Can You Make Flashcards on GoodNotes? How It Compares
Yes. GoodNotes 6 has a built-in flashcard feature: you create a notebook from the flashcard template, write the question on the front area and the answer on the hidden back area, then switch to study mode, where cards come back on a spaced repetition schedule. It works well if your notes already live in GoodNotes and you write by hand. It works badly if you want to import an existing deck, share cards with a study group, or build cards from material you did not write yourself.
How the GoodNotes flashcard feature works
The flow is short, and it is the same on iPad, Mac, Windows, Android, and the web version:
- Create a new notebook and pick the Flashcards template from the template picker instead of a normal paper style.
- Write the question in the upper section of the page.
- Write the answer in the lower section. That section is what stays covered during review.
- Add one card per page. A card is a page, which is worth remembering when you plan a big deck.
- Tap the study icon in the toolbar to enter study mode.
- Reveal the answer, then rate how well you knew it. The rating decides how soon that card returns.
Menu labels and icon positions shift between GoodNotes releases, so if the wording does not match exactly, look for a Flashcards entry in the template list and a study or flashcard icon along the top toolbar.
The important part is what happens after step 6. You are not just flipping cards, you are being asked to retrieve the answer before seeing it. In Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 experiments, students who were tested on material remembered noticeably more a week later than students who simply reread it, even though rereading felt more effective in the moment. Dunlosky and colleagues reached a similar conclusion in their 2013 review of study techniques, rating practice testing and spaced practice as high utility while highlighting and rereading came out low. GoodNotes flashcards put you on the right side of that research by default.
GoodNotes vs Anki vs Quizlet
| GoodNotes 6 | Anki | Quizlet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How cards are made | Handwritten, one per page | Typed, CSV or note import, add-ons | Typed, paste, image upload |
| Scheduling | Spaced repetition, ratings after each card | Spaced repetition, heavily configurable | Learn mode and spaced practice, less configurable |
| Import an existing deck | Not practical | Yes, CSV, APKG, shared decks | Yes, paste and split, shared sets |
| Share with classmates | No real deck sharing | Yes, shared decks | Yes, this is the core feature |
| Where cards live | Inside your notebook, next to the source notes | Separate app, separate mental space | Separate app, cloud first |
| Cost | Paid app with a limited free tier | Free on desktop and Android, paid on iOS | Free tier plus paid tiers |
The row that decides most of this is the first one. GoodNotes cards are handwriting. That is a real advantage and a real cost at the same time.
The advantage: writing a question out by hand forces you to decide what the question actually is, and the card sits three pages away from the lecture notes it came from. Nothing leaves the app, nothing needs to be re-typed, and diagrams, chemical structures, and equations go in as easily as text. For anatomy, organic chemistry, and maths, that alone can settle the choice.
The cost: handwriting scales badly. Fifty cards is an evening. If you already have a 300-term glossary, importing it into Quizlet takes minutes and writing it into GoodNotes takes hours for no learning benefit, because copying a glossary by hand is transcription, not retrieval.
Which one fits your situation
Use GoodNotes if your lecture notes are already in GoodNotes, you have an Apple Pencil or stylus, and your cards are things you want to draw or annotate. Keeping cards in the same notebook as the source material is a genuine workflow win that neither Anki nor Quizlet can match.
Use Anki if you are studying something over months rather than weeks, medicine and languages being the obvious cases. Anki's scheduler is more transparent and far more tunable, its statistics are better, and shared decks let you inherit thousands of well-made cards. If that is you, the practical question is how to get your existing material in, which is a separate job worth doing properly: see turning notes into Anki flashcards. Anki is the better tool here and it is not close.
Use Quizlet if you are studying with other people, need a deck on a laptop in the library and a phone on the bus, or want a set someone else already built for your textbook. Sharing is where Quizlet earns its place.
Use something that generates the questions if the bottleneck is writing cards, not reviewing them. This is the case for a lot of people: notes exist, the deck never gets built, and the exam arrives. If you are on iPhone or iPad, Qora takes a photo of a notebook page, a voice recording, or typed text and produces a short lesson plus questions from that material, including multiple choice, fill in the blank, and open recall. Text recognition and transcription happen on the device, so the photo and the audio never leave your phone, and there is no account to create. It is not a replacement for a flashcard app you already love. It is a shortcut past the hour that stops most people from starting.
Where GoodNotes flashcards fall short
Three limits are worth knowing before you commit a semester to them.
Your cards are stuck. There is no meaningful import or export path between GoodNotes flashcards and Anki, Quizlet, or a CSV file. Cards you write in GoodNotes stay in GoodNotes. If you might switch apps later, or want to share a deck, start somewhere else.
Editing in bulk is painful. Because each card is a page, fixing a systematic mistake across forty cards means opening forty pages. Typed flashcard apps let you find and replace.
Handwriting recognition is not the same as understanding. GoodNotes can search your handwriting, but it does not turn a page of notes into questions for you. Every card is still a decision you make and a line you write. Whether that is a feature or a problem depends entirely on how much time you have, and it is the same trade-off you face making flashcards at home with paper and a pen.
Common questions
Is the GoodNotes flashcard feature free?
GoodNotes offers a limited free tier and a paid version, and the study features are part of the paid experience. Pricing and tier limits change, so check the current plan on the GoodNotes site before you build a workflow around it.
Can I import Anki or Quizlet decks into GoodNotes?
No. There is no supported way to bring an APKG file, a Quizlet set, or a CSV into GoodNotes flashcards. If you already own a deck elsewhere, keep studying it where it is rather than retyping it by hand.
Do GoodNotes flashcards use spaced repetition?
Yes. After you reveal an answer you rate how well you recalled it, and that rating changes when the card comes back. The algorithm is less configurable and less visible than Anki's, so power users who want to tune intervals will find it restrictive.
Can I make flashcards in GoodNotes on Android or Windows?
Yes. GoodNotes 6 runs on Android, Windows, and the web in addition to iPad and Mac, and flashcards work across them. The handwriting experience is still best with a pressure-sensitive stylus, which is where the iPad version has the edge.
If your notes are already in GoodNotes and you are willing to write cards by hand, the built-in flashcard feature is a good answer and you do not need a second app. If you need to import, share, or fine-tune scheduling, Anki or Quizlet will serve you better, and there is no shame in running two tools. The concrete next step is smaller than picking a platform: open your last set of lecture notes, write five cards from the section you understood least, and review them tomorrow. Five cards you actually test yourself on beat a hundred you plan to make.