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How to Move Google Keep Notes to an Open-Source App—and What You’ll Lose

A practical guide to exporting Google Keep with Takeout and importing into Joplin or Obsidian, including documented limits for checklists, reminders, sharing, and metadata.
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You can move Google Keep notes into Joplin with a Google Takeout export and a community importer, but no import should be assumed lossless. Joplin documents support for notes, checklists, attachments, labels, selected status metadata, and timestamps; reminders and collaborators are not listed among the plugin’s supported fields. Obsidian also offers an official Keep importer, but Obsidian is not established here as open source and its importer drops checklist indentation, reminders, and user assignments.

The practical decision is whether the destination preserves the parts of Keep you rely on, and whether its storage and sync model suits you. The steps below provide a reproducible route without claiming a personal migration or preference.

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What to check before leaving Google Keep

First identify which Keep features matter in your notes. A plain text note is a simpler migration than a checklist with nested items, a reminder, attached audio, and collaborators. Google Takeout provides a downloadable archive of Keep data that has not been deleted. Google says the archive can include note text and list items, attachments such as recordings, drawings, and images, colors, pinned and archived state, collaborators, and labels. Work or school administrators may restrict data availability. Google’s Takeout instructions for Keep explain the export.

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  • Make a list of notes that rely on checklists, attachments, sharing, reminders, or organization metadata.
  • Export before changing apps and keep the original archive somewhere safe. It gives you a reference if an import misses or transforms information.
  • Plan to inspect a sample of imported notes in the destination. Feature support on an importer’s page does not guarantee that every note will appear exactly as it did in Keep.

Which destination fits your priorities?

Consideration Joplin Obsidian
Open-source status Joplin describes itself as open source and its notes as stored in an open format. Joplin’s official site Not established by the cited importer documentation; do not choose it on the assumption that it meets an open-source requirement.
Keep import route Community plugin: export with Takeout, unzip the archive, then select note JSON files through Joplin’s Tools menu. Plugin instructions and supported fields Obsidian Importer community plugin: use the Google Keep ZIP from Takeout. Notes are converted to Markdown files. Obsidian’s import instructions
Checklist hierarchy The plugin lists checklists as supported; the documentation cited here does not specify whether nested indentation is preserved. Checklist entries become top-level items because Keep does not export indentation information.
Other documented import details Lists attachments, labels, color/archive/pin/trash metadata converted to tags with a GoogleKeep prefix, and creation/update timestamps. Reminders and collaborators are not listed as supported. Reminders and user assignments are not imported. Templates can expose source text, lists, labels, attachments, colors, sharing data, tasks, annotations, and note state.
Sync and platforms Official site lists Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, with Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive among sync choices. Not stated in the cited Keep-import documentation.

Joplin is the more directly relevant option if open-source software is a requirement and you want an importer that explicitly lists several Keep fields. The plugin page lists version 1.0.5, minimum Joplin version 3.5, and an update date of 2026-02-08; check the page for current compatibility before importing because community plugins can change. The plugin uses the first 40 characters of note content as the title when a Keep note has no title, and names an empty note “Untitled.”

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Obsidian may suit someone who wants Markdown files and a file-based knowledge base, but it is not presented here as an open-source destination. Its official importer is clear about some losses, especially checklist indentation. Neither importer documentation establishes comparative mobile capture speed, sync quality, or collaboration behavior, so those should be judged against your own workflow rather than assumed.

Export Keep with Google Takeout

  1. Open Google Takeout and sign in to the account that contains the notes.
  2. Choose the Keep data for export, then create and download the archive using Takeout’s prompts. Keep the archive intact as a backup.
  3. If Keep data is unavailable on a work or school account, ask the organization administrator whether export is restricted.
  4. Unzip the archive for an importer that requires access to its files. Do not delete the original download after extraction.

Import into Joplin

  1. Install Joplin and confirm that its version meets the Google Keep To Joplin plugin’s current minimum requirement.
  2. In Joplin, open the plugin directory and install the community plugin named Google Keep To Joplin. Review its current compatibility details on the plugin page.
  3. Extract the Google Takeout archive. In Joplin, use the plugin’s Tools-menu import option and select the Keep note JSON files as directed by its documentation.
  4. After import, check a representative set of notes: a checklist, an item with an attachment, a labeled or colored note, a pinned or archived note, a note without a title, and any note whose reminder or sharing status matters.
  5. Choose a sync method separately from the importer. Joplin lists Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive as options; confirm the setup and service terms for the option you select.

The plugin documentation says its supported fields include notes, checklists, attachments, labels, selected metadata, and timestamps. It converts color, archive, pin, and trash state into tags prefixed with GoogleKeep. That is a representation change, not a promise that those states will behave like Keep’s original controls. Verify how the imported tags appear and whether they serve your filing needs.

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Import into Obsidian if Markdown files are the priority

  1. Export Keep through Google Takeout and retain the ZIP archive.
  2. In Obsidian, install and open the community plugin named Importer.
  3. Choose the Google Keep ZIP format and point the importer to the Takeout archive, following Obsidian’s instructions.
  4. Review converted Markdown notes and attachments, paying particular attention to checklists and notes that used reminders or assignments.

Obsidian documents that checklist items import at the top level because Keep does not supply indentation information in its export. Reminders and user assignments are not imported because Obsidian does not support them. Its importer’s template options can expose fields including labels, attachments, colors, sharing data, tasks, annotations, and note state, but template availability should not be confused with preservation of Keep’s interactive behavior.

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What may change or go missing

  • Checklist structure: Obsidian explicitly flattens checklist hierarchy. Joplin lists checklists as supported, but the cited documentation does not say whether indentation survives.
  • Reminders and assignments: Obsidian’s importer does not import reminders or user assignments. The Joplin plugin’s supported-field list does not include reminders or collaborators, so do not depend on those transferring.
  • Shared-note behavior: Takeout can contain collaborators, but an archive containing sharing data is not the same as recreating an active shared note in a new app. Confirm access and collaboration separately before retiring Keep.
  • Organization metadata: Joplin maps certain Keep states to GoogleKeep-prefixed tags; Obsidian offers template fields for some metadata. Check the actual imported results instead of expecting Keep’s color, archive, or pin controls to remain equivalent.
  • Titles: In Joplin, an untitled note receives the first 40 characters of its content as a title, while an empty one becomes “Untitled.” Check those generated titles if you have many untitled notes.
  • Attachments: Both paths document attachment handling, but inspect recordings, drawings, and images in the destination. A successful import is not proof that every attachment opens correctly.

Sync and privacy are separate choices

Choosing an open-source editor does not, by itself, determine where your notes are stored or who operates the sync service. Joplin’s official site describes its app as open source, its note format as open, and lists Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive as sync choices. It also claims end-to-end encryption. These are statements from the project, not an independent security assessment; review the current documentation and service terms for your intended setup.

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Make the switch reversible

Keep the Takeout archive until you have verified important notes, attachments, and any shared workflows in their new home. If a detail matters but its transfer is unclear, preserve a separate copy or manually recreate it before relying on the destination. Once the imported notes check out and your sync setup works across the devices you use, you can decide whether to keep Keep as a read-only fallback or stop using it.

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