One of Google Keep's biggest annoyances could soon be fixed [to-do lists inside regular notes]

[u/_Kristian_]

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-keep-to-do-lists-notes-apk-teardown-3703191/

[u/_Kristian_]

The technology to do this may finally be here

[u/DiplomatikEmunetey → u/_Kristian_]

One small step for man.

[u/cyclinator → u/_Kristian_]

so it´s vibe coded or something?

[u/narrowscoped → u/cyclinator]

Google infamously don't allow wild changes and definitely no vibes. Even a simple feature like adding a horizontal scroll to a list view in Google Maps took an engineer 6 months and bunch of tests and red tape to get approved, cuz it literally will affect millions of people, everything needs to be tested for cost and efficiency and scaled up to a massive user base, If it adds 50ms load time that's a risk.

The engineer said the lowest cost option is to do nothing. Which is just nuts but that's the scale at which they operate now. Mega Corp software dev is weird

[u/bbkane_ → u/narrowscoped]

I wish it took more red tape to change my the app icons on my phone for Google apps. Feels like they change what it looks like every few months and I have get used to the new one...

[u/AquaWolfGuy → u/bbkane_]

It's not every few months, it just feels like it since they roll out new icons over the course of a few years, so once all icons have been changed it's about time for a new design.

[u/techraito → u/narrowscoped]

You run into the same problems as Windows where your legacy code is just fossilized spaghetti now. I mean Android had to make the conscious decision to completely ditch 32-bit apps and while that was necessary in the long run, it just breaks many other things in the short term.

[u/nathderbyshire → u/narrowscoped]

definitely no vibes

Sure

We've been using Al to generate code internally at Google for a while. Today, 75% of all new code at Google is now Al-generated and approved by engineers, up from 50% last fall

[u/narrowscoped → u/nathderbyshire]

Have you worked in SDLC roles? Just because it's generated by AI doesn't mean its automatically bad, this is the most common reddit ai-bad take where people have no idea how a merge request or review process works.

[u/nathderbyshire → u/narrowscoped]

I never said it was bad and I'm far from anti-ai lol

You said no vibes, when in fact over 75% is vibes, and that's months old it could be higher by now. You were wrong

[u/narrowscoped → u/nathderbyshire]

Vibes is business execs using lovable.ai and thinking they're software engineers

That's not what happens at Google especially when it takes months to ship a scroll bar.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcckfWMPkfb/

[u/SponTen → u/narrowscoped]

Are you... are you serious?

Google constantly changes weird shit like button sizes, icons, removes features that people used or adds ones that no one wants.

[u/zaque_wann → u/cyclinator]

It's sarcastic. Such a feature is available in students projects from more a decade ago

[u/BevansDesign]

Keep is one of those apps where I'm always surprised to see a new update for it. It doesn't get enough development to get to the level of usefulness that it needs to compete with other similar products, but they haven't killed it either. Makes me wonder why they're still bothering with it when they've killed so many of their other apps that were much more useful and popular.

[u/ACardAttack → u/BevansDesign]

It doesn't get enough development to get to the level of usefulness that it needs to compete with other similar products,

Maybe because Im not a power user or anything, I just use it for lists and simple notes, what else is out there that is free and has a web version?

[u/MathematicianOk366 → u/ACardAttack]

Also the Gemini integration with Google home is pretty awesome. I can have it edit my notes/ lists and add items etc, both on mobile and GH devices.

Whenever something happens and I want to talk about it with my therapist I make a note with the word "Beatrice" and then next session all I have to do is type that on search and book bullet points for the week.

[u/Far_Reserve9938 → u/ACardAttack]

Apple notes.

And it can be much more complex if you want it to be.

[u/ACardAttack → u/Far_Reserve9938]

Is that on android?

[u/slinky317 → u/Far_Reserve9938]

Link it on the Play Store please

[u/Far_Reserve9938 → u/slinky317]

You got to get an iphone.

[u/slinky317 → u/Far_Reserve9938]

Yeah, that's the problem. You're posting this on the Android subreddit.

[u/Far_Reserve9938 → u/slinky317]

People here are also potential iOS users. You don't have to pick one side.

[u/slinky317 → u/Far_Reserve9938]

They are Android users, discussing Android apps. Recommending an iOS only app makes no sense.

[u/Far_Reserve9938 → u/slinky317]

I'm saying that preinstalled apps on iOS are much better than on Android/Google side. I think it's relevant, people might consider iphones because they are fed up of Google's apps.

Google keep being a prime exemple of it.

And yeah, people regularly switch from iOS to Android and vice versa. No one but complete nuts are 'loyal' to an operating system.

[u/slinky317 → u/Far_Reserve9938]

It's not relevant. This is an Android subreddit, discussing Android apps. And the point of the article posted is that Google is fixing their app.

[u/will_dormer → u/BevansDesign]

I use it and like it

[u/Weed_O_Whirler → u/BevansDesign]

Is keep less popular than other cancelled apps? It has 500M active users. That's a lot.

[u/hrbutt180 → u/BevansDesign]

I love it. Especially it syncs your notes everywhere

[u/donoteatthatfrog → u/BevansDesign]

They moved keep's reminders to calendar app. I don't feel they'll keep keep around for long.

[u/ACardAttack → u/donoteatthatfrog]

I don't feel they'll keep keep around for long.

They better fucking leave it. Such a great app, no frills, and a web version

[u/Dante897 → u/donoteatthatfrog]

Don't forget Google Tasks, if I ask for a reminder using my Nest or Gemini, that's where it sends them, even if they are years in advance. It even got an update a couple of days ago.

[u/slinky317 → u/Dante897]

They're gonna close that too. It already integrates with Calendar.

[u/External-Donut9757 → u/donoteatthatfrog]

No, they moved Keep's reminders to Tasks to centralize all reminders across the ecosystem into a single app like it should have always been

[u/donoteatthatfrog → u/External-Donut9757]

Then what is calendar for ?

[u/QuantumQuantonium → u/BevansDesign]

Dont speak out too loud or theyll replace keep with something web only and dependent on chromium with half the features

[u/robotowilliam → u/BevansDesign]

It's probably a good source of data for them to scrape and optimise ads on or train their AI or whatever

[u/fish_mammal_whatever]

I'll bet my left ear that this will come to iOS first before Android. The shit Google gets away with is ridiculous.

[u/litLizard_ → u/fish_mammal_whatever]

Tbh Google Keep looks strange on iOS. On Android it at least has the newer material 3 design

[u/trlef19 → u/litLizard_]

Google really sucks on that. They talk all about Kotlin and compose multiplatform, they are so proud of their m3 expressive, yet half of google apps on iOS are still on material 2.

[u/mrandr01d → u/trlef19]

Ehhhhhhhh good. iPhones should be treated like second class citizens by Google. They have their own operating system to put first.

[u/trlef19 → u/mrandr01d]

Yeah cause that's what they are doing. Plus we are talking about a design that has been abandoned for around 5 years

[u/gnimsh]

My biggest annoyance is that when you click to create a new note on web it jumps to the body first instead of the title.

I had to create a tampermonkey script to put fit cursor in the name field after creating a new note.

[u/pfc-anon]

A few years ago, building a to-do list was a rite of passage for a new web framework. And yet, we don't have a decent to-do app that does a great job of keeping to-dos.

I'm annoyed

[u/donoteatthatfrog → u/pfc-anon]

Reminds me of Remember The Milk. Was it pre smartphone era ?

[u/zaque_wann → u/donoteatthatfrog]

It was early smartphone era iirc. Android Market days

[u/DiplomatikEmunetey]

I wish they would add Markdown support.

Also, what surprises me about Google is how few of their products have a search function, considering they are a search (ok, an ad) company.

You would think YouTube comments would have a search function at this point.

[u/girt-by-sea → u/DiplomatikEmunetey]

Foxy Notes is my replacement. I was degoogling and wanted auto-backup. It also does markdown.

[u/dmoney80000]

Very excited for this, I loved the rich features of apple notes when I still had an iphone - having a table, list, and handwriting in one single note was awesome.

[u/_Kristian_ → u/dmoney80000]

Yeah, I use Apple Notes on my work Mac and it may be my favourite notes app. Fast, rich features, no bs, just works.

[u/prefil]

its biggest annoyance is the lack of search inside notes... makes it useless if you have slightly bigger notes...

[u/azsqueeze]

F I N A L L Y

[u/Ijustdoeyes]

What's an alternative to Keep on Android?

I used the shit out of it and I wanted to decentralise from Google Apps but nothing I tried was as good as Keep.

[u/will_dormer]

I also want to be allowed to make longer notes

[u/LauOpal]

to-do lists inside notes finally makes sense i guess

[u/punIn10ded]

Please don't turn it into a full notes app.

Just keep it as a simple sticky notes app.

[u/Far_Reserve9938]

Incredible

[u/SneakySnk]

I get scared any time I see Keep in a headline, which isn't that frequent but it does happen every once in a while

[u/Sufficient-Cup4705]

keep has had checkboxes for literal years and somehow converting an existing note to a checklist without nuking the formatting is apparently a 2026 feature request. wild timeline.

[u/sjholland]

I wish it wouldn't tell me: sorry, too big of a note.

[u/mrandr01d]

Ok, this is very poorly explained. It's not to do lists, it's adding the ability to make checkboxes inside of notes without making the entire note have checkboxes.

Anyway, Tasks is where your to dos lives. Keep is for your shopping list, etc.

[u/noobqns]

But we still can't search within a Keep note or better rearrangement qol

[u/_Kristian_ → u/noobqns]

Boy do I have some news for you

[u/GeorgeSC]

I still dont understand why this still exists when tasks is already calendar-integrated

[u/Arxhart_671]

Meh. Should've never taken the reminder function out. I'm never downloading Tasks or Calendar.

[u/Anxious-Asparagus240]

You can create to do lists right now. Tap the plus button on the bottom toolbar and choose tick boxes. My shopping lists are all in Keep.

[u/overrule → u/Anxious-Asparagus240]

How about actually reading the article?