A free sticky notes app for Mac, and when free is enough

You do not need to download anything to get free sticky notes on a Mac. Stickies comes with macOS and puts colored notes right on your desktop. Apple Notes and Freeform are built in too, and each one covers a different kind of note.

For quick notes you will throw away, one of those three is the right answer, and it costs nothing. A paid app starts to make sense when your notes belong to specific work, like a document, a browser tab or a client folder, and you want each note to show up with that work instead of sitting on top of everything. Here is what each free option does well, where it stops, and how to tell which side of that line you are on.

Stickies: the free sticky notes app already on your Mac

Stickies is the closest thing on a Mac to a pad of Post-it notes. Open it from the Applications folder and you get colored notes you can drag anywhere on the desktop. Apple's Stickies User Guide covers the useful parts: pick a color from the Color menu, change fonts, collapse a note by double-clicking its title bar, and start a quick list with Option-Tab.

The feature most people are looking for is Window > Float on Top. Turn it on and that note stays in front of other windows. There is also Window > Translucent, so a floating note does not completely hide what is underneath.

Where it stops: a floating sticky floats over everything, whether or not it has anything to do with the window you are in. With three notes that is fine. With fifteen, most people either turn floating off (and the notes vanish behind their windows) or stop reading them. Stickies also lives only on the Mac. If you want the notes on your phone, the guide's answer is File > Export All to Notes, which moves them into Apple Notes.

If your stickies have already gone missing, that is a separate problem, and we wrote up the causes in Mac sticky notes disappeared. For a longer look at its limits, see the problem with Apple Stickies.

Apple Notes: free, and on every Apple device

Apple Notes is not a sticky notes app, but it is often the right free answer anyway. With iCloud turned on for Notes, Apple says your notes appear on every device signed in to the same Apple Account, and edits on one device show up on the others (Set up iCloud for Notes). You can also open them at icloud.com/notes in a browser. It has search and lets you pin notes to the top of the list.

Where it stops: every note lives inside the Notes window. Nothing sits next to the spreadsheet or the email you are working on, so you have to remember to go and look. We compared the two approaches in more detail in Apple Notes vs sticky notes on the Mac.

Freeform: free sticky notes on a board

Freeform is Apple's whiteboard app, and sticky notes are one of its building blocks. Apple's guide shows how to add a sticky note to a board, change its color and font, and add lists. The board sits alongside text, shapes, photos and files, and the canvas grows as you add to it. With iCloud turned on for Freeform, boards also appear on your iPhone and iPad.

Where it stops: a Freeform board is great for laying ideas out and seeing them together, like planning a trip or sorting a project into columns. It is its own window, though, so like Notes it is somewhere you visit rather than something in front of you while you work in another app.

When free is enough

• The note is short-lived. A phone number, a parking spot, a reminder for this afternoon. Stickies is instant and free.
• You need it on your phone. Apple Notes, or Freeform if your notes live on a board. TackNote has no iPhone or iPad app.
• You are brainstorming. Freeform gives sticky notes room to spread out and be rearranged.
• You only keep a handful of notes. A few floating stickies do not get in the way.

When a paid sticky notes app is worth it

The built-in apps share one gap: none of them knows what you are working on. A note is either on your desktop, in front of everything, or inside its own window. If your notes are about particular work, that gap is what you end up paying for in lost time.

This is the gap TackNote was built for, so here is exactly what it does:

• Notes attach to your work. A note can belong to an app, a window, a single browser tab, an open document or a Finder folder.
• They show up only with that work. A note stuck to a browser tab is on screen while that browser is in front and hides when you switch away, so notes about other work are not in your way.
• They work in fullscreen. A note attached to a window is allowed into fullscreen Spaces, which is where a lot of desktop notes disappear. We explained why that happens in sticky notes disappear in fullscreen.
• More than text. Notes can hold checklists and voice memos, and voice memos are transcribed on your Mac when the system supports it.
• Your notes are encrypted on your Mac. The note store is sealed with AES-256-GCM, using a key kept in your Keychain.
• You can bring your old notes. TackNote imports from Apple Stickies, Apple Notes, Evernote exports, and Markdown or plain text files.

The price is $24.99 once, with no subscription, after a 7-day free trial. If the trial ends and you do not buy, your existing notes stay put; you need a license to create new ones.

What it does not do: TackNote runs only on the Mac, and there is no iPhone or iPad app. If having the same notes on your phone matters more than having them next to your work, Apple Notes is the better fit, and it is free.

If you are weighing more than just price, our guide to the best sticky notes app for Mac walks through the five things that decide it.

Free sticky notes on Mac: quick answers

Is there a free sticky notes app for Mac?

Yes. Stickies comes with macOS. Apple Notes and Freeform are built in as well, and both are free.

Can a free sticky note stay on top of other windows?

Yes. In Stickies, choose Window > Float on Top. The note then stays in front of every window, whatever you are working on.

Which free option syncs to your iPhone?

Apple Notes, with iCloud turned on for Notes. Freeform boards sync through iCloud too. Stickies does not sync, but File > Export All to Notes moves your stickies into Notes.

When is a paid app worth it?

When your notes belong to specific documents, tabs or folders you keep coming back to, and you want each note to appear with that work and stay out of the way the rest of the time.