Get Handy Notes In The Mac’s Menubar

What’s new about a notes app in the Mac’s Menubar? Nothing. Evernote has been there for years and it’s mostly free to use– if you don’t mind having notes stored online in the age of hackers and leaks.

Enter Tab Notes, a Mac Menubar notes app that does not live in the Dock. It’s Mac only so more secure than apps that sync notes between devices, and it gets hundreds of four and five star reviews. What’s not to like?

Free To Pay

If you think the Mac has plenty of word processors and notes apps– too many to count– you’re correct. They’re everywhere. Apple gives us Stickies, Notes, TextEdit, and Pages for free. Many notes apps are free and sync and play nice-nice with counterparts on iPhone and iPad. What’s special about Tab Notes?

First, it’s Mac only so you know your notes won’t show up online or be accessible if a device is stolen. Second, the list of useful features is long and, well, different.

• Click on your screen’s edge to take a note.
• Document file types are conventional RTF (Rich Text) and RTFD (Rich Text with images). Not proprietary format. (This application uses “Comment” property in RTF. )
• Documents folder can be any folder in your home folder.
• Supports versioning. OSX keeps documents’ previous versions. (This app does not contain version browser. Please use TextEdit to browse version files.)
• The app has built-in short term backup system. Changes made to notes will be kept for 3 days in the backup folder (you can open it from the preferences).

Wait. What? Click on the Mac’s screen edge to take a note? How does that work? Simple. Click on the screen’s edge. Move the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen and click. Tab Notes makes what looks like a Stickies note.

The note can be moved around on the Mac’s screen. Just tera it off the Menubar and move it where you please. The notes can be squished down to save screen real estate, though I could do without the Fisher Price animal icons.

Need to see the preference settings and change to a different Cute Critter icon? Control Click on a tab (or, right-click).

Tab Notes is a decent way to create and manage notes but it’s not your father’s TextEdit, Evernote, or even Apple’s own Notes app. The free version shows you how it all works, but the paid version has more features, including an option for additional themes and colors. While the Cute Critters are, well, cute, I prefer something less visually distracting like pins.

Users love it, though. Hundreds of them.