Tot is a tiny text companion for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that could prove more useful than Apple’s own built-in Notes app. Essentially it’s a scratchpad for those transient thoughts that you just need to jot down quickly and scrappily – an alternative to clogging up your main Notes app with dozens of scrappy one-liners and stuff you don’t need to archive long term.
There’s a lot to love about Tot – its simplicity, minimalism, and ease-of-use are great, but the app also includes some additional under-the-hood features that help you get the most out of your text.
On the surface, Tot is a text editor with a small footprint. On iPhone and iPad, it offers a clean design that puts your text at the front and center. And on Mac, Tot blends into the background and can even be controlled from the Menu Bar. Using Tot Pocket (for iOS and iPadOS) or Tot for macOS is effortless – and you’ll find that the iCloud Sync keeps all your notes in-sync with one another.
Less is definitely more here – in fact, using Tot after a long spell with Apple’s Notes is like a breath of fresh air.
Tot also fully supports Dark Mode on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and it ships with support for Markdown. This makes note-taking on-the-go a lot easier – especially if your destination is the Web. In the app, you can switch between a plain text and Markdown preview, and your content can easily be shared using a dedicated icon.
Markdown-powered note-taking.
Tot helps users organize and categorize their notes using a color-based filing system. At the top of the app, tap the yellow icon for one note, the orange icon for another, and the red icon for a third. This way, you can maintain multiple notes in the app without needing a to resort to messier measures, like text search.
Finally, let’s talk about Tot’s virtual keyboard. The app is careful to add the perfect amount of formatting tools using an additional row on the iOS (and iPadOS) virtual keyboard, including a bold and italic button, and bullet, tick, and arrow icons (although these can be swapped for something different in the app’s settings). You can also choose to reveal an additional row of information, including line, word, and character counts.
Settings to configure.
Tot Pocket on iOS and iPadOS carries a price-tag of $20/£20, while the companion Mac app is free of charge.