Google Keep gets a huge new feature that makes it far more useful

Published Aug 27, 2026, 5:45 AM EDT I've been covering Android and other mobile technology for close to ten years now, with a specific interest in phone accessories, e-readers, and what makes each individual phone different from another. I delight in looking at the phone market from as many angles as possible, and while my opinions may be odd, at times, they're always from the heart as much as the head. I have a background in the mobile accessories world, which explains my odd enthusiasm for cases and things that clip onto smartphones. I worked for Digital Trends from 2017 to 2025. Sign in to your Android Police account Other note-taking apps may be flashier, but Google Keep has a simple charm that keeps us coming back to it. However, there are times we wish we could do more with it. Well, soon we will. Google is adding new features to the Keep app, and the latest is a game-changer for avid noters, as it allows you to insert to-do lists into written notes. Insert to-do lists into regular notes Take notes how you need to, not how the notes define Credit: In Google Keep at the moment, you can create notes in a number of defined ways. You can make text notes, lists, audio records, drawings, and images, covering a lot of bases. However, nary the twain shall meet, as Kipling once said. Keep has limited ways to mix these types. For instance, you can add images and drawings to text notes, but they only appear at the top of the document, rather than in-line. As for tick boxes and text, well, they don't go together at all. But a new Keep update has added the ability to mix the two, as Android Authority has discovered. Buried within the code of the new app is the ability for text and tick boxes to peacefully co-exist. In Android Authority's screenshots, it shows how you can make tick boxes in-line with text, making it easier to brainstorm and plan in Google Keep. If you've ever wanted to be a bit more free-form in your Keep notes, then this is likely to be a big upgrade for you. Previously, if you'd tried to add tick boxes to an existing text note, it would convert the entire note into tick boxes — essentially eradicating all of your note and replacing it with the most confused to-do list ever conceived. Not an ideal outcome. Once this feature comes out, Google Keep will make the leap into being an even more useful app than it previously was. And that's saying something, as we've had a lot of fun squeezing the most out of Keep recently. This new feature doesn't seem to be available for most people yet, as Android Authority had to manually switch it on to get it to work. But they were only able to do that because it's already within the app's code, meaning a release is hopefully imminent. Google Keep In-app purchases None ChromeOS support ✅ Yes App Publisher Google LLC