# Microsoft OneNote

> Microsoft's free digital notebook for typed, inked and audio notes

OneNote is Microsoft's digital notebook app for typed notes, handwriting, voice recordings and web clippings. It is free to download on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android and also runs in a browser, with notebooks kept in Microsoft cloud storage so they open on every device. A Microsoft 365 subscription is optional and adds 1 TB of storage, Copilot features in the desktop apps and a few premium tools.

- **Category:** Note-Taking Apps
- **Made by:** Microsoft
- **Website:** https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app
- **Runs on:** Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Browser extension
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 5, 2026

## Pricing

Microsoft OneNote has a free plan. Paid plans start at $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year (Microsoft 365 Personal).

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** OneNote is free to download and use on every supported platform. A free Microsoft account includes 5 GB of cloud storage, shared with OneDrive files and Outlook.com attachments.
- **Free trial:** 1-month free trial of Microsoft 365. A credit card is required, and it converts to a paid subscription unless canceled.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| OneNote | $0 | The standalone app on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, used with a free Microsoft account and its 5 GB of cloud storage. |
| Microsoft 365 Personal | $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year | For 1 person: 1 TB of cloud storage and the OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook desktop apps with Copilot, on up to 5 devices at once. |
| Microsoft 365 Family | $12.99 per month, or $129.99 per year | For 1 to 6 people, with 1 TB of storage per person (up to 6 TB). AI features are for the subscription owner only. |
| Microsoft 365 Premium | $19.99 per month, or $199.99 per year | Everything in Family, plus extensive Copilot chat usage, agentic AI features for research and analytics, and more AI image creation. |

Read from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app on Oct 5, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Microsoft OneNote before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **About 17% lower cost with yearly billing** (Annual discount): Microsoft 365 Personal is $99.99 per year against $9.99 per month ($119.88 over twelve months). Family and Premium show the same gap between yearly and monthly prices. Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app
- **Free Office 365 Education for students and educators** (Education): Microsoft's education site says students and educators with a valid school email address are eligible for Office 365 Education, which includes OneNote, at no cost. Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/onenote

## Key features

- **Typed, handwritten and scanned notes:** Pages hold typed text, digital ink from a pen or stylus, pictures and videos. The mobile app also scans documents and extracts their text.
- **Voice transcription and dictation:** Voice transcription captures spoken notes for later review, and the iPhone and iPad app takes dictation in 27 languages, some of them in preview.
- **Copilot in OneNote:** Copilot responds to prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information. Microsoft 365 plans include the desktop apps with Copilot, subject to usage limits.
- **Sharing and collaboration:** Notebooks are cloud-connected, so they can be shared with other people and opened on a PC, a Mac, a phone, a tablet or in a browser.
- **Web Clipper:** A free browser add-on for Edge and Chrome captures web content into a notebook, where it can be edited, annotated and shared.
- **Class and Staff Notebooks:** Class Notebook gives each student a personal workspace, a content library for handouts and a collaboration space. Staff Notebook does the same for school teams.

## Good for

- People who already have a Microsoft account or a Microsoft 365 subscription
- Handwritten notes and sketches with a pen or stylus
- Teachers and students working in Class Notebooks
- Free note-taking across Windows, Mac, phones and the web

## Worth knowing

- A free Microsoft account stops at 5 GB of cloud storage, shared with OneDrive files and Outlook.com attachments.
- Only the Windows desktop app can keep notebooks on a local hard drive; the other versions work with cloud notebooks.
- Microsoft 365 AI features are limited to the subscription owner, with usage limits, even on the Family plan.
- Microsoft lists apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android but none for Linux, where OneNote is browser-only.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.7 out of 5 from 1,066,911 ratings in the United States, read Oct 7, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id410395246

Often praised:

- The layered structure of notebooks and sections is what several reviewers say lets them keep many subjects, classes and lists in order. (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id410395246)
- Reviewers and a commenter like mixing handwriting with typed text and imported documents on one page, including writing on top of a PDF or transcript. (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id410395246, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43372516)
- Having the same notes on phone, tablet and computer is a reason reviewers and a commenter give for relying on it. (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id410395246, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47889053)

Often criticised:

- Syncing draws repeated complaints: reviewers describe notes or images that are slow to reach another device or do not arrive, in one case after switching accounts. (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id410395246)

Based on 10 App Store reviews, seven of them more than three years old, and about 5 Hacker News comments from March 2025 to May 2026. These are themes summarised from public reviews and discussions, not ToolGPA's own verdict.

## Works with

OneDrive, SharePoint, Word, Excel

**Tags:** Notes, Web clipper, Transcription, Dictation, AI features, Works offline

## Alternatives

- [Evernote](https://toolgpa.com/tools/evernote): Note-taking app with web clipping, tasks, calendar and AI search. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/evernote-vs-microsoft-onenote)
- [Notion](https://toolgpa.com/tools/notion): Workspace for docs, wikis, databases and projects with built-in AI. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/microsoft-onenote-vs-notion)
- [Google Keep](https://toolgpa.com/tools/google-keep): Google's app for quick notes, lists and reminders. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/google-keep-vs-microsoft-onenote)
- [Apple Notes](https://toolgpa.com/tools/apple-notes): Apple's free notes app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apple-notes-vs-microsoft-onenote)
- [Goodnotes](https://toolgpa.com/tools/goodnotes): Handwritten notes, PDF markup and whiteboards with an AI assistant. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/goodnotes-vs-microsoft-onenote)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 5, 2026:

- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app
- https://onenote.cloud.microsoft/
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/what-s-the-difference-between-the-onenote-versions
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/frequently-asked-questions-about-onenote-in-office-2019-and-microsoft-365-6582c7ae-2ec6-408d-8b7a-3ed71a3c2103
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/getting-started-with-the-onenote-web-clipper-5696609d-c5ae-4591-b3af-1f897cb6eda6
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-storage-faqs-8fca6272-3427-4cce-a437-2c5ed84550a9
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/onenote
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id410395246

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/microsoft-onenote
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).