Bear Is the Perfect Balance Between the Bloat of Evernote and the Simplicity of Plain Text
When it first launched , Bear was an intriguing alternative to bloated note-taking apps like Evernote and OneNote, but it was still too new to dive into. After a couple of small iterations, I found this to be a decent alternative for those tired of bloating other note-taking apps and for those who love the simplicity of plain text. In any case, provided that you are in the Apple ecosystem.
Bear is a note-taking app for Mac, iPhone and iPad that also won the Apple Best Of award last year. Not having Windows, Android, or a web client is a bummer these days, but if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, it shouldn’t matter much.
Bear sits between plain text and Evernote, between minimalism and bloat. It targets a very specific subgroup of people that I will call Plain Text Organized. I have long been a supporter of simple text , but it cannot be denied that it is difficult to organize or use for complex research. In Bear’s case, it uses Markdown, so you can format text easily while keeping the portability of plain text. The bear recently became my favorite note-taking app as an add-on to my favorite full-text writing program, Ulysses .
Bear also has an interesting pricing scheme worth talking about beforehand. It’s free if you don’t need to sync devices or use your own themes. If you need that kind of sync, Bear is priced at $ 14.99 per year. While this turns off people who are used to getting software for free, it means Bear has a solid business model. We hope this means Bear will continue to exist and develop for years to come. You can try Bear out for free without syncing, or get a free monthly trial of the premium if you’re still unsure.
So let’s take a look at how well Bear holds up, what sets it apart from others, and how I use it.
The bear organizes with hashtags, not notebooks
Bear does not use a notebook or folder system to organize your notes. Instead, he just uses hashtags. This is great for me because hashtags have been performing better in my workflow for a long time .
Instead of creating a notebook and then creating notes inside it, hashtags are more flexible – a note can exist in two places at the same time. Just type in # followed by any tag you want like #potentialcaves and it will automatically be parsed in the Bear sidebar as a tag. You can assign an unlimited number of tags to a note, which is very convenient if you want the note to appear in several places at the same time.
Moreover, you can nest tags using the forward slash. This creates a more traditional folder structure. For example, you can make a tag such as #book/research , #book/notes , #book/interviews to create a book tag with three subdirectories: research, notes, and interviews.
Of course, many other note-taking apps, including Evernote and OneNote, use this system as well, so this isn’t some crazy new feature. But this is the only Bear organization method that Bear offers, so it’s a good idea to learn how to use it and choose the organization method that works for you.
Linking Bear Notes is a feature I had no idea about, I wanted to until I used it
Bear has a built-in system where you can link notes together. When you do this, you can navigate between your notes very easily. For me, this is, in fact, a system in which I can create my own little Wikipedia.
For example, if I have notes about a topic or person, I can right-click the note to copy the link to it, and then paste it into a new note to create a link. Now I can simply click the link in the new note to return to the original one at any time. You can do this for any number of notes by creating a huge network of linked notes. It’s like creating a small, interconnected website that only you can navigate to.
I didn’t really understand why to use this until I started experimenting. Now that I have it, I’ve found that I most often use it for taking notes about certain contacts or names that I might not remember at first, for various pieces of code that rely on other scripts, or for slightly complex sets of notes like like travel documents where I don’t want it all merged into one note. There are probably many more ways to use this that I haven’t thought of yet.
The only problem is that Bear lacks a back button, so it will take more clicks than it looks to return to the original note, but you will get used to it after a while.
Bear has a few tricky formatting tricks
Since Bear works with a slightly different version of Markdown, all of these formatting tricks are built into it, including the ability to create checkboxes, add quotation marks, and support headings of different sizes. Bear has a few little tricks of its own.
My favorite of these little tricks is code snippet support. So, if you are a programmer, you can add a piece of code and it will be formatted correctly with additional syntax highlighting. Just right-click and choose Insert From> Code. This is very useful for people like me who spend most of their time cracking code and then testing dozens of idiotic solutions.
Bear can also recognize certain types of data and format it automatically. It recognizes addresses and turns them into links, it recognizes links and email addresses and makes them interactive, and it also has built-in support for images.
Got a web clipper if that’s your thing
If you use the web clipper to save articles or portions of web pages to OneNote or Evernote, you’ll be glad to know that Bear has the option. Just download the extension for your web browser and you ‘re good to go.
This works pretty much as you would expect. Click the Bear extension to import the entire page into a new note, or select a block of text, then click the Bear extension to import a specific portion. It’s nowhere near as robust as Evernote’s web clipper , but it gets the job done.
The bear looks really good
Look, I know it doesn’t matter from a usability standpoint, but Bear looks really nice. It’s simple, has multiple color theme options to choose from, and generally follows a minimal approach.
I’ve always hated the dreadfully green Evernote and the vibrant purple OneNote, and while some fancy colors aren’t enough to distract me from a good app, it’s nice that Bear resists that trend and looks good. Obviously, it doesn’t matter to everyone, and it shouldn’t be, but it’s still nice.
What else does the bear need
Bear isn’t perfect, and it lacks some features that people think are important. The most egregious problem is that it’s only Apple. The web app is supposed to be under development, but until then, Bear’s usefulness will be aborted.
Bear also lacks collaboration or publishing features, which might be disabled for some. I personally never use any of these features in other note-taking apps, so it doesn’t bother me, but it certainly prevents Bear from becoming a workplace option for a lot of people. There is also no password protection. Again, this is a feature I would never use, but should be considered if you are password-protecting your notes.
Bear also lacks the more advanced features of Evernote and OneNote such as document scanning, voice recording, reminders, and dictation, although based on Bear’s overall functionality, I would say most of them don’t belong here.
If you are even remotely interested in Bear at this stage, I recommend just giving it a try. Bear supports many import options including Apple Notes , DayOne , Evernote , Ulysses, and Vesper , so it’s easy to test without starting from scratch. If you want to leave Bear at some point, they will make it easier for you. You can export your notes to almost any format you might need, including TXT, RTF, HTML, and DOCX among others. It’s a great alternative when you can’t handle the bloat of other apps.