Quick Notes are a game changer for note taking in macOS Monterey
There’s a new feature in macOS Monterey, Apple’s latest operating system for the Mac, that I think will become my favorite new Mac feature this year. Apple’s Notes app is one of my favorite apps on any Apple platform. When I create or edit a note, my content is instantly synced to all of my Apple devices via iCloud. I actually write every blog post and newsletter in Apple Notes because I’ve had too many cases over the years in which a browser-based CMS crashes, losing me an hour’s worth of work. Apple Notes has been nothing but completely reliable.
In macOS Monterey, Apple has a new features for Notes called Quick Notes that lets you create a note instantly, no matter which app you’re in, even if Notes isn’t running. To invoke it, simply move your mouse to the bottom right corner of your screen and click on the little square that appears. This will bring up a new note window like the one in the screenshot above. Type in your note, and when you’re done, just close the window. Your note is immediately saved to iCloud.
If you’d prefer to change the default corner of the screen, go to System Preferences > Mission Control and click on “Hot Corners…” in the bottom left corner of the window. You can do all sorts of neat things with Hot Corners, though you’ll want to be careful. It’s easy to trigger a Hot Corner when you don’t intend to.
You can also create a new Quick Note by pressing Fn+Q on your keyboard. I think that’s probably the main why I’ll be using this feature.
Quick Notes largely behave the same as any other window on macOS. They have the traditional close, minimize, and zoom buttons in their top left corner. But unlike any other kind of window, Quick Notes always remain the top-most window. You can’t click on a window behind your Quick Note to bring it to the front, so if you need to get one out of the way, you’ll need to close or minimize it.
If anything, Quick Notes might actually cause me to use Apple Notes even more than I already do. I typically use TextEdit for jotting down quick information. Invoking a Quick Note via keyboard shortcut is even quicker though.
Fun fact: I wrote this piece in a Quick Note.