Squid: Take Notes, Markup PDFs

70.4K reviews
Content rating
PEGI 3
10M+
Downloads
Editors' Choice
Content rating
PEGI 3
In-App Purchases
Learn more
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About this app

Transform your note-taking experience with Squid! For over 12 years, Squid has been a trusted app with over 12 million installs, helping users replace paper, save money, and reduce waste. Write just like you would on paper on your Android tablet, phone, or Chromebook!

✨ Key Features:

• ✍️ Natural Writing: Seamlessly write with a pen and erase with your finger on active pen enabled devices like Samsung devices with S Pen. Use your finger or capacitive stylus on other devices.
• ⚡ Low Latency Ink: Enjoy a seamless and responsive writing experience with support for low latency ink¹.
• 🔒 Private: Notes are stored on your device and are completely private. No account or sign-in required. Backup your notes to your desired location.
• 📝 PDF Markup: Easily annotate PDFs, fill out forms, edit/grade papers, and sign documents.
• 🧰 Versatile Tools: Use any color pen or highlighter, import images, draw shapes, and add typed text.
• 📁 Organize: Select, copy/paste, and move content between pages and notes. Place notes in folders to stay organized.
• 📊 Presentations: Turn your device into a virtual whiteboard and cast your notes to a TV/projector.
• 📤 Export: Export notes as PDFs, images, or Squid Note format and share or store in the cloud.
• 💰 Save: Reduce stationery costs and replace paper notebooks with Squid for eco-friendly note-taking!

🏆 Awards/Recognition:

• 🌟 Featured App and Editors' Choice in Google Play
• 📈 Category Honorable Mention for Productivity in the Samsung Galaxy Note S Pen App Challenge
• 🎉 Popular Choice Award in the Dual Screen App Challenge

👑 Squid Premium:

• Premium paper backgrounds: math, engineering, music, sports, planning, & more
• Import and markup PDFs
• Additional tools: highlighter, true eraser, shapes, text
• Backup/restore and bulk export notes as PDFs to Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box

🛠️ Base Features:

• Vector graphics engine keeps your notes beautiful at any zoom level and on any device
• Various paper backgrounds (blank, ruled, graph) and sizes (infinite, letter, A4)
• Erase entire letters or words quickly with the stroke eraser
• Undo/redo, select, move, and resize
• Change color and weight of selected items
• Cut, copy, and paste items between notes
• Two-finger scroll, pinch-to-zoom, and double tap for quick zoom
• Sort and organize notes and folders
• Import, crop, and resize images
• Export notes to PDF, PNG, JPEG, or Squid Note format
• Share notes via email, Google Drive, Evernote, etc.
• Multi-Window support (take notes while watching a video)
• Shortcuts to create new notes or open folders
• Dark theme

🎓 Google Workspace for Education customers can purchase Squid Premium in bulk at https://squidnotes.com/edu

🐞 If you encounter any bugs, please email us at help@squid.app with a description.
💡 We would love to hear your feedback or feature requests at https://idea.squidnotes.com

¹Low latency ink is available now on Chromebooks and coming soon to Android devices.

🎯 Increase your productivity and unleash your creativity with digital handwritten notes. 👉 Try Squid for FREE today!
Take handwritten notes for class, work, or fun! Easily markup PDFs and share…
Updated on
Oct 1, 2026
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Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region, and age. The developer provided this information and may update it over time.
  • No data shared with third parties
    Learn more about how developers declare sharing
  • This app may collect these data types
    App activity and App info and performance
  • Data is encrypted in transit
  • You can request that data be deleted
  • Committed to follow the Play Families Policy

Ratings and reviews

33.7K reviews
A Google user
September 20, 2019
Was one of the better handwriting apps out there but struggles as the number of notes increases. Some may find the "premium add ons" to be a little expensive for what they do. Online backup is awful and totally unreliable. It always struggle, consume bandwidth and resources, slows my device & typically crash the whole app. I would love to see some kind of synchronising across devices too
8 people found this review helpful
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Steadfast Innovation, LLC
September 22, 2019
Hi Ken, Thanks for your feedback. Those issues definitely shouldn't be happening and we encourage you to contact our support team at help@squidnotes.com when it occurs again. In regards to sync/backup, this is something we are actively working on and hope to provide soon!
A Google user
June 20, 2019
I tried EVERY other note taking app, trying to avoid a subscription charge, which I hate for an offline service. But this is the best, infinite paper note app. However, it NEEDS a google drive auto sync option, yesterday. Needs a filled shape tool. Needs to move some of the tools out of the pen menu, and into the main nav bar, when there is room (on tablets for eg). And personally I'd like a better way of organising notes into folders, or work groups.
9 people found this review helpful
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Steadfast Innovation, LLC
July 1, 2019
Thanks for your detailed feedback, Rob. Sync is our top priority at the moment. Please feel free to vote on all feature requests on our feedback site: http://feedback.squidnotes.com/forums/177239. It really helps us stay organized and update you when any changes are made!
A Google user
November 25, 2018
Disappointed. The app doesn't let you organise your notebooks into sub-notebooks or even rearrange the order in which your notebooks are displayed manually. With that inconvenience, you'd think they would at least have the option to search through your notes using key words (I am not talking about handwriting recognition like in Samsung Notes here - just a simple header search) - but they don't. All that results in a very messy experience.
8 people found this review helpful
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What’s new

Squid is over 10 years old! We’ve been working hard on some big updates, which we've coined "Squid10". Squid10 is not yet fully featured and is available via opt-in to get your feedback and make improvements. Just tap "Try Squid10" and be sure to send us your feedback!

Latest Highlights
• Improved app startup reliability
• Fixed bulk exports when names contain consecutive periods
• Under-the-hood compatibility improvements
• Misc bug fixes and improvements

Full changelog: http://goo.gl/EsAlNK