There’s an app in macOS that has existed for over 30 years, yet sometimes it feels like I’m the only person who still uses it. If you haven’t tried Stickies for a while, or even ever, then it’s well worth another look. This tiny, simple app is incredibly useful.
What Is Stickies?
If you’re unaware, Stickies is a tinyPost-Itnotes-style app that has been a part of the Mac operating system since 1994. The idea behind it is simple: you create a text note and “stick” it to your desktop, where it stays until you no longer need it, or until you close the app.
The app is hardly ever updated, and I’m amazed that it hasn’t been quietly dropped at some point over the years. No doubt it will be eventually.
The simplicity of Stickies is the key to its greatness. The app is less than 2MB in size and has no significant features. It won’t sync your notes to your other devices over iCloud, and doesn’t even have a Settings option in the menu. If you’re looking for more, you’re missing the point. But what is here makes it genuinely useful.
Stickies works predominantly with plain text notes with a few basic formatting options. You can change the size, color, and style of the font, and create lists by pressing Option+Tab. It’s also possible to drag images and PDFs into the app, although I find that Apple Notes is a better option for anything even slightly more advanced like this.
you’re able to change the color of the notes to help organize them into categories. They’re yellow by default, and there are five other options. To avoid clutter, you can collapse notes when you don’t need them and set them as translucent.
Why I Still Love Stickies
I’ve been a Mac user for around 20 years, and I’ve used Stickies pretty much forever. Although it looks kind of dated, its usefulness hasn’t been replaced by other macOS apps.
I switched to the version of Stickies on my Mac’s much-missed (by me) Dashboard for a while, but once that got removed, I returned to the full app.
Apple Notes is far more powerful, but even with the Quick Note optionassigned to a hot corner shortcut, it can’t replace Stickies. Notes are just too out of the way, and the whole point of Stickies is that they function as a constant reminder that can’t be ignored or forgotten, just like thatPost-Itnote stuck to the frame of your desktop monitor.
It’s better than the Reminders widget as well.I’m a heavy user of Spaces, the virtual desktops in macOS, and I really don’t like how widgets appear on all of them because they eat up too much screen space. I want a phone-style setup where widgets are assigned to specific desktops instead.
Stickies avoids this problem. Because it’s an app, the notes only appear on whichever desktop you’re on when you open it. To avoid confusion, I’ve assigned the Stickies app to a specific desktop by right-clicking on the icon in the Dock and going to Options > Assign to This Desktop.
And what do I use it for? My setup is like this. I use Stickies for temporary notes like reminders to pay a bill or phone the dentist. By keeping them permanently on my desktop, they become hard to miss. I then use one ofmy favorite Mac apps,Tot, as a notepad for storing longer-term things like URLs, clipboard contents, or general ideas. That app sits in the menu bar.
And thenI use Notes for anything more detailed, or that needs organizing properly. That’s three note-taking apps, but they work perfectly together.
What Next for Stickies?
Stickies doesn’t get much development, and I wouldn’t want it to. For my usage, I’d love to be able to place notes on different Spaces rather than having them all grouped together on the same one. I tend to keep myapps assigned to specific Spaces, so it would be handy to be able to put relevant notes alongside them.
Obviously, iCloud integration would be ideal as well, so that I can see my sticky notes on both my MacBook and Mac Mini at all times.
MacBook Air (M4)
The MacBook Air with the M4 chip is Apple’s most powerful yet, with amazing battery life and buttery-smooth performance in a thin and light profile.
It’s Time to Rediscover Stickies
If you haven’t used Stickies recently, I do recommend giving it another look. Maybe you weren’t even aware of its existence—you may find it in the Other folder in Launchpad, or open it through Spotlight. It’s a throwback to a certain golden age of computing, before feature-creep and bloat became the norm. It does one thing, and it does it well.
