Google Keep vs. Google Tasks: What’s the Difference?

Google Keep and Google Tasks are two productivity applications offered by Google that are often underestimated but can prove to be very useful tools for organizing and managing daily activities. Although they are part of the same Google ecosystem, these two apps have different features and functionalities that make them suitable for meeting different needs.

What is Google Keep?

Google Keep is a free note-taking application developed by Google. This app allows you to “keep” (hence the name Keep) everything that matters to you, from thoughts to photos, in one place. Unlike Evernote or OneNote, Keep is completely free and has no hidden costs. Google Keep is easily accessible: you can use it from the web app or download it to your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Your notes are synchronized across all your devices.

Unlike your device’s default notes app, which creates wonderful checklists, Google Keep is more of a productivity tool. It offers collaboration features and allows you to add collaborators, save voice memos, customize backgrounds, draw on a canvas freehand, and much more.

Features of Google Keep

1. Taking Notes. The main function of Google Keep is to take notes, but your notes don’t have to be simple. With Google Keep, you can save notes as plain text, checklists, photos, drawings, or voice memos. Additionally, you can set beautiful backgrounds, change colors, doodle, and customize Keep notes.
2. Organization and Management. Google Keep offers features like labels, filters, workspaces, and more for organizing and managing tasks. Labeling allows you to group notes into specific categories, such as distinguishing high or low priority notes. You can also easily filter and search your notes by label, content, and other characteristics.
3. Customization Options. Google Keep offers limited customization options, perfect for its use case. For example, it allows you to customize note backgrounds and colors, but it does not offer text formatting options like bold, italics, or underline.
4. Real-time Collaboration and Sharing. Google Keep allows you to add collaborators to notes via email. Once added, they can view or edit your notes, with real-time changes visible to all participants. Keep also integrates with Google Docs, allowing you to export notes to documents with a single click.
5. Instant Reminders. Google Keep helps you keep track of your reminders and syncs them with your Google account. You can also set location-based reminders, so you receive a notification when you approach a specific place.

What is Google Tasks?

Google Tasks is a task management application that allows you to keep track of daily chores, organize multiple lists, and stay on top of upcoming deadlines. The app integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace applications like Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more. Google Tasks is ideal for planning professional and short-term goals. It’s your perfect assistant for quickly jotting down things to do for the day or week, without distractions.

Features of Google Tasks

1. Adding and Creating Tasks. It’s quick and easy to create a task in Google Tasks. Simply click the “Add a task” button, enter a title and relevant details, and you’re done!
2. Automatically Create Recurring Tasks. For recurring tasks, Google Tasks offers a repeat feature that automatically creates repeating tasks at set intervals, whether daily, weekly, or monthly.
3. Gmail Integration. Google Tasks integrates seamlessly with Gmail. You can find it in the sidebar or at the top when you open an email. It allows you to create a list of emails you want to reply to, read, or come back to later.
4. Task Management. Google Tasks offers various options to organize and manage your tasks. You can manually reorder or sort your task list by order, date added, or last marked as important.
5. Real-time Alerts. Google Tasks integrates with Google Calendar to provide real-time alerts for upcoming deadlines. This way, you always know what’s pending and what’s coming up.

Google Keep vs. Google Tasks: Feature Comparison

Both Google Keep and Google Tasks have intuitive features. Keep stands out for its customization and note-taking capabilities, while Tasks remains simple and excels at task management, also integrating with other Google Workspace apps. Let’s compare them to see how they differ.

Task Management

Google Tasks is a dedicated task manager. It allows you to create separate task cards, provide context, add subtasks, and set deadlines. You can also set up recurring tasks to appear automatically at regular intervals. Organizing tasks is simple, with drag-and-drop and tap-and-done features to reorder tasks based on evolving priorities.

In comparison, Google Keep is a note-taking app with some task management capabilities. It allows you to create workspaces and organize tasks using labels, checklists, and checkboxes to mark completed tasks. However, Keep doesn’t have the same level of task organization as Tasks. For instance, I can’t create tasks directly from email conversations, add subtasks, or sync them with my Google Calendar.

Real-time Reminders

Both applications serve as reminders. Google Tasks integrates well with Google Calendar, so your due tasks will automatically appear on your Calendar. Similarly, any reminders set via Google Assistant on your phone are also saved to Google Tasks. Google Keep provides limited in-app reminders to your mobile app. It allows you to customize reminders by time or location to receive alerts via push notifications.

User Interface and Flexibility

Tasks takes a simple, minimalist approach focused on tasks. The interface, limited to about one-sixth of the screen on the web, is easy to navigate, as is the mobile app. However, this translates into less flexibility and customization options.
This is where Google Keep shines. It has an intuitive scrapbook-style interface where all your notes are pinned to a virtual bulletin board. You can label and search your notes or sort them using labels, colors, and note types.

Journaling, Scrapbooking, and Long-Term Goals

There’s no competition on this front. Keep can do all of the above with multimedia note-taking features (voice notes, photos, sketches) and customization options. You can keep your research or school projects, photo albums, and much more on Keep. Tasks completely lacks these capabilities, as it wasn’t designed as simple task management software.

Integrations

Both Google Keep and Google Tasks integrate with other Google apps. Google Tasks lends itself better as a central hub for managing tasks across various Google products like Gmail, Calendar, and Google Assistant. Conversely, Google Keep allows you to create Google documents from your notes but does not sync your notes with Calendar.

Collaboration and Sharing

Google Keep allows users to add collaborators via email and share notes, including lists. Changes made by other users are visible in real-time.

On the other hand, Google Tasks has limited collaboration features and does not support sharing or collaboration at the same level as Google Keep.

Conclusion

In summary, Google Keep and Google Tasks are both productivity applications offered by Google, but with different features and functionalities. Keep stands out for its customization and note-taking capabilities, while Tasks excels at task management and integration with other Google apps.

The choice between the two depends on your specific needs. If you need a dedicated task manager with advanced planning and organization features, Google Tasks might be the best choice. On the other hand, if you need a more versatile tool for taking notes, creating multimedia content, and collaborating with your team, Google Keep might be the more suitable solution.