Google Keep is the digital equivalent of sticky notes — perfect until you need to do anything serious. InkSync keeps the speed, and adds collaboration, privacy, and AI.
Try InkSync for FreeGoogle Keep only makes sense inside a Google account, on Google's terms. Your notes live in the same profile as your search history and ad profile, and leaving Google means leaving your notes behind. A notes app shouldn't be a loyalty program for an advertising company.
Keep lets you share a note, but there's no true real-time collaboration — no seeing the other person type, no smooth joint editing. Try planning a trip or running a household list with a partner and the cracks show fast. It's sharing in name only.
Anyone holding your unlocked phone can read everything — there's no way to lock an individual note with a PIN or biometric. Passwords, medical details, journal entries: all one borrowed phone away from prying eyes. For an app that holds your life, that's a strange omission.
Keep hasn't meaningfully changed in years. No proofreading, no tone rewrite, no summarization, no brainstorming help — every word is manual, every draft unassisted. Meanwhile every other app you use got smarter. Keep is frozen in 2015.
Labels are Keep's entire organizational system, and they buckle under real life. No folders, no nested structure, no meaningful color-coding — just an endless scroll of colorful squares. Fine for ten notes; chaos for two hundred.
Keep is free because you're already paying with your data and your lock-in — every note makes leaving Google slightly harder. InkSync costs nothing for 50 notes and doesn't need your search history to survive. The business model is the subscription, not you.
Sign up with any email and your notes are yours — independent of Google, exportable anytime. De-Google your life without losing your lists. Your notes shouldn't be a hostage in someone else's ecosystem strategy, and with InkSync they never are.
Premium lets you share a note and edit together live — you see the other person typing, changes appear instantly. Shared shopping lists with your partner, packing lists with friends, meeting notes with colleagues: actual collaboration, not the 'I shared it, good luck' of Keep.
PIN or biometric locking on individual notes, included free. Hand your phone to a friend, a kid, or a coworker without a flicker of worry. It's the most basic privacy feature a notes app can have, and Keep still doesn't have it.
Premium's AI proofreading cleans up your drafts and tone rewrite rephrases them — the awkward email, the birthday message, the meeting summary. One tap, done. It's the difference between a sticky note and a writing partner, and Keep will never close that gap.
Premium's Brain Dump captures voice, text, and images the instant they hit you — the thought in the shower, the whiteboard after a meeting, the idea at 2am. Keep's quick-capture was good for its era; this is quick-capture for how you actually live now.
| Feature | Google Keep | InkSync |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free (50 notes) / $0.99/wk ($33.99/yr) |
| Checklists | ||
| Real-time collaboration | Basic sharing only | Premium |
| Individual note locking | ||
| AI proofread & tone rewrite | Premium | |
| Brain Dump (voice, text, images) | Premium | |
| Works without a Google account | ||
| Export your data easily | Via Takeout (clunky) | |
| Organization | Labels only | Tags + color-coding |
| Local-first offline mode | Sync-dependent | |
| Sticky-note simplicity |
"Sticky notes were never meant to hold your whole life."
Sharing notes with a partner or family? See how InkSync works as a notes app for couples.
Make the switch todayGo to Google Takeout, select only Keep, and download your notes as HTML. You'll get a tidy folder of your notes with their labels and colors intact. It's Google's clunkiest export flow, but it works — and it's your backup no matter what you decide next.
Sign up on Android or at app.inksyncnote.com with any email — no Google account needed, which is rather the point. The free plan includes 50 notes with real-time sync, checklists, and note locking: more privacy than Keep ever offered, at the same price.
No one-click Keep importer exists, so you'll recreate or paste notes by hand. Start with your pinned and labeled notes — the ones you actually use — and let the ancient 'idea!!!' notes from 2018 rest in peace. Most people finish the keepers in an evening.
Recreate your Keep labels as tags, then go further: color-code by context and let notes carry multiple tags at once. A note can be 'groceries', 'weekly', and 'budget' simultaneously — no more choosing a single label and hoping you remember it.
Lock your sensitive notes with a PIN, share one list with someone to feel real-time collaboration, and notice what you don't miss: nothing. Your notes are now independent of Google, exportable, and private — the way notes should be.
The free plan covers up to 50 notes with real-time sync, checklists, and note locking — no Google account, no ad-profile strings attached. Premium is $0.99 a week or $33.99 a year for unlimited notes, collaboration, AI tools, and Brain Dump. Keep is free because you're the product; InkSync is free because 50 notes is a genuinely useful free tier.
Not automatically — honest answer. Export via Google Takeout (Keep → HTML download), then move your keepers into InkSync manually. It's an evening's work, and a useful filter: migrate the notes you actually open, and leave the digital sticky-note graveyard behind.
No — that's rather the point. InkSync accounts are independent: any email works, your notes sync between Android and the web, and you can export everything anytime. De-Google as much or as little as you like; your notes won't be collateral either way.
Keep lets you share a note; InkSync Premium lets you truly collaborate — real-time joint editing where you see changes as they happen. Shared household lists, trip planning, meeting notes: it behaves like Google Docs built for quick notes, without requiring everyone to live in Google's world.
Yes — any individual note can be locked with a PIN or biometric, included in the free plan. Keep offers nothing like it: anyone with your unlocked phone sees everything. Passwords, health notes, journals — lock them and hand your phone to anyone.
The native iOS app is coming soon — we're upfront about that. Today InkSync runs on Android and in any web browser, which covers Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebooks. If your household is split between Android and iPhone, the web app keeps everyone on the same notes right now.