Omni Notes

Stone -

This is one of the best note taking apps that I've used and it runs on older versions of Android from 5 and up. I love that it's fast, it's open source, it's free, and it has no ads! All that plus it supports inline tags, colored categories, audio recordings, image and video attachments, and sketches.

Screenshots

Meta

Ugly

  • Online help page is empty but from the app the link works and provides some basic help using animated GIFs which is cool
  • When attaching a sketch, includes all the whitespace from the sketch -- would prefer a thumbnail of the sketch so I can see more of my notes
  • Attaching a Markdown file that was on my SD card crashed the app

Bad

  • Started in 2013 and still in Beta?
  • No inline checklists, entire note or none
  • No undo (except for discarding all changes) and no redo
  • No text formatting
  • No Markdown support
  • Only one font style and size
  • Import from Springpad which died 8 years ago

Good

  • Nice welcome screens
  • Backup and restore
  • Password on app
  • Location on notes (optional to have it on all notes)
  • Changelog
  • Nice font style
  • Reminder on note
  • Categories on notes
  • Share as text
  • Share attachment
  • Image attachment
  • Audio attachment
  • Checklists (entire note)
  • Stats on a note: word count, character count
  • Sort by title, creation date, modified date, reminder date
  • Insert a timestamp

Great

  • Loads and runs fast
  • Attach video
  • Supports Android 5 and above
  • Like the way it shows the color category within a note and in the note list
  • 39 languages
  • Tags inside notes
  • Nice clean UI, no extra fluff
  • Image / sketch preview shown in the note list
  • Password protect a specific note
  • Add shortcut to note on Android homescreen
  • Archive a note
  • Trash bin and you can recover a note
  • Add location to a note: puts in Street address which, when clicked, brings up map
  • Shows created and modified info at bottom of the note
  • Share via email includes attachment and puts the note title in the subject, nice!

Awesome

  • Open-Source
  • Free!
  • No ads!
  • Can attach files to a note, e.g. a PDF (would be bonus points if it showed a preview of the first page in the thumbnail but I don't want to be greedy!)
  • Add a sketch (very basic)
  • Discard changes made to note (first I've seen this)
  • 3 Android widgets: list of notes (with option from a specific category), add a note, or add a note or photo or note list