Google Keep is an app that allows you to create digital sticky notes to take notes, make lists, and add images and audio recordings, and you can share these notes with other Google accounts. You can access it in a web browser from keep.google.com, through the nine dots launcher icon, or by using the sidebar version in Google apps. There are also mobile apps for Google Keep for Android and iOS.

To create a Google Keep note accessed through a web browser, you can click on Take a note... to start creating your note. Google Keep notes accessed through a web browser can be given a title, images, drawings, and checkboxes. You can also add labels to the notes to organise them (these labels appear down the left hand side of the Keep interface so you can view all notes tagged with particular labels) and change their colour to help you categorise or find notes. You can "pin" notes to the top of the screen and add reminders to notes. You can also share notes with other people using the Collaborator button and Archive notes once you are done using them.

On the Google Keep app, you'll need to use the plus button to create a new note, or you can click on the checkbox, drarwing, microphone or image icons to automatically start a new note using that feature of Google Keep. Google Keep notes accessed through the mobile app can be given a title, images, drawings, checkboxes and voice recordings. You can add labels and collaborators as with the web interface and can change the colour and background of notes. The main difference with the mobile app is that you can add voice recordings and take photos that are automatically added to your notes, making the mobile app ideal when you need to take notes on the go more flexibly.

Once a note is created, you can edit and add collaborators, add labels, and even copy the note into a Google Doc from the web interface. For notes with checkboxes, you can delete ticked off items, for example if you were creating a to-do list or shopping list and wanted to remove completed items.

For more information on using note taking applications like Google Keep for taking academic notes, see our Note taking Skills Guide:

Google Tasks is an app for keeping lists of tasks, which can have a date and time for completion, and marking when these are done. In a web browser, Google Tasks can be opened from Google Calendar, by clicking on the tick in a circle icon in the top right to toggle between Calendar and Tasks. It also appears in most Google app webpages as a tick in a circle icon on the sidebar - clicking on this icon will open the Google Tasks sidebar. You can also get a Google Tasks mobile app for Android or iOS.

To create a new task in Google Tasks, click on Add a task in a web browser or the plus icon in the mobile app. You will be able to add a title and details of the task, and can choose to add a date (and optional time) to the task or leave blank. You can create lists of tasks and add particular tasks to particular lists, and these lists appear as drop down options in the sidebar or tabs in the app. You can also add subtasks to a task, and tick those off separately.

Tasks with dates (and optionally times) will appear in the Tasks calendar that is under My Calendars in Google Calendar. These are not on your main Google Calendar so will not be visible to other people.

If you open the Google Tasks sidebar in Gmail, you can drag emails into Tasks and that creates a task that links to that email - handy for adding an action from an email as a task!