Fresh Jots vs Google Keep

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 rich formatting, no folders, no API, and 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

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.
• Folders and sorting. Group notes into folders and sort by date, name, or size — Keep gives you one flat wall of colour-coded labels.
• 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.

Where Google Keep is the better pick

Keep does several things Fresh Jots deliberately doesn't. If any of these are central to how you work, Keep (or another capture tool) is the right call — we'd rather say so up front than have you find out after switching.

• Five-second capture, everywhere. Home-screen widgets, Google Assistant, and a lock-screen entry point save a stray thought before a full notebook would have finished loading. Keep is built for speed of capture; Fresh Jots is built for what you do with the note afterwards.
• Reminders. Time- and location-based reminders attached to a note, surfaced through Google. Fresh Jots has no reminder system.
• Photos, drawings, and image text. Snap a photo, sketch a diagram, or pull the text out of a picture with "Grab image text." Fresh Jots stores written notes — no canvas, no image capture.
• Voice notes with transcription. Record a memo and Keep transcribes it automatically. Fresh Jots has no audio capture.
• Live co-editing of a single note. Share a Keep note with specific people and edit it together in real time. Fresh Jots offers read-only public share links and a shared Team workspace — not live, multi-person editing of one note.
• Free, and already in your Google account. If cost is the deciding factor and sticky-note captures are all you need, Keep is hard to beat at $0.

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.