Add Google Keep notes to the Dock in macOS and run it as an app

When you are working on your Mac or browsing the web, you often need to store bits of information. One way is with Apple Notes or Stickies, but Google Keep on the desktop offers advantages (updated).

Keep is Google's brilliant note-taking app that enables you to store a wide range of information such as plain text, web links, and images, and collaborate with others on notes, which is great for work projects or simply the weekly shopping list with your partner.

When you need to remember a telephone number, an address, some text from a web page, a photo or other artwork, store them in Keep. One advantage is that it is independent of the operating system and computer, and it works on everything.

Google Keep notes are available on the Mac, PC, Linux, iPhone and Android phone. No matter what you work on, you can access your notes and create new ones. Another advantage is that if you store an image in a note, you can turn it into text using an OCR function. That's handy for scanning documents.

Google syncs the notes with the cloud and stores them online in your Google account. This means that they are available on any computer with internet access. You will never lose anything because it is stored online and every computer you use has access to the notes.

Keep is available from within Google's Chrome web browser, but there is a way to add it as a desktop app on the Mac and you may prefer it this way because of the simpler and cleaner interface with no browser address bar, tabs or other clutter.

Google Keep desktop app step-by-step

1 Add the Google Keep app

To get the app, you need to have Chrome browser installed and you should be signed in to your Google account. Go to chrome.google.com/webstore/ and if you search for Keep, you will just find the extension. This is not what we need.

There used to be a Desktop Apps section with lots of them, but not anymore. Apps are still there, but they are hidden. Use this direct link to Google Keep app. One day it may be gone, but for now, it is still there so grab it while you can and install the app

2 Create a Goole Keep shortcut

This does not add itself to Chrome like an extension. To see it, go to chrome://apps and a screen with icons is displayed. Click the icon and it opens a window that contains Keep and it looks like an app and not a web browser and website, which is much simpler and less distracting.

Ctrl+click the Keep icon and select Create Shortcut.

3 Find the Keep shortcut

This shortcut is not in the main Applications folder on the Mac, it is in your personal and private Applications folder because it is installed just for your own user account. Go to your home folder, open Applications and then open Chrome Apps to see it.

4 Run Google Keep from a shortcut

Double click the shortcut in the Finder window and Keep opens as a desktop app. This looks much better than running it in a browser, don't you think? Resize the window to make it one column of notes, two or thee columns wide. Shrink it so it fits in the corner of the screen or whatever suits you best. Click the hamburger icon to open the menu in a sdebar.

5 Add Google Keep to the Dock

If you didn’t use Google Keep before, because it was inconvenient accessing it through a browser, add it to the Dock as an app. With the Google Keep window open you'll see that there is a Google Keep icon in the Dock. Ctrl+click it and select Keep in Dock.

You now have a Dock icon to open Keep as a desktop app in a simple and clean window.

Focus on Google Keep

There is another way to open Google Keep in its own window on the Mac's desktop like an app. It requires a change to Google settings and is a hidden feature, but it is interesting and pretty cool.

1 Chrome flags Focus Mode

Enter chrome://flags into the address box and a list of experimental features is shown. Type focus into the search box and then enable Focus Mode. You need to restart Chrome for it to take effect.

2 Focus on a tab in Chrome

Go to Keep in Chrome, Ctrl+click the tab and select Focus This Tab. Keep on the web has a great new dark mode that is enabled by clicking the gear icon.

3 Google Keep as an app

This is the result, Keep in its own window on the Mac desktop and dark mode too! This is excellent and it looks so good.

Chrome flags are experiments and sometimes disappear, either because they are abandoned or they are incorporated into the browser by default. In future, you may not need to set the flag and Focus Mode may be a standard feature built into the browser.