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    Notes User Guide
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    Table of Contents

    Notes User Guide

    • Welcome
    • Get started
    • Add or remove notes accounts
      • Create and edit notes
      • Create a Quick Note
      • Record and transcribe audio
        • Format notes
        • Add lists
        • Add a table
      • Add links
      • Add photos, PDFs, and more
      • Manage PDFs and scanned documents
      • Mark up attachments
      • Solve math
      • Open Math Notes from Calculator
      • View your notes
      • View attachments
      • Search your notes
      • Use Notes widgets to view notes
      • Customize how notes appear
      • Lock your notes
      • Change your password for locked notes
      • About accounts and folders
      • Add and remove folders
      • Sort and pin notes
      • Use tags
      • Use Smart Folders
      • Delete a note
      • Share your notes and folders
      • Manage shared notes and folders
      • Collaborate with shared notes and folders
    • Import, export, and print notes
    • Manage notifications
    • Change Notes settings
    • Keyboard shortcuts and gestures
    • Copyright and trademarks

    Change settings in Notes on Mac

    In the Notes app on your Mac, use Notes settings to set default options for using Notes and to set, change, or reset the password for locked notes.

    To change these settings, choose Notes > Settings.

    Open Notes for me

    Option

    Description

    Sort notes by

    Choose the default sort order for your notes.

    Important: Pinned notes always appear at the top of the notes list. See Sort and pin notes.

    New notes start with

    Choose the default paragraph style used at the beginning of new notes. See Change the default title paragraph style.

    Default account

    Choose the account used when you use Siri to create a new note. Usually, this is your iCloud account. See Add or remove accounts in Notes.

    Group notes by date

    Choose whether to group notes by how recently they were created or edited (for example, Today, Yesterday, or Previous 30 Days).

    Note: This option doesn’t appear if you’ve chosen to sort notes by title. See Sort and pin notes.

    Always resume to last Quick Note

    When you create a Quick Note, open your last Quick Note instead of creating a new one. See Create a Quick Note.

    Automatically sort checked items

    Automatically move checklist items to the bottom of the list as they’re checked (and subsequently move unchecked items to the top of the list). See Change a checklist.

    Allow mention notifications

    Get notifications when your name is mentioned in a shared note in Notes. See Collaborate on a shared note.

    Enable the On My Mac account

    Store notes on your computer using the On My Mac account.

    Default text size

    Set the preferred text size in notes.

    Locked notes

    Select your iCloud or On My Mac account (if both accounts are enabled), and choose whether to use the login password for your Mac or a custom password to lock or unlock notes in the selected account. If you haven’t set a password, click Set Password.

    Important: It’s highly recommended that you add a hint. If you forget your custom password and you can’t unlock your notes with Touch ID on your Mac or Magic Keyboard, you won’t be able to view your locked notes. Apple can’t help you regain access to those locked notes. You can create a new password that lets you password-protect any notes that you want to lock going forward. See