Fresh Jots vs Google Keep
Google Keep is the digital equivalent of a wall of sticky notes — fast, colourful, and shallow on purpose. Fresh Jots is the next layer up: full-length notes, search across body text, version history, an API.
In one paragraph
Google Keep ships free with any Google account, lives in the Google Workspace sidebar, and is excellent at one specific thing: jotting a quick reminder, a list, or a snippet in seconds. It doesn't try to be a long-form notebook — there's no real formatting, no folders, no full-text search across body content, no API, no version history. Fresh Jots picks up where Keep stops being useful: notes you'll actually re-read, edit, and search through.
Side by side
| Aspect | Fresh Jots | Google Keep |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free for 10 notes; $24/year for 1,000 | Free with any Google account |
| Formatting | Full rich text — headings, bold, italic, bullet/numbered lists, links | Plain text + simple lists; no headings, no bold/italic in note body |
| Note length | Up to 2 MB per note (~500,000 words) — long-form is the design center | Designed for short captures (sticky-note size) |
| Organisation | Folders + pinning + sort by date / name / size | Labels (tags) only — no folders, no nesting |
| Search | Full-text search across every title and every word in every note body | Limited; tag-based filtering |
| API | REST API on Pro / Team tiers — append-by-filename for scripts | No public API |
| Version history | Yes — last 5 snapshots per note (saves spaced >10 min apart); restore any of them | No |
What Fresh Jots does that Google Keep doesn't
- Real formatting. Headings, bold, italic, links, lists — written content readable as written content.
- Long-form support. A 5,000-word essay or a year-long journal lives comfortably in a single note.
- Full-text search across the body of every note, not just titles or tags.
- Version history. The last 5 saves are kept per note (one snapshot per ~10-minute editing session); restore any of them with one click.
- Public per-note share links — readable by anyone, no Google account needed.
- REST API for scripts and automation. /docs.
- Independent of Google. Your notes don't disappear if you change your primary Google account or leave Workspace.
Use Fresh Jots for notes you'll re-read: meeting minutes, daily journal entries, drafts, project plans, code logs, client briefs, anything you'd want to grep in three months.
Switching from Google Keep
Google Takeout exports Keep notes as a zip of .html
files — upload it via the in-app importer at
/options
and your notes come across with titles and body text preserved.
Fresh Jots — for notes you'll actually re-read
10 notes free. No card, no trial clock — just sign up and write.