Google Keep's Debug Tools

Google Keep for the desktop shows an interesting feature in the menu: a "debug tools" section with a single item: "show client log".

Google Keep opens a dialog that shows some information about your notes, some details about "upsync", "downsync", preloaded chunks and app init. If you enable "Show user text content", the debug page will also include the text of your notes.

I'm not sure if Google actually intended to show this debugging option in Google Keep's navigation menu. This looks like an internal debugging feature that's used by Google employees. Google Keep's Chrome app and Android app don't include this feature.

Update (a day later): It's gone.

Google Keep OCR

Google Keep has recently added a few new features. You can now upload images and Google automatically performs OCR and indexes the text, so you can quickly find images by searching for a few words from the images. This is not the smart visual search feature from Google Drive and Google+ Photos, but it's still useful. You can also transcribe the text, so that you can actually extract the text from the image. Another options lets you "make a copy" of a note.

If you click the 3-dot menu icon from a note that includes a list, you can change list settings. New list items can be added at the top or at the bottom and checked items can be moved to the bottom. By default, the changes also apply to new lists, but you can uncheck this setting.

Here's what happens after enabling "move to the bottom" for checked items:

When you delete a note, it's now moved to the Trash and it will be permanently removed after 7 days. Go to the Trash to empty it or restore some of the notes you've accidentally deleted.

The Android app was also updated with support for multiple accounts, a yellow action bar that changes color with notes and the same new features from the desktop interface.

Google Keep to Integrate With Google Drive

Google Keep was supposed to integrate with Google Drive, but it's still a distinct app. Google Keep is a pretty basic app and doesn't have a lot of features, so you can't expect that it will improve.

Right now, you can only insert images and save audio files when using the dictation feature from the mobile app. Google Keep's code includes multiple references to an upcoming feature that lets you upload any file to Google Drive and add it to a note, preview the file using the Google Drive Viewer or open it using various apps. You'll also be able to add videos (YouTube URLs or videos uploaded to Google Drive) and play them inside Google Keep.

While this isn't the Drive integration I expected, it's still a cool feature. Hopefully, Keep will become a Google Drive app and you'll be able to open and edit your notes from Google Drive.

Update: The screenshots are from the Chrome app for Google Keep, but there are similar references in the desktop Google Keep web app.

Google Keep Reminders

Google Keep now allows you to add reminders to your notes. Just like in Google Now, you can add time-based reminders and location-based reminders. "Time reminders work on all devices, but location reminders will only be triggered on mobile devices," mentions the help center.

"To get started, select the 'Remind me' button from the bottom of any note and choose the type of reminder you want to add. You can add time-based reminders for a specific date and time, or a more general time of day, like tomorrow morning. Adding a location reminder is incredibly easy too — as soon as you start typing Google Keep suggests places nearby," explains Google.

Here's the desktop Google Keep site:

The Android app has been updated and now supports reminders. There's a new navigation drawer with separate sections for archived notes and reminders and you can now add photos from the Gallery without using the "share" feature.

Google Keep integrates with Google Now, so all the Keep reminders are added to Google Now. You'll find them in Settings > My Stuff > Reminders. For some reason, the reminders added from Google Now aren't available in Google Keep.

You'll get notifications in Google Now, the Google Keep app for Android, the Google Keep app for Chrome (desktop notification) and the Google Keep desktop site (alert box), but you won't see redundant notifications. If you have both the Google Search app and Google Keep, you'll only get notifications from Google Keep.

When Google Tasks is discontinued (it will happen eventually), Google Keep will be the replacement. It's optimized for mobile and it doesn't integrate with Gmail or Google Calendar, but at least it's constantly improving and it has a cool mobile app.

Google Keep Tips

Here are some tips for Google Keep. Since it's a service designed for mobile devices, most of the tips are for the Android app.

Mobile

1. Convert an existing list to a to-do list by tapping "show checkboxes" in the Keep menu.

2. A simple way to add images to a new note: select one or more images in the gallery app or a file manager, use the share feature and select Keep.

3. Copy text from a web page to a new note. Select the text, use the share feature and choose Keep.

4. Save the title of a web page and the URL to a new note. Use the share option from your favorite browser.

5. Add a Keep widget with the latest notes. Resize the widget to show more notes.

6. Reorder notes: long press a note and drag it to a different position.

7. Use colors to organize notes. For example, blue notes are related to work.

8. Take multiple photos from a note. You can then upload the album to Google+ using the share feature.

9. Write short notes quickly: tap "add quick note", type the note and tap "Done".

10. Duplicate a note: open it, tap the share button and select Keep.

11. Tap the microphone to dictate your note and to save your voice recording. You can use Keep as a voice recording app.

12. Find notes with voice recordings: they have a small play icon next to the date.

13. Remove a recording by tapping "x" next to the audio player. You can also remove photos in the same way.

14. Dictate notes without saving audio files by tapping the microphone button from the keyboard.

15. Use Google Voice Search to dictate notes. Start with "note to self" and select Keep from the list of applications after dictating the note.

16. Change the default background color: tap "add quick note", type something, then tap the color palette icon and pick a color.

17. Use the minus operator to exclude keywords when you use the search feature. Use quotes for exact matches. Examples: [milk -buy], ["buy milk"].

Desktop

18. Read your notes online from any device at drive.google.com/keep.

19. Install the Chrome app to read your notes offline when you use your computer.

20. Get permalinks for your notes: open the Google Keep site in a desktop browser, switch to the grid view and click a note.

21. Download voice recordings: open Keep in a desktop browser, click a note, mouse over the voice recording and click "Download".

22. Keyboard shortcuts:

j/k - navigate to the next/previous note
n/p - same as j/k, but also useful for navigating between list items
c - compose a new note
/ - use the search feature
e - archive selected note
# - delete selected note
o - open selected note
Enter - edit selected note
Ctrl+g - toggle between list and grid view
Esc - finish editing a note.