a google keep alternative

shizumu is a google keep alternative for people who want the speed of opening and writing without the account behind it.

how the two behave

google keep is a board of cards. quick notes, labels, colours and reminders, tied to a google account and to the rest of google. it is fast to write into, and the board grows until the search box is the only way back in.

shizumu opens on an empty page and asks nothing. no account, no labels, no colours. the writing is a database on your device, sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted, and the app is free on linux, android and windows.

what you keep, and what you leave behind

google takeout exports keep notes, so the text moves. labels, reminders and the card board do not. people looking for apps like google keep that are free usually mean free of the account, not free of charge, and that is the part this changes: nothing here is attached to a profile, because there is no profile.

if you live on reminders, keep them where they are. this is a place to write, not to be nudged.

what a page does instead

you write to think. when something turns out to matter, you pin it, and a pin is a pointer back into the page where you were thinking, not a card in a pile. a page that belongs to a longer thread goes on a trail, and the pins you kept there come back when you open it. everything else stays in memory, searchable.

quick notes still have to be quick

the page opens straight into the writing, with no dialog in the way, and a sentence you type on your phone is on your desk the next time you sit down, if you turned sync on. that is the part of keep worth keeping.

try before you move

the app runs in your browser with a few weeks of writing already in it: try it. also worth a look: a simplenote alternative and journal app for android.

try it in your browser download