a Reminder. The other is to just create a Note, and at the bottom is a click that will set a reminder.

Keep 3 (640x480).jpg
Similar to Google Now, a reminder is set up by Time or Location, Date which can be edited to any, and Time which also can be edited.

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Here I can set up the reminder by default times, or...

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Like many other Google Apps, I can edit the time to whatever suits me.

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For this example, I chose to be reminded to Call Comcast at 9:30.

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Here is the finished time reminder.

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This is the general Note screen, shown in default 2 column view.

[NOTE]Across the top are your types of reminders. First is the typing feature. Second is a list. Third is a dictation note. And fourth is a photo note[/NOTE]

Keep 9 (640x480).jpg
Demonstrating the single column view.

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Here is the List note feature. Each empty square is a checkbox to aid in say, a grocery list.

Keep 11 (640x480).jpg
Demonstrating the checked feature.

Overall, this guide probably makes the app seem more complicated to use than it actually is. Since inception, I use this app almost daily.
 
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The best part of Google Keep, is that I use the same account for all my devices, so I can update my notes and they are all synced. I have my phone and tablet and my wife's phone and tablet all synced on the same account. We can update birthday lists, grocery lists, vacation lists and such, and we can each make changes at the same time to the same list.
 
Here are some of my thoughts on Keep:

- You can use Google Now to directly set reminders via voice. "Remind me at 9am to call out sick from work." Reminder will show up as "9:00 AM - Call out sick from work."
- Once inside a list, you can grab and drag items up and down. I find this very helpful in moving unchecked items up to the top, and checked-off items out of sight.
- If you do not give an item a title, it will display in larger text. If you have a short item, like "CALL MOM!", just leave the title off and the words will appear larger.
- Not sure if you covered this, but long-press any item and a menu will pop up top to add a reminder, change the color, archive, share, or delete.

If I can remember anything else, I'll add it..
 
Here are some of my thoughts on Keep:

- You can use Google Now to directly set reminders via voice. "Remind me at 9am to call out sick from work." Reminder will show up as "9:00 AM - Call out sick from work."
- Once inside a list, you can grab and drag items up and down. I find this very helpful in moving unchecked items up to the top, and checked-off items out of sight.
- If you do not give an item a title, it will display in larger text. If you have a short item, like "CALL MOM!", just leave the title off and the words will appear larger.
- Not sure if you covered this, but long-press any item and a menu will pop up top to add a reminder, change the color, archive, share, or delete.

If I can remember anything else, I'll add it..

Pretty sure when I have used Google Now to set reminders they show up elsewhere. Keep reminders do show up as cards in google now, but the google now reminders do not show up in Keep (there is a small menu at the bottom of Google Now where you can view those reminders.)

I assume this is just a temporary problem as Keep is fairly new and Google will get it correctly integrated at some point.

Overall I love this app -- very simple to use, and the time and location based reminders work well.
 
I love Keep, but I still don't understand why you can't share notes (not just note content). Imagine if I could share w/ my partner a note, maybe with a reminder, so that both of our devices got a reminder when appropriate, and it showed in both of our Google Keep applications. This would be really great for checklists and would make for easily the most usable to-do list sharing.
 
Undelete? I've used Keep occasionally as a quick place to jot stuff down, but a phone number I stored there vanished. I must've deleted it by swiping somehow. But that's pretty nasty, since there doesn't seem to be any undelete function. At least when you swipe to delete in gmail, you get a temporary undo placeholder, so you can fix an accidental delete. If Keep has something like that, I can't find it.
 
I too had that same issue. No way to undelete something. That was a deal breaker. Using Evernote. There should be a trash bin of some sort in Google Keep to recover either a note that was deleted or a version of a note if contents were accidentally deleted.
 
Undelete? I've used Keep occasionally as a quick place to jot stuff down, but a phone number I stored there vanished. I must've deleted it by swiping somehow. But that's pretty nasty, since there doesn't seem to be any undelete function. At least when you swipe to delete in gmail, you get a temporary undo placeholder, so you can fix an accidental delete. If Keep has something like that, I can't find it.

If you deleted by swiping, it only archived it. You can see the archived notes in side menu. A temporary undo does come up as well.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
 
Compared to even the free version of Evernote, Keep is a second rate product. The ease with which you can inadvertently lose something is truly amazing, although usually they have been archived by a careless swipe and no delete bin is ludicrous. I've tried to like this product, but it needs a serious update to both its' user interface and product features.
 
Compared to even the free version of Evernote, Keep is a second rate product. The ease with which you can inadvertently lose something is truly amazing, although usually they have been archived by a careless swipe and no delete bin is ludicrous. I've tried to like this product, but it needs a serious update to both its' user interface and product features.

Welcome to the forums.
Some people prefer simplicity. I tried Evernote, and found it to be bloated with their market features and add ons.
As for no delete bin, that is because there is no undo in Android.
 
If you deleted by swiping, it only archived it. You can see the archived notes in side menu. A temporary undo does come up as well.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

This is correct ^ If you delete it from the archive then it does give option to undo.

Posted via Android Central App
 
I love this app too. But recently, my entire grocery list got flip. So i have to rearrange an item at a time. Does anyone know how to unflip the entire list as a whole?
 
Can you set recurring reminders in keep? Couldn't find that when I briefly tried it a couple weeks ago.
 
I love this app too. But recently, my entire grocery list got flip. So i have to rearrange an item at a time. Does anyone know how to unflip the entire list as a whole?

Not that I am aware of.

Sent from a Slim Tab 2.
 
I usually do not on mobile data, so most of the time, the newest notes I entered in my phone Google Keep is not synced yet. The data inside my Android phone Google Keep is always the latest version, I only use Keep on my Android phone Samsung S4.

Where is Google Keep data stored in android?
How to make a backup copy of the Google Keep data inside android?
 
I usually do not on mobile data, so most of the time, the newest notes I entered in my phone Google Keep is not synced yet. The data inside my Android phone Google Keep is always the latest version, I only use Keep on my Android phone Samsung S4.

Where is Google Keep data stored in android?
How to make a backup copy of the Google Keep data inside android?

I don't know where it is saved. I tried digging in every file I can open through ESFile Explorer. If you want a hard copy of it, you can take screenshots, or send them via email.
 

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