But there are also ways to address Notepad’s shortcomings. For overall convenience, you might choose another app. We love Notepad, but we can’t say it is always the best solution for everyone. The company storing the data is the gatekeeper of your ideas.

If you use a note-taking app, your notes might be locked behind a paid subscription account and stored in the cloud. You can migrate your notes to another app by opening them in any app that understands text files. Notepad lets you save your notes (as text files) exactly where you want them, and you have no one but your operating system to answer to about how you organize, copy, or back them up. RELATED: What Are Character Encodings Like ANSI and Unicode, and How Do They Differ? You Stay in Control Other programs write their specially formatted notes in proprietary file formats or even databases that may not be easily readable in the future. Don HoĮven if you decide to stick with Notepad, it’s good to know that there are other tools available for different types of note-taking or word processing tasks.Text files are as old as personal computers themselves (older, in fact), and as long as Windows writes its text files to an industry-standard format like ASCII or Unicode, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to read your notes on any computer platform far into the future. It’s available as a free download at the Notepad++ website, and there’s also an unofficial Linux port for Notepad++ (if you’re a multi-operating system user). Try Notepad++ InsteadĪs mentioned several times above, Notepad++ by Don Ho is a completely free replacement for Notepad with many extra features that are ideal for power users editing text files for configuration or programming. In contrast, if you use OneNote, you can password-protect individual notes with 128-bit AES encryption.

You’d have to manually store them in an encrypted file partition using a tool such as Microsoft’s BitLocker to keep your data safe.

No Encryption by Defaultīy default, Notepad’s text files aren’t encrypted or secured in any way. With Notepad++, for example, you can even perform powerful find-and-replace actions across many note files at once. Otherwise, if you use an app like OneNote or Notepad++, you can easily search for content between note files.

Notepad for windows 10 desktop