Sheafnote
Notes for iPad and iPhone

Sheafnote

Handwritten notebooks, PDFs and study tools in one calm app. Free, with no ads and no account.

Coming soonto the App Store Open source, MITView on GitHub In beta testing now.
A Biology notebook page with handwritten notes on cellular respiration, a highlighted word, a sketched mitochondrion and a star sticker
The same notes open on iPhone, with the pen tools along the bottom

A shelf for every class and project

Notebooks with real covers, colored folders, favorites and a Recently Deleted bin, so nothing is ever lost by accident.

  • 20 covers, from plain cloth to patterns
  • Folders inside folders
  • Sort by name, date created or edited
The library on iPad: folders for School, Projects and Recipes, and notebooks with colorful covers

Writes like paper

Pen, highlighter, eraser, shapes and lasso, built on Apple's PencilKit, so the ink feels the same as Apple Notes. Pick the paper for each page.

  • Ruled, grid, dotted, Cornell, music and planner pages
  • Lasso to move, resize, recolor or turn ink into text
  • Double-tap Apple Pencil to switch to the eraser
The page navigator showing three handwritten pages as thumbnails

Search your handwriting

Sheafnote reads your writing on the device and makes it searchable, along with PDF text and typed notes. Nothing is sent anywhere.

  • Finds words in handwriting, PDFs and text boxes
  • Jump straight to the page
  • Bookmarks and an outline for long notebooks
Searching for “mitochondria” finds the handwritten word on page 1 of Biology 201

Study from your own notes

Turn any part of a page into a flashcard and review it with spaced repetition. Cover answers with study tape, or record a lecture alongside what you write.

  • Flashcards with Again, Hard, Good and Easy
  • Tap-to-reveal study tape
  • Record audio, then tap any line to hear what was said as you wrote it
A flashcard: “Where does the Krebs cycle happen?” with the answer “In the mitochondria”

Start any notebook in seconds

Choose a cover, a paper style and color, and a size. PDFs and images can become notebooks too, then be annotated and exported again.

  • A4, US Letter, A5 or square
  • White, yellow or dark paper
  • Export to PDF or images
The New Notebook sheet with cover choices, paper types and sizes

And on iPhone

The same library and notebooks, laid out for one hand, in light or dark.

The library on iPhone
Library
A handwritten page on iPhone
Writing
The library on iPhone in dark mode
Dark mode

Also in the box

Whiteboards

An endless canvas for diagrams and brainstorming.

Typed documents

Headings, lists and checklists for when typing is quicker.

Present

Show a notebook on a bigger screen, with a laser pointer.

Stickers and washi tape

Shapes, arrows, tabs and tape, or save your own.

Zoom window

Write large in a strip and it lands small on the page.

App lock

Lock the app or single notebooks with Face ID.

Backups

Export the whole library to one file you can keep.

Side by side

Open two notebooks in separate windows on iPad.

Your notes stay yours

No account

Open the app and start writing. There is nothing to sign up for.

No ads, no tracking

Sheafnote has no analytics and sends nothing about you anywhere.

On your device

Notebooks live on your iPad and iPhone. Handwriting is read on the device too.