Mac Guides
·2 Comments

How to use Quick Note in macOS 12 Monterey

Taha Broach··
Last updated:
How to use Quick Note on macOS 12 Monterey
Home
Mac
Mac Guides

MacOS 12 Monterey brings a bunch of new features and changes to the table. One of the more notable changes is the introduction of Quick Note.

Quick Note, as the name suggests, lets you quickly create a note. A Quick Note understands which apps are open and suggests links from these apps to add to the note. It also works with almost any app.

While Quick Note is available to create on both iPad and Mac, and can only be viewed on an iPhone, in this post, we’re going to specifically focus on how to create a Quick Note on Mac.

Table Of Contents
  1. What is a Quick Note?
  2. How to use Quick Note on Mac
  3. Quick Note thumbnail
  4. Final Thoughts
  5. Other macOS Monterey Guides you should check out:

What is a Quick Note?

Quick Note is an easy, faster way to create notes. It’s perfect for time-sensitive events where you need to take note of something against the risk of forgetting it later.

It’s a new addition in macOS 12 Monterey which goes hand-in-hand with Quick Note on iOS and iPadOS 15.

Quick Note is not only quick but also smart. It can pull out links from almost any running app so that you can add them to your note. For instance, if you’re browsing a webpage in Safari, the Quick Note will suggest adding the link to that web page to the note. Within Safari, Quick Notes can also link to a chunk of text on a web page so that you can return to it with just a click.

Related:

What’s impressive is that Quick Notes reappear as a thumbnail once you visit the same web page with the information you had jotted down earlier making it easier to recollect the information.

Aside from the special functionality, a Quick Note acts just like a regular note in the Notes app. You can access all your quick notes later in the Notes app as well.

Creating a Quick Note is quite easy. You can either assign a keyboard shortcut or a hot corner on your Mac to summon one.

Now that we’ve gained a sense of what it does, here’s how to use Quick Note on Mac.

How to use Quick Note on Mac

You can set up Quick Note to work with macOS Hot Corners if you haven’t already. Setting up Quick Note is quite easy. All you need to do is follow the steps mentioned below.

How to set up a Quick Note to appear with Hot Corners

  1. Head over to macOS System Preferences by clicking on the Apple logo in the Menu bar.
macOS 12 Monterey System Preferences Menu
  1. Click on Mission Control.
macOS 12 Monterey Mission Control
  1. Situated in the bottom left corner, click the Hot Corners button.
macOS 12 Monterey Hot Corners
  1. From the dropdown list on the corner of your choice, choose Quick Note.
macOS 12 Monterey Quick Note
  1. Click OK.
OK

How to create a Quick Note on your Mac

Creating a Quick Note is easier. You can either use the Hot Corner set up for the feature or the keyboard shortcut which is Fn + Q by default.

For demonstration purposes, I’ve set up Quick Note to appear from the bottom right corner of the screen using the Hot Corners preferences. This means, whenever I hover my mouse to the bottom right corner of my Mac’s screen, a prompt to create a Quick Note appears.

A Quick Note prompt appears from the bottom right of the screen when I hover my pointer there.
A Quick Note prompt peeks out from the bottom right of the screen when I hover my pointer there. Pushing further into the corner, the Quick Note prompt shows itself in its full glory which isn’t shown in this image.

Clicking on that prompt creates a new Quick Note.

New Quick Note

Pressing the Fn + Q keys on the keyboard automatically creates a blank Quick Note.

How to add smart links to a Quick Note

While you’re using an application or browsing the web, when you create a Quick Note, it will let you add a link to that web page or a section within the app quickly. On iPad, a Quick Note will display the suggestion to add a link upfront.

However, on Mac, you need to take an extra step to add a smart link to the Quick Note. Here’s how.

  1. Once you’ve created a Quick Note, click on the Hyperlink icon in the note’s toolbar.
Quick Note Smart Links
  1. Then, choose from the different link options available and click Add Link.
Quick Note Add Link
  1. This is how your link will look in the Quick Note:
Quick Note Preview

How to add a highlighted link from Safari to Quick Note

Highlighted text is one of the most interesting things about Quick Note. It lets you save a snippet of text from any webpage into a note. When you tap or click on the saved snippet, it takes you to that exact point on the web page the snippet was captured from.

It’s worth noting that highlighted links in Quick Note currently only work with Safari. It would be nice if third-party apps adopt it in the future.

Here’s how to add highlighted links to text from Safari to Quick Note:

  1. Head over to a web page in Safari.
  2. Select the text you want to add as a snippet to the Quick Note.
Highlighted Text on a webpage in Safari.
  1. Right-click on that chunk of text and click either New Quick Note or Add to Quick Note depending on what you want to do.
Quick Note highlighted link options.
  1. The snippet of text you had selected will appear within the Quick Note in a beautiful format.
Quick Note Highlighted Links

How to access Quick Notes in the Notes app

Every Quick Note you’ve created is saved and is accessible through the Notes app on your Mac.

  1. Head over to the Notes app on your Mac.
  2. Click on the Quick Notes section in the left sidebar.
Accessing Quick Notes in the Notes app.

How to create a new Quick Note every time

Quick Note gives you two options as to how you intend to continue working with it. It either lets you create a new Quick Note each time or continue appending information to the same Quick Note.

You can easily toggle either settings from the Notes app preferences.

  1. Head over to the Notes app.
  2. Click on the Notes label in the Menu Bar and then, click Preferences.
Notes App Preferences Menu
  1. There, untick “Resume Last Quick Note.”
Disable Resume Last Quick Note

Quick Note thumbnail

The Quick Note thumbnail appears at the bottom right corner of the screen when visiting a web page that you had previously saved to a Quick Note. This is how it looks:

Quick Note thumbnail

Final Thoughts

Quick Note is an extremely handy feature within macOS 12 Monterey. The fact that you can quickly add links and snippets of text to your notes from web pages in Safari is the cherry on the top.

Apple says that Quick Note will work with any app on your system. However, it would be nice to see apps alleviating the Quick Note experience by adding native smart features similar to smart highlights in Safari.

Couple that with the option to add tags and improvements in collaboration, the Notes app on your Mac is now more powerful than ever.

Other macOS Monterey Guides you should check out: