Best Sticky Notes App for Mac: Stickies and 3 Alternatives

If you want a sticky notes app for Mac, the Stickies app that comes with every Mac is enough for most people. It's free, each note is its own small window, and Window > Float on Top keeps a note above your other apps. Choose a different app if you need tick-box checklists, notes that also appear on your iPhone, or one pinned note instead of many separate squares.

Quick picks, as of November 2026:

• Stickies (built in): best for free desktop sticky notes you can see side by side.
• Apple Notes (built in): best if you want quick notes on your iPhone and iPad too, with checklists.
• Tot: best for a small, fixed set of seven short notes that sync between Mac and iPhone.
• Gubb: best for one pinned-on-top note with checklists, plus clipboard history and timers in the same window, for a one-time price.

We make Gubb, so weigh our view accordingly. We've tried to be fair to every app here, and we say plainly where the free built-in apps do the job.

How we chose

A sticky notes app has a narrow job, so we judged each one on what matters for that job:

• Staying visible. Can a note sit above other windows while you work?
• Checklists. Can you tick items off, or is it plain text only?
• Several notes at once. Do you see many small notes on screen, or one note at a time?
• Where notes are stored. On this Mac only, in iCloud, or both?
• Price model. Free, one-time, or per platform.

We left out full note systems such as Obsidian and Notion. They're built for organizing a library of notes, not for a note stuck to the side of your screen.

Summary table

Stickies: the built-in sticky notes app for Mac

Stickies is Apple's own sticky notes app. Apple's Stickies user guide covers every version from macOS High Sierra through macOS Tahoe 26.

How to use Stickies on Mac

1. Press ⌘Space (Command-Space), type Stickies and press Return. You can also find it in the Applications folder.
2. Choose File > New Note (⌘N) to add a note.
3. Type. Stickies saves as you go, so there is no Save button to remember.
4. Pick a color from the Color menu to tell notes apart.
5. To keep a note above other apps, click the note and choose Window > Float on Top. This applies to that note only.
6. To shrink a note to a single line, double-click its title bar. The collapsed note shows its first line.
   You can also drag a picture or PDF into a note and use Markup tools on it to crop, rotate, write or draw.

Where Stickies keeps your notes

Stickies notes stay on the Mac you made them on. They don't sync through iCloud, and there is no Stickies app for iPhone or Windows.

Stickies' limits

• Notes show only while Stickies is open. Quit the app and the notes disappear from your screen. They're still saved and come back when you open Stickies again. To have them on screen after every restart, open System Settings, search for "Login Items" and add Stickies.
• No checklists. You can type a list, but there are no boxes to tick.
• Mac only. Nothing to read on your phone.

Who should just use Stickies: anyone who wants a few reminders on screen, works on one Mac, and doesn't need checkboxes. It costs nothing and there's nothing to install.

Apple Notes: best if you also want notes on your iPhone

Apple Notes isn't a sticky notes app, but many people searching for one really want a quick note that's also on their phone. Notes syncs through iCloud across Mac, iPhone and iPad, and it has checklists you can tick off.

What it's good at, as of November 2026:

• Checklists, attachments such as PDFs, photos, maps and links, a document scanner and locked notes.
• Recording audio straight into a note, with a transcript.
• Typing something like 5 * 3 = shows the answer inline.
• Tags, Smart Folders, links between notes and shared notes.

What it lacks for sticky-note use:

• It's a full notes app, so a quick note sits in a list with everything else rather than floating on its own.
• We couldn't confirm a keep-on-top option in the sources we checked. If a note must stay in front of other windows, Stickies or an app with a pin button is the surer choice; our guide to keeping a window on top on Mac covers the options.
• Apple platforms only.

Where notes are stored: in iCloud if you use an iCloud account in Notes. You can also turn on the On My Mac account in the Notes settings to keep notes on the Mac only.

Price: free with your Mac.

Pick Apple Notes if you want checklists and your notes on your phone. If you've outgrown it, see our list of Apple Notes alternatives.

Tot: seven short notes, synced through iCloud

Tot from The Iconfactory calls itself a "tiny text companion": a scratchpad with exactly seven pages. The fixed number is deliberate and suits short-lived text such as a phone number, a draft reply or today's three tasks.

What it's good at, as of November 2026:

• Seven fixed pages, which keeps quick notes contained.
• iCloud sync between Mac and iPhone (the iPhone and iPad app is Tot Pocket; there's also Tot Mini for Apple Watch).
• Rich or plain text, with automatic conversion to Markdown.
• Word and character counts as you type, and common text actions on the keyboard.

What it lacks:

• Only seven pages. If you want more, Tot isn't the tool.
• Apple only, with no Windows or web version.
• Needs macOS 14 or later.
• We couldn't confirm whether Tot has a keep-on-top option or tick-box checklists, so check before you buy if you need either.

Price: free to download and try. Premium features on Mac are a $19.99 in-app purchase, and the iPhone and iPad version is a separate $19.99 purchase. Both appear to be one-time purchases, not subscriptions.

Pick Tot if you want a small, fixed set of notes that follow you to your iPhone. For other apps in the same spirit, see Tot alternatives.

Gubb: a pinned note with checklists

Gubb is our app. It's a small single-window scratchpad (600×600 by default, resizable) with a Pin window on top button, a menu bar icon, and checklists you create by typing. Instead of many separate stickies, you get one window that stays in front and shows one note at a time. You can keep several notes and switch between them from Notes History in the title bar.

Set Gubb up as a sticky note

1. Download Gubb from the download page and drag it to Applications. It opens with an empty note.
2. Resize the window to sticky-note size. Gubb remembers its size and position.
3. Move the pointer to the right edge of the note to reveal the button column, then click Pin window on top. The tooltip changes to Unpin window and the pin icon turns the accent color. The pin setting is remembered between launches.
4. For a checklist, type [ ] (or []) at the start of a line and press Space. Press Return for the next item, and Return on an empty item to leave the list. Click a box to tick it; ticked items are struck through.
5. To make it look more like a sticky note, open Settings (the gear on the right edge) > Appearance, pick one of the Themes and a Paper Type such as Lines or Dots, then click Apply Changes.
6. Left-click Gubb's menu bar icon to hide the window or bring it back.

For a fuller list with due dates, priorities and subtasks, type gubb@todo on a line by itself. The help center's to-do section covers that, and our Markdown checklist syntax page explains the typing shortcuts.

What else is in the same window

The reason to pick Gubb over Stickies is the tools that sit beside your note:

• Clipboard history for text (it starts recording the first time you open the panel).
• Voice-to-text into the note with a downloaded local Whisper model (English only, and only the first 30 seconds of each recording are transcribed).
• A countdown and stopwatch timer, plus break reminders.
• Inline math, unit and currency conversion (currency needs an internet connection).

If you'd otherwise use separate apps for those, one window may be simpler. If you only want sticky notes, it's more than you need.

What Gubb lacks

• One note visible at a time. You can't spread five notes across the desktop the way Stickies does.
• No sync and no iPhone app. Notes stay on the computer you write them on.
• No images or attachments in notes.
• No global keyboard shortcut to show the window from another app. Use the menu bar icon.
• Deleting a note has no confirmation and no trash. Delete from the Notes History list with care.
• Break reminders unpin the window. If you use them, click Pin window on top again after a break.
• Closing the window may quit Gubb. Hide it with the menu bar icon instead of the red close button.

Where Gubb stores your notes

Notes are stored on your Mac in a local SQLite database, not as separate text or Markdown files. For the direct download that's ~/Library/Containers/com.gubbapp.direct/Data/Library/Application Support/gubb/gubb.db (the Mac App Store version uses com.gubbapp.release in place of com.gubbapp.direct). The database isn't encrypted, and there's no account or cloud copy.

Your notes aren't uploaded anywhere, but Gubb does go online for a few things: a font stylesheet at launch, update and license checks in the direct download, currency rates, Whisper model downloads, and OpenAI if you choose that voice provider. The Markdown and plain-text exports currently write the editor's raw data rather than readable text. To get one note out cleanly, press ⌘⇧C (Command-Shift-C) to copy it as plain text and paste it wherever you need it.

Price (as of November 2026): $59 one-time for a lifetime license that activates on up to 3 devices, with a 7-day free trial of the direct download and no account needed. It's also on the Mac App Store and, for Windows, the Microsoft Store. See Gubb pricing.

Pick Gubb if you want one note pinned in front of your work with real checklists, and you'd use the clipboard history or timers too.

Comparison: staying on top, checklists and storage

"Not confirmed" means the sources we checked don't say either way.

How to choose

• If you want a few reminders on screen and nothing to install, use Stickies and set the important ones to Float on Top.
• If the note must be on your iPhone too, use Apple Notes, or Tot if you prefer a small fixed set of pages.
• If you want a note that stays in front with checkboxes, Gubb does that. Stickies can stay in front but has no checkboxes.
• If you want several notes visible side by side, Stickies is the best fit of these four.
• If you also want clipboard history, timers or dictation into notes, Gubb puts them in the same window. Our guide to quick notes on Mac covers more fast-capture options.

FAQ

Is Microsoft Sticky Notes available on Mac?

As of November 2026, Microsoft offers Sticky Notes for Windows and we found no Mac version. On a Mac, Stickies is the closest built-in equivalent. If you're on Windows, see our Windows Sticky Notes alternatives.

Why do my Stickies disappear?

Stickies notes show only while the app is running. They're still saved; open Stickies again and they come back. Add Stickies to your login items if you want them on screen every time you log in.

Do Stickies sync with iCloud?

No. Stickies notes stay on the Mac where you created them. For synced quick notes, use Apple Notes or Tot.