Goodnotes
Tablet-first note-taking and PDF annotation with sync, collaboration and AI.
Operated by Goodnotes Limited
Opens the vendor's own site.
Jobs covered
Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.
View
Browse all view toolsopening and viewing imported PDFs and Goodnotes documents in the app, documented for Android, Windows and Web; not a standalone PDF viewer
Where your files are processed
Reported to stay on your device
Claimed by the vendor. Not yet independently verified. This covers the web service. We have not checked desktop app processing, and we do not extend the finding to it.
It depends on the edition and the feature. Apple local and iCloud workflows are separate from the ones that use Goodnotes Cloud: the official Cloud documentation says Android, Windows and Web documents use Goodnotes Cloud with offline copies syncing later, so not accessing content is not the same as not storing it.
Free exports are vendor-documented as watermarked, the 5 MB import limit belongs to the free plan, and Pro includes advanced AI with limited credits while the AI Pass adds entitlement and credits rather than being required for every advanced AI feature. Current pricing and support also differ on whether the free document limit is three total or three of each type, and on sharing eligibility, so the conflict is recorded rather than resolved.
What it does
A note-taking app built around stylus handwriting, with notebooks, an infinite whiteboard and typed documents in one library. It imports PDFs for markup, keeps handwriting searchable, and adds optional cloud sync and collaboration.
Recent versions add AI summarisation, transcription of recorded meetings and study sets.
Best for
People who want a tablet-first notebook that doubles as a PDF markup tool, and teams or schools that need shared notebooks, admin controls and compliance paperwork.
Worth knowing
The free plan is deliberately tight - three notebooks, 100 MB of storage and a 5 MB import limit. Full AI is an add-on rather than something the paid tiers include: the pricing page lists an AI Pass at $9.99 a month on top of whichever plan you choose, the tiers themselves carry only basic or partial AI, and the AI page's own answer to whether AI is in the standard plan is that features vary by tier.
Details, and where each comes from
Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.
- Versions covered
- iOS · Android · Windows · macOS · Web
- Website
- goodnotes.com
- Requires an account
- Not verified
- Free tier
- Yes
- Watermark on the free tier
- Not verified
- Maximum file size
- 5 MB
- Batch processing
- Not verified
- Data residency
- Multiple regions
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
- proprietary
- Redaction
- No redaction feature
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 161 ms 21 October 2026
Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.
What the redaction verdict rests on
From the vendor's own documentation, read 22 September 2026. Not tested by us.
What that does not establish
The vendor’s own site was read on 22 September 2026 and contains no mention of redaction, sanitisation, blackout or whiteout. Absence from a vendor’s own material is not proof that a feature does not exist - it may be undocumented, or on a page the reading did not reach - but for a NEGATIVE claim it is the strongest evidence available, and it is weaker than a positive quote.
Recorded as such rather than presented as certainty.
What the vendor says
Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded - not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.
-
“Only Goodnotes was truly made for the tablet, so you'll love the way you write.”
Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim: the sentence appears unaltered on the homepage and continues "Rest your hand, write quickly, cross out to erase, or convert to text." "Only Goodnotes was truly made for the tablet" is a comparative superlative about every competing note-taking app and cannot be checked from this page; it is also the kind of claim that reads as a judgement rather than a fact, which is why the finding quotes the rest of the sentence instead.
This is the second Goodnotes claim in the index, after the storage one recorded as partial earlier in this campaign.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- f2778841989ae93d0193f306ad7107bcde35d203844d537bd9c4246e7c1cd91b
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://www.goodnotes.com/ re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-www-goodnotes-com-51d182e2.txt.
-
“Goodnotes does not store your notes or documents on its own servers and does not access or collect such data without your permission.”
Checked by us - the source only partly supports this Read 22 September 2026
Not refuted, but not safely repeatable as recorded, so this is the first partial verdict of the campaign. The claim's sentence appears verbatim: "Goodnotes does not store your notes or documents on its own servers and does not access or collect such data without your permission." The two paragraphs immediately following it, in the same section, are what the claim leaves out, and they change what a reader would conclude.
The policy states that if you use Goodnotes Cloud to back up - "by turning on auto-backup on a compatible device" - then "any Personal Data contained within these notes or documents will be saved on Goodnotes Cloud and therefore shared with the third parties that we use to power the infrastructure for Goodnotes Cloud", and those third parties "may be located in a country outside the UK and/or EEA". So notes do leave the device once backup is on, and the policy's own construction is what makes the claim literally survivable: it distinguishes Goodnotes' "own servers" from Goodnotes Cloud infrastructure operated by third parties, a distinction the claim as recorded does not carry and a reader would not supply.
The company's no-access promise does survive the qualification - the policy repeats that it will not access or collect data from notes "irrespective of whether they are stored on Goodnotes Cloud". Recorded as a wording defect in our claim rather than misconduct by the vendor: the sentence is theirs, and so is the qualification.
We have not tested the application and no control was run.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- 81f227e761dabbd7db06d054fba8f7f775c71426a31496d8e7ff72bf1df5ba5d
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://goodnotes.com/privacy-policy re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-goodnotes-com-privacy-policy-ccb950aa.txt.
Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked - it is not a judgement about anyone.
Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.