Top 10 favourite Stickies features

Stickies is a useful alternative to Notes. Get more from the Catalina version

Stickies is the forgotten app in macos – when you want to make notes, the Notes app is the obvious choice. However, Stickies has its uses as well and the main advantage is visibility. Stickies are stuck to the desktop like those yellow sticky notes that can be stuck to your computer, desk, fridge and other places. They are impossible to ignore or miss, especially if the app is set to start automatically when you log into your Mac.

Some of the features are not obvious and in many ways Stickies notes are the equal of Notes notes. However, they are stored on the Mac instead of on icloud. Stickies can easily be converted to Notes and there are sharing and export functions, links to your iphone and more.

1 Show the date

You might want to know when a Stickies note was created and you can always save the date and time in a note, but there is no need. All you need to do is let the mouse hover over the bar at the top and the creation and last modified dates and times are shown.

2 Style the text

It is faster to use keyboard shortcuts than the Fonts menu to apply styles to text in your notes. Ctrl+b, I and U apply bold, italic and underline to selected text. Press Cmd and ‘+’ or ‘–’ to make text bigger or smaller. Press Cmd+t to open the Fonts panel.

3 Copy styles

The Cmd+c and Cmd+v shortcuts are useful for copying and pasting text, but place the cursor in some text with a font and press Option+cmd+c, select text elsewhere and press Option+cmd+v to apply the same font. The Option key copies and pastes styles.

4 Insert iphone photos

Stickies are not just for text, artwork and photos can be stored too. Ctrl+click a blank line in a note and select Take Photo on the menu. Your iphone turns on and the Camera app opens. Take a photo and tap ‘Use Photo’. It then appears in the note.

5 Use the markup tools

After inserting an image or photo, move the mouse over it and click the button in the top-right corner. Select macos Markup tools or third-party markup tools like Skitch. Click the last button in the toolbar to use your iphone’s markup tools and your finger.

6 Create seethrough notes

Notes can end up buried under other windows on the desktop. Keep them on top. Open the Windows menu and select ‘Float on Top’ and ‘Translucent’. Then select ‘Use as Default’ to make all new notes see-through, floating and on top of other windows.

7 Create bullet lists

There is no menu to create bullet lists in Stickies, but it can be done. Hold down the Option key and press Tab to create a bullet list item. Press Enter at the end of a list item to add the next one and then press Enter twice to end the bullet list.

8 Share Stickies

You might want to share notes with other people, such as resources for projects, shopping lists and so on. Place the cursor anywhere in the text, Ctrl+click and select ‘Share’. Choose Messages, Mail, Notes, Reminders or frequently accessed contacts.

9 Add iphone sketches

Did you know you can draw in Stickies? Ctrl+click an empty line and select ‘Add Sketch’. The iphone’s screen lights up and a sketchpad appears on it with a blank canvas. Use the pens, colours and shapes to draw and it is automatically inserted into the note.

10 Find and replace

When you have a lot of notes and can’t remember which one you used to store something, find it. Press Cmd+f to open the Find window, select ‘All Notes’, enter some text and click ‘Next’. The note appears. Use Replace & Find to change text.