Choosing a Note App That Works on iPhone, Android and the Web

The phrase “Works on iPhone, Android, and the web” contains three separate statements about one application (you can install the app on all three), one account that can be accessed from all three devices and share one note among them, and one copy of your notes that you can export out of the app yourself. Because each of those components operates independently, a note that appears to be synced on your iPhone, may have never made it into your account, or into the account of the other two devices.

Before you invest several years’ worth of notes into one app, check to ensure all three components are functional, as the free tier and the exit options are where most surprises will occur. As of September 2026, one popular program allows a browser as a device (only one is allowed on its free plan), while numerous others simply allow for an export of a single page (as per one Reddit forum, the main suggestion “doesn’t work for iOS”). The simplest way to ascertain a note application’s weakest aspect is through its surface, not through its strongest attribute.

Does a Cross-Platform Note App Really Cover Your Three Devices?

The term “Cross-Platform” means that three separate applications are being used as one, rather than three separate stores. Many reviewers have suggested that the most economical way to evaluate an application is by considering its least effective aspect rather than its most effective aspect. These reviewers stated that they gave each application a score based solely on the weakness of its operating system, its weakest platform. Thus, the best way to evaluate a cross-platform app is to first determine if it meets the minimum requirements and if it will function on a specific operating system.

Below you can see how the seven apps that will be most likely shortlisted for an iPhone, Android phone and web browser stood as of September 2026 according to the apps’ own documentation.

The ceiling that ends the comparison early

With Evernote’s Free plan, you are allowed to have access on only one device at a time, while with the Starter Plan, you can access from up to three different devices at once. A device can be anything that you use to access your account, including computers, tablets, and smartphones. According to the FAQ on Evernote’s website, the platform (Evernote Web) is considered a device. Therefore, if you use an iPhone, Android phone, and a tab, you would be using up three devices on an account that has only one allowed device. If you attempt to log into Evernote on any of the additional devices, you will receive a message indicating that you must upgrade your plan.

Evernote provides an option to fix the problem by unsyncing devices; unsyncing from your account will disable that device’s ability to access your notes until a slot has been cleared again. You can view a list of the devices that have been synced to your account by going to Evernote ▸ Settings ▸ Devices on your computer and by selecting your profile picture ▸ Account Summary ▸ Devices on your mobile device. According to Evernote’s Terms of Service, they reserve the right to change the number of devices that can be used with an account without notice in advance; the number you see today is the number that will apply to your account today.

Sync is a plane you have to check separately

Obsidian supports all major platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. The sync guide provided by these platforms makes it clear that notes will be stored locally, and for obtaining a synced version of those notes on an additional device means that you will need to configure a synchronization method yourself. The cost for using first-party Obsidian Sync covers all five platforms with a monthly cost of $4/user (billed annually) for one synced vault (including 1GB of storage space). While there are no additional costs associated with syncing using iCloud on Apple devices or Git for managing your notes, both these free options do have limitations – specifically related to iPhones. Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Syncthing are clearly marked as unsupported on iOS by Obsidian, and as such, the plugins available from the user community are not guaranteed to work consistently.

Before committing, readers should be aware of two additional limitations. Obsidian has warned users that iCloud Drive may create duplicate or corrupted files when syncing with a Windows computer. Also, users should avoid syncing the same vault with two separate services at once, as this often results in having two copies of the same note disagreeing with each other. Lastly, Obsidian Sync is unavailable on iOS devices with Lockdown Mode enabled, unless the user has specifically allowed Obsidian’s application to bypass Lockdown Mode. A recent cross-platform decision on Reddit illustrates how easy it can be to confuse these issues: one user commented that Obsidian requires a subscription for sync purposes, and another responded correcting the individual, reminding him that you can use your own sync and backup service instead of subscribing.

Two apps are missing one of your three surfaces

There is no Android Notes app on Apple products, so the Android portion of the combination is handled through an internet web browser at iCloud.com. According to Apple, you can only use notes stored in iCloud on the iCloud.com website, so you can’t access any other note storage services through this method, which has significant implications for the next section of this guide.

Joplin is an open-source, free, Markdown-based note-taking application that supports multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS), as documented on its support page and its help site. However, while Joplin has mobile apps available, it has no web app available, which means you cannot use Joplin on a locked-down or borrowed computer.

The ones that genuinely cover all three

The computer version of the Keep app is the web, which Google created after discontinuing the Keep Chrome app in Q1 2021. Google also provides keep.google.com to desktop users who previously had the Keep Chrome app. According to Google’s own help, the Keep mobile apps provide access to your Keep notes when you’re offline, but no version of the Keep app is currently available for other computers. OneNote is a Microsoft application and is free to use with a Microsoft account. The free tier of OneNote provides you with 5 GB of online space to store notes, along with the ability to use OneNote from both the web and from mobile devices. Notion allows for unlimited page creation for individual users using the Free plan as of September 2026, however, it should be noted that offline access to Notion pages means you choose which pages to download and Notion’s ability to track changes made to pages is limited to a rolling seven-day period.

Of the seven total apps, four of them offer a solution for all three platforms, however two of these four apps require some form of qualification. Therefore, while many users would like to find an application that can support their needs across multiple platforms, this search often results in limitations either due to the maximum level of access available with a specific plan or a limitation related to the specific application itself, rather than limitations related to the feature set available. The ability to run an application on multiple platforms does not guarantee that your note will be associated with any other platform that you are accessing.

Which Copy of Your Note Is the Real One?

A note that shows on one device and not the others isn’t automatically a sync failure. Sometimes it was never in the account being synced.

The store of record is a list you can read

The most straightforward example of this is Apple Notes because it contains the ability to create a local account alongside a synced account—On iPhone, the settings (Settings ▸ Notes) have an “On My iPhone” Account toggle and a Default Account Picker that determine where new notes will be created, even those notes created using Siri or the Notes Widget. In the Mac User Guide, there is a similar setup with the added “On My Mac” account and on the Account & Folders page, accounts come first and folders second. Therefore, the sidebar you scroll through daily displays two separate types of container within one list.

As far as Apple is concerned, the other side of the consequences of this setup is documented as well: The Notes app on iCloud.com only supports notes that are stored on iCloud, and will not support notes stored in any other account. Therefore, if a note is stored in the “On Device” account, it is on your device and cannot be accessed by any web browsers or by other devices you login to after activating an iCloud account. This is not a bug; nor would any amount of restarting, etc., correct this issue, since there is nothing to sync.

There is also a risk in moving notes between accounts. Apple warns users that when moving notes or folders from one account to another, you risk losing formatting and attachments permanently; a drawing may be converted to a graphics file and become uneditable in the Drawing Editor. If you move notes, be intentional about the movement; check several of the results, ensure a batch move was effective, and do not assume that the batch of notes will retain their formatting and attachments.

File-based apps have the same trap in a different shape

The vault in Obsidian is simply a folder on your device that contains the files that Obsidian accesses and/or edits. When you use a service such as OneDrive or iCloud to offload files to free up space for other things, those files for all intents and purposes no longer are available to Obsidian. Obsidian sees these files as ‘missing’ and cannot access them when they are no longer on your local computer. The solution is to mark the vault folder to keep downloading. Furthermore, the help documentation for Obsidian states that you should not sync the same vault folder through two different services simultaneously because if two services make independent decisions about the same files, that is how conflicts and/or corrupt files will be created.

To check that everything is reading the same account, you need to do two things: on an iPhone, open Settings ▸ Notes, verify that you have the “On My iPhone” account enabled and look at what your Default Account is set to, then open the Notes app and check which account each note is under. On Obsidian, open the ‘vault switcher’ window, and verify that the path for the vault matches the path being watched by your sync service.

The order you perform these checks is more important than checking. You should do these checks before treating your sync service as your copy of record, and before wiping, trading in or selling the device storing your local data. This is because notes stored only on that device are typically recoverable until that moment in time that the device stops belonging to you. Once you have verified that all of your notes are in the same account, the next question is, “what does your sync service actually protect you from?”

Sync, Backup and Export Are Not the Same Thing

Sync stands for all your devices receiving the same change at the same time. Backup indicates that a copy of your data is stored elsewhere. Export refers to a file in your possession. Only one of these will survive after your relationship with the application ends.

Sync copies deletions just as faithfully as edits

According to Obsidian’s backup guide, syncs allow you to keep files identical across all of your devices, without a primary device; however, a backup is defined as a second copy of files, stored in a different location, so you can use it to restore to the state of your files prior to losing or corrupting them. The same backup guide makes it clear that syncing services are not intended to be backup solutions; deleting a note through sync doesn’t serve as a backup, as it is the method by which all devices receive that deletion.

Most vendors provide backups to customers under vendor conditions. As an example, Notion states that users’ data will always be backed up to the cloud and that per minute backups will be held by them, with pages kept in the Trash for 30 days before permanently deleting them. Although Notion provides the capability to restore your documents from your trash, this does not allow you to take your Notion data with you when you use an alternate application.

Version History is in the same boat: it has a limited lifespan. Obsidian Sync provides a 30-day version history on its $4 Standard plan and a 12-month version history on its $8 Plus plan. In contrast, Notion provides a seven-day page history on its Free plan and a thirty-day page history on its Plus Plan; this provides sufficient time to reverse an error, but these backups are not solely yours; the vendor has access to them.

Export is the one that hands you a file

Due to its limitations, “Export” is the sole method of guaranteeing the existence of something you hold in Google Keep and has limited validation of its contents. The data export contains everything in Google Keep that you have not deleted, such as note content, attached images, colours, pinned/archived status, the name(s) associated with collaborating on that note and the label list assigned to that note. The Takeout page for Keep and the Takeout documentation from Google includes two important things: the archive generated may not contain any modifications made to your Notes at the time you submit your Takeout Account, and Google suggests that the Takeout exported items are viewed and downloaded through a computer, not a mobile device.

Technically speaking, an exported copy is not necessarily the same as a complete copy of a Note. One Google Keep user had issues exporting his notes in May 2024. In his case, only 19 notes were exported in his zip file, although the Takeout tool showed 185 notes at the time of his download request. He attempted exporting his notes ten times using the same procedure, and received the same results. Google informed the poster that this was a known issue, and provided no other solution. Therefore, the user’s conclusion regarding the product is that it effectively locks users into exporting their notes unless they are willing to copy/paste every note. Although the user submitted this account 2 years ago, the nature of his complaint illustrates why users are encouraged to open the files generated by Takeout, rather than merely rely on the progression bar. In one reader’s Keep export, posted in May 2024, Takeout showed 185 notes and the downloaded zip contained 19; the poster ran it ten times with the same result, was told it was a known problem, and was given no alternative.

Several users within the same discussion thread noted the availability of third-party utilities that connects to Google Keep directly and does not require using Takeout. This is significant because third-party software will be authenticating as your account, which means they have access to all of your Google Keep data. Therefore, before a user decides to use such software, they should conduct their own cost-benefit analysis and weigh the importance of such software against recommendations from social media posts.

Syncing your notes to a new phone is only possible if they were in the account that you were syncing. On the other hand, backups will defend you against inadvertent errors made while still being a customer. Once you have left as a customer, exporting is the only service that continues to function. This creates the practical issue of determining which of your devices can even perform one of these functions.

How to Get Your Notes Out — and Off Which Surface

Export availability varies more than export format, and the surface you’re holding decides whether the option exists at all.

The delivery form is where people give up

The Apple iPhone documentation includes the options to share and export a single note as Markdown by selecting Share > Export to Markdown from within the share sheet, and to create a PDF from within the share sheet by selecting Share > Add Markup. The iPhone will allow only a single note per trip through the share sheet, whereas the batch export feature on Mac is found under the File > Export To menu, which allows users to export to PDF or Markdown with the same documentation covering importing from Markdown, TXT, RTF, RTFD, HTML and Evernote ENEX format documents; importing of Evernote tags is supported in macOS 13 or later only. While the iPhone will create a file, it does not create a full library of all of your notes.

OneNote is stricter. Microsoft’s export page says notebook export is done through OneNote for the web only, is available only for notebooks stored on personal OneDrive accounts, and will not work for notebooks on OneDrive (work or school) or SharePoint. Import on that same page is marked deprecated. What arrives is a zip you open in the OneNote Windows app — and the page documents the failure case too: a zip containing only an errors.txt file means the export went wrong.

The mobile route in Notion is the most misleading to users. Users will tap on the three dots, go to ‘Export,’ and select from the Markdown & CSV, HTML or PDF options. When the share sheet appears, the user is offered a download link for downloading a file but no file itself and will receive an e-mail for the same link. The only option for exporting an entire workspace is via the desktop or web interface. A user may be linked to a download after seven days and the time taken for processing can exceed thirty hours, depending on the size of the workspace. On a phone, if you expected the export to have delivered an attachment, then you have received the export; just not in the form that you had hoped.

Evernote’s export is desktop-only: its help page states that exporting isn’t possible on Evernote Web, offers ENEX or single- and multi-page HTML from a right-click on a note or notebook, and caps hand-picked exports at 100 notes at a time — entire notebooks get around that. Free users can export; no paid subscription is needed. Joplin exports to JEX, a lossless archive that keeps metadata, plus raw, HTML and PDF, and Obsidian needs no export step at all because the vault is already a folder of Markdown files.

What won’t survive the trip

Formats have their own limitations, which generally become apparent once you open them. Although Notion does not support exporting a Form view of a database, it does export callout blocks as HTML since there is no corresponding way to express these in Markdown. Notion also exports only the current/default view of all databases. While ENEX retains the tag and date information, the 100-note ceiling on Evernote means that many large libraries will be exported in multiple parts. The Joplin Evernote Importer provides all the required details to show how the conversion occurs and clarify that none of the colours, font sizes or font faces are preserved since Evernote stores text in its native HTML format. When imported by Joplin, text is converted to Markdown format with standard styling.

To mitigate the risk of losing your files when exporting or migrating from Evernote, start with a small version and export one notebook or ten notes at a time, verifying their contents by opening the exported files and counting the number of items. Documenting a 14-year Evernote migration, a reader found that there were numerous notes with missing attachments (PDFs), and he was unable to determine if they were lost in export, during import, or prior to exporting. Another reader moving the other way found that highlighted text, tables and pictures were all garbled after exporting from Evernote; web-clipped images ended up all over the phone’s gallery. Even though they were both single-user accounts, neither has measured yearly totals, which is why small exporting occurs prior to large exporting and before any permanent deletion occurs.

Once you determine what leaving looks like, the only thing left to determine is if any of these items exist on the devices in your pocket.

What to Test with Your Own Devices Before You Commit

There is no single ranking that will define how an Android phone, an iPhone and a browser will act when accessing a single account. However, spending approximately 20 minutes using the app you are interested in will provide you with more specific feedback than a ranking can provide; all five steps used to evaluate the other apps listed above will also work for your particular application.

1. Sign in on all three surfaces. Use the same account, not a second one you created for the trial. Write one note on each and label it with the device name and the time, so you can tell three notes apart when they arrive.

2. Check arrival, both directions. Confirm all three notes appear on all three surfaces, then edit one on the phone and watch the browser. Sync is a shared change, so a note that only appears where you wrote it is telling you something about where it’s stored.

3. Read which container it landed in. Note the account, folder, notebook or vault name on each surface. This is the step people skip, and it’s the one that separates “synced” from “visible here.”

4. Edit offline and reconnect. Put one device in airplane mode, edit a note that also exists elsewhere, reconnect, and watch what the app does with two versions of the same note. Readers comparing apps use this airplane-mode check precisely because the answer differs by app. Look for a merged note, a second copy, a conflict file, or one version quietly winning. It isn’t hypothetical: in one Microsoft Q&A thread from October 2025, a reader reported a PC notebook with less content overwriting the phone version during sync, and the reply pointed them at OneDrive version history and OneNote page versions. One account, one report — which is exactly why you run the test on your own devices before you have anything to lose.

5. Export the small batch and open it. Ten notes including one attachment, from the surface the vendor documents. Then open the file and count. A finished export and a complete export are different events.

The test sheet

Copy this into the app you’re evaluating and fill one row per app. It’s the whole comparison in one screen.

If you leave, the last row and format remain readable because a Markdown- or HTML-encoded document can be opened at any location for several years whilst a vendor-supplied archive is reliant upon that vendor’s importer: OneNote has documented the import process as being discontinued after October 2022, therefore leaving OneNote’s ZIP file in very limited use as a long-term archival solution.

Apply the same scepticism to any guide

This page contains two questions. The first looks for the date, app version and type of devices checked. Does this make sense when considering my device mix, or does it suggest everyone has one type of computer? A response that has no source is just an opinion, even if it has a list.

The second question provides you with trade-offs rather than rankings once there is information on the line of your sheet.

Which App to Choose If Your Three Devices Are iPhone, Android and a Browser

Select the first surface that fits your needs in terms of functionality, not what is on a manufacturer’s list of features. All information below is pulled from the vendor’s help page as of September 2026 based on research; therefore, consider it a general overview based on documentation, and test functionality on other devices to verify accuracy using the above-mentioned spreadsheet.

Reading the rows creates three trade-offs.

If you need the browser as a real device, then you will want to avoid using Joplin or Obsidian because they both do not offer a web app. If you have a Chromebook or a work PC that cannot install software, you will not be able to access either of these applications. Therefore, using OneNote, Notion, Google Keep, and Evernote would work for you. Google Keep has a desktop version as a web app but it does not offer offline access to your notes. Apple Notes is only a view of your iCloud notes via a web app.

If saving money is the most important consideration, then those applications that already have plain text (Markdown) stored as local files will win. Both Joplin and Obsidian store Markdown files on your device, meaning there will never be any issues exporting your notes and all of your notes will remain readable regardless of any changes to the companies that created them. Therefore, if you want the answer to “what remains readable after leaving,” just think about storing Markdown files on your device. Both applications have free methods to synchronize to different platforms; for example, Joplin is available on iOS, whereas Obsidian does not support many of the same services. In addition, Obsidian charges $4 a month for first-party synchronization, but if you choose to be billed annually, you can receive a discount.

If you want a free application that will work across all three platforms today, the only honest candidates are OneNote and Google Keep. OneNote offers a free Microsoft account which provides 5GB of cloud storage and works across all three platforms with real applications; it’s exit strategy is the weakest aspect because the zip file you receive is a OneNote package, and the documented method for importing it is now deprecated. Google Keep is available for free on every platform, and it includes attachments in the Takeout archive, but the desktop version is merely a browser tab that has no capability for importing the contents of your archive back.

When it comes to a free plan, Evernote is the one you need to be most cautious about: you are limited to one connected device (including the web client), which means you cannot use the three-surface plan until you pay; and Evernote reserves the right to change those limitations without notice. Apple Notes is excellent on an iPhone but non-existent on Android, which is a commentary on coverage, not on quality.

Regardless of which option you select, expect to use the weakest platform on a daily basis, and if you plan to use handwriting on a tablet as part of your workflow, note apps on Android tablets are a different category of apps with distinct characteristics; specifically, the way they manage stylus input and export functions is different from their counterparts on a phone. Write down your top two candidates before you begin moving any notes.

What to test with your own three devices this week

Before you migrate from your existing app, and maybe not long before the app(s) you’re considering will be available, use the Five-Step Test on each app. Run the five-step test on both apps to ensure that you have a complete understanding of how both apps work, including: a single note written on each surface; the name on the container as read by you; the ability to reconnect and edit; and a small export opened and counted. Knowing what a ceiling plan or missing export path can cost you is cheaper now than waiting until you try to move everything after you’ve already done so. You will be able to recover notes that only ever lived on one device only as long as you still have that device, therefore do the five-step test before you migrate, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use Obsidian on a Chromebook or a work PC that only has a browser?

The Obsidian document applications for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS and Android do not have a browser version. Therefore, you must have your entire vault available to the Obsidian document application on your device to maintain links and renaming features. Therefore, when planning to use Obsidian, please be sure to have a compatible device for installation.

How do I move my Apple Notes to an Android phone?

You can export from the iPhone Share Sheet as Markdown or you can export in bulk from a mac and then import those files into the new app (like Joplin), which imports markdown folders and preserves your folder structure. You may want to verify your imported notes before deleting anything from your Apple account.

Will OneNote export a notebook stored on a work or school account?

No. Notebook exports from Microsoft will only be available through the web version of notebooks that are located in your personal OneDrive and not for those located in your work, school, or SharePoint libraries. If you want a copy of it outside the web version, you need to move it to a personal notebook first.

What exactly comes back in a Google Keep Takeout archive?

Note that for any data not deleted, all Note items also have attachments, colors, pinned/archived status, collaborators, and a label list. Download data from Google Page Documents only — as importing back into Google is not documented. Therefore, you should consider them one way archives that you can review after downloading.