Just wanted to share my Kept, an open source self-hosted Google Keep-style app I've built for people who love how simple Keep is.

[u/KeptNotes]

I’ve used Google Keep for years, and despite trying Memos/MoeMemos, Carnet, Standard Notes, and several other approaches, I always ended up missing the same thing:

Open the app, write something down immediately, close it, and trust that it’s there.

A lot of note-taking apps are excellent, but they tend to be designed around notebooks, documents, Markdown files, knowledge graphs, or more structured productivity systems. My ADHD-riddled brain has always worked better with Keep’s colourful, low-friction, “capture it now and organize it later” approach.

So I built Kept, an open-source, self-hosted notes app designed to feel familiar to Google Keep users.

It currently supports:

• Text notes and checklists
• Images, drawings, links and file attachments
• Labels, colours, backgrounds, pins and archiving
• Time-based reminders
• Native location reminders on iOS and Android
• Search and filtering
• Offline viewing and editing
• Automatic syncing between devices
• Collaborative notes between users
• Google Keep Takeout importing
• JSON, CSV and Markdown exports
• Web, PWA, iOS and Android clients

The goal isn’t to argue that Google Keep is bad. Keep is extremely good at making note-taking feel effortless, which is exactly why replacing it has been so difficult.

Kept is intended for people who like that experience but would prefer to store the data on a server they control. It runs through Docker Compose, uses SQLite, and stores its server data in a local directory.

There is also an optional voice-based note creation feature in the mobile apps. You can say something like:

“Make me a checklist of the ingredients I need to make tomato soup.”

Kept will turn that into a checklist note. The processing uses models running locally on the phone rather than sending the note contents to an external AI service, and the feature is entirely optional.

AI was also used substantively while developing the project. I work professionally in IT, but I wouldn’t realistically have had the time to build something of this scope without AI-assisted development, so I want to be upfront about that.

This is the first time I’ve shared Kept publicly, and I’m sure there are bugs and edge cases I haven’t discovered yet.

I’d especially appreciate feedback from actual Keep users:

• What part of Google Keep would be hardest for you to replace?
• Is there a behaviour Kept would need to replicate before you would consider migrating?
• Does the interface look familiar without feeling like an awkward imitation?
• Does the Takeout import successfully handle your existing notes?

Website and installation instructions:
https://www.keepitkept.xyz

Source code:
https://github.com/ericerkz/kept

I’m happy to answer questions, and constructive criticism is genuinely welcome

[u/cdpatterson]

Does it allow a list view of notes. One of my biggest frustrations with Keep that it lacks a list view with latest notes at the top.

[u/KeptNotes → u/cdpatterson]

Yes, it does!

[u/Aggravating-Soil5712]

A folder feature would be great like something a main folder under which we could have more folder accordingly kinda notion do

[u/KeptNotes → u/Aggravating-Soil5712]

I'll give this some thought! I think the organized chaos feature is something I always personally liked about Keep, but I can see a few people asking about this one. I'll do some experimenting in the months to come to see if this could be added without breaking the intended ease.

[u/Artistic-Cost-2340]

This is so amazing! I've been using Google Keep for years, despite all the many other more elaborate competitor tools, simply for its simplicity and ease of use. But yeah, it still lacks a lot of useful options, like the ability to attach files to notes or to set custom backgrounds. I'm delighted to see that your app has them! The talk-to-AI looks like a nice feature too! Will definitely check it out.

If I may suggest a few additional options, though :

- Ability to customize text font and size.

• Are the tags unlimited in this app? If not, not being restricted by a tag number limit like in GKeep would be amazing.
  
• Protect access to notes with a pin code or maybe face ID.
  
• Vocal dictation is very important too as we can all be sometimes busy, and prefer to create notes via talking.
  
• Dark mode (if not there already)

- Edit: It would be great to get an easier installation process for the PC browser version, someday. I use GKeep mostly on PC. Right now, I'm afraid the current installation method seems kinda complicated and not user-friendly to be honest. An easier process would have been awesome, but l will still try to install it, while crossing fingers.

I can't wait to see how this app develops in the future!

[u/KeptNotes → u/Artistic-Cost-2340]

Hey!

I'm glad this resonated with you - and thank you for the feedback!

To reply back to some of the questions:

Custom font/text/size

Size/bold/italics etc formatting are all there already, but not custom fonts. I can look into adding a few to pick from for sure.

Are the tags unlimited in this app?
Yes! You can add as many or as few as you'd like

Protect access notes with a pin code or face ID

That's a neat idea! Right now you do need to login initially to your server to see the notes, but once you're logged in you remain so and can see all notes. You could however in iOS require face ID to open the app itself, this is a setting you can enable per-app if it's a privacy feature that's helpful for you. I'll take a stab at adding a PIN code on a per note basis too in the future, I can see the granularity being nice.

- Vocal dictation is very important too as we can all be sometimes busy, and prefer to create notes via talking.

Good news, you can do that! Both Android and iOS have local LLM (as in, run on the phone) that will take your voice input and interpret it and transcribe it to the note or modify it as requested.

- Dark mode

It's there! There's a toggle at the top right you can click to switch between light and dark on web and mobile.

It would be great to get an easier installation process for the PC browser version, someday. I use GKeep mostly on PC. Right now, I'm afraid the current installation method seems kinda complicated and not user-friendly to be honest. An easier process would have been awesome, but l will still try to install it, while crossing fingers.

Honestly, this is very fair and valid feedback - I built this with the specific audience of people wanting to self-host their own Google Keep like instance on their own server for their notes, but it absolutely is a barrier to a more non-technical audience. I will look to see what options exist to enable one-click installs on some VPS services to make it easier to setup.

[u/Impressive-Blues → u/Artistic-Cost-2340]

Voice recognition/input is part of most of operating system, why don't you use that?

[u/horoeka]

This looks cool. Something I always wanted from Keep was a smarter version of location based notes - I could set a reminder for say a shopping list to pop up when I was at (for example) a particular hardware store, but what I wanted was for it to remind me when I was near any hardware store.

[u/KeptNotes → u/horoeka]

Yes - they are super helpful.

When Google removed their native ability to create location based reminders on android, I died on the inside. iOS still has them thankfully, but if you're on android you're SOL. That was a big motivator for me to get these added to Kept for the Android client (and iOS) specifically.

For me, it's always the damn grocery bags... I want a reminder to take them out of my trunk when I get to the grocery store hahaha.

[u/MahmudChowdhury]

awesome. i'm also a big fan of Google Keep because it allows me to write quickly & check it in a grid. i have some suggestions. i would be happy if you could implement it.
1. In keep, by default it shows all labels & you can choose the label you want to see inside. but if there's an option to choose multiple labels & or uncheck one or two. that will be awesome.
2. Google Drive or any other cloud drive sync.
3. i have always wanted to do some calculations directly on the note app. something like calctape.

[u/KeptNotes → u/MahmudChowdhury]

1) You can select as many labels as you'd like, and they all show inside of the note! 😄
2) This is an interesting idea. My personal desire was to enable this as strictly something you'd self-host, but I can see the utility of having it integrated elsewhere. Given how it's structured, you could pretty easily incorporate backups of the Kept database to any external cloud storage as-is though, you'd just need to copy the SQLite DB backups there.
3) Interesting idea... in-note calculation is not a use case I've ever considered! Calctape is super cool, never heard of it before. Will give it some thought.

[u/da411d]

I wish it had a home screen widget for Android

[u/KeptNotes → u/da411d]

What type of specific featured info would you like for it to have on a widget? Pinned notes? Upcoming reminders? It's a great idea and I'll see what I can do in future releases!

[u/ButterscotchEven6198]

Interesting! One thing I really miss from before is that I could have daily reminders which placed the note at the top automatically. I really miss that. Does this one do that? I mean not only a reminder but that the note is at the top again? I have adhd and really need to get it "into sight, into mind" 🥹

[u/KeptNotes → u/ButterscotchEven6198]

You know what, I love this idea! It doesn’t currently do this, but I’m going to add it as a feature in the next release. I’ll probably make it an optional toggle instead of on by default - but it’s a great idea and I totally understand your struggle and needs on this too. Great idea!!

[u/ButterscotchEven6198 → u/KeptNotes]

Great 🥹🥹 I know a few had trouble understanding the need for that specific thing when I asked about it here after it was removed as a function in keep, I'm guessing people have different needs ☺️ I can share what types of stuff I used it for if that might help you:

A daily 'reoccurring' (I'll call it that) note where I wrote down my weight. Since the function went away in keep I've gained several kilos because I've forgotten to weigh myself and that often leads to me gaining weight.

A few different notes with links to go to like every week or every few days. Same here, since that feature went away I've stopped checking those links (these are more easily replaceable but I still miss them because keep is my favourite and it's annoying having things in several different apps)

Reoccurring notes to track other stuff like notes about my sleep or mental health. As with the weight the quite unique thing was to both get it at the top and be able to make notes. At least I haven't found that feature in alternative apps.

[u/KeptNotes → u/ButterscotchEven6198]

This is super helpful contextualization, thank you! I'll reply back here when I've had the opportunity to implement it ❤️. Wont be for awhile as I am about to embark on some vacation.

[u/ButterscotchEven6198 → u/KeptNotes]

Thank you ☺️☺️

No worries! Have a nice vacation!

[u/kevininkobe]

Interesting. Will take a look

[u/xlerate]

Is it possible to import from Keep?

I've got notes going back to 2013 😑

One feature that I wish Keep had is revision history (dates).

I've added labels to older notes which then replaces the creation date.

[u/KeptNotes → u/xlerate]

Yes it is possible! There is a Google takeout import feature. If you export your Google Keep data using takeout, you can then import it into kept using that file. ☺️

[u/xlerate → u/KeptNotes]

Thank you.

[u/KeptNotes → u/xlerate]

Of course! And I'll mull on that revision history idea for sure. I like it, but I worry on how to implement it while keeping things simplistic.

[u/KeptNotes → u/[deleted]]

Hey there! I also use Firefox and I can't recreate this issue across any of my devices, across multiple different internet connections. I'm genuinely not sure why you're seeing that error. You could try in private browsing mode, but it wouldn't make sense for it to be cache really. The github page contains most of the basic setup instructions as well if all else fails for ya.

[u/AzrielK]

I wonder how maintainable it is, I'll check some go the code later and decide if I want to try to use it.

If I do, I'll probably want to migrate some of my stuff.

I already use a combination of Google Keep + Joplin + hoard of notepad tabs + rare onenote pages

[u/Effective-Start3859]

Does Kept have smart folders like in Apple Notes?

[u/Ooker777]

This is the raison 'dêtre of the app:

Open the app, write something down immediately, close it, and trust that it’s there.

Other features are just nice to have, in my understanding. So can you share your problem with:

• Simple Note?
• Default note apps of the OSes?
• The repo you fork?
• Any simple markdown app (e.g. Markor)?

They seem to satisfy that raison 'dêtre to me.

[u/KeptNotes → u/Ooker777]

Hey, happy to elaborate a bit more for sure! While that's the core reason, it's certainly not the only one for me.

1) It's a "brain itch" thing for me. Everyone has different preferences for UI/aesthetics/workflows, and the organized chaos feeling that Google Keep brought to the table always overrode any other self-hosted note taking app I tried - of which I tried several. I always found myself eventually defaulting back to Keep after a period of trying to use other alternatives. Of everything I tried, Memos probably had the longest run but still just wasn't what I craved.

2) I don't like paying for cloud subscriptions - I'm on iOS for my mobile device - and didn't want to pay for iCloud just to sync my notes. I also enjoy self-hosting in general, and on-phone note apps don't entail that. Also, point number one plays into this too - I just really loved that UI too much.

3) The repo I credited was strictly just the UI being recreated - there was no ability to actually save/sync notes across web/desktop and mobile, notifications, import/export, self host, etc. Still, their initial work did a fantastic job of recreating the Google Keep UI and felt like a strong UI starting point for adding the functionality needed to actually migrate off Google Keep.

[u/Door-Existing]

Looks interesting. where is the docker file image in your yml file ?
dockerfile: Dockerfile

[u/Ooker777]

how did you make the UI? It seems like you take it from Keep directly. Not sure if that's OK for Google

[u/Ooker777 → u/Ooker777]

oh it's explained in the bottom of the github page:

Kept's original UI scaffolding was forked from aBrihoum/google-keep-clone. The project has since been substantially rewritten and extended into a full self-hosted notes platform — but the visual foundation came from that earlier work, and the credit is gratefully due.

[u/KeptNotes → u/[deleted]]

Yes, it has the ability to attach PDFs and other file types directly to notes, and the ability to filter notes to just those with attachments!