I hated using OneNote on Android until a tiny adjustment changed everything

For the longest time, I had a love-hate relationship with OneNote on Android. While I relied on the desktop version for everything, the mobile felt cumbersome to my productivity.

Every time a genius idea struck or when I needed to save some quick info, I had to stop what I was doing, exit my current app, look for the OneNote icon, and wait for the notebook to sync.

It felt clunky and slow until I discovered one tiny, tucked-away setting that completely changed the game.

By enabling the OneNote floatie, I turned my Google Pixel 8 into a frictionless capture tool that lets me jot down thoughts from any screen without ever leaving the app I’m in.

Why mobile note-taking fails

For a long time, I blamed myself for not being disciplined enough to take digital notes on the go.

I would have a brilliant blog post idea while browsing the Google feed, reading an article, or watching a video, tell myself I’d remember it, and that thought would be gone five minutes later.

Whenever I tried to use OneNote on my phone, I ran into the same issue for capturing a quick thought.

When I was in the middle of a Chrome search and wanted to save a thought, I had to exit the browser, swipe through my home screen to find the OneNote icon (or widget), check the right notebook and section, and start typing.

In between, if I see a red notification bubble on Instagram or an unread email, and suddenly, I am 10 minutes deep into a feed, completely forgetting the note I intended to take in the first place.

On my PC, note-taking felt smooth because of keyboard shortcuts. However, the same isn’t the case with OneNote on Android.

Discovering and enabling the OneNote floatie

I was digging through the OneNote settings and stumbled upon a toggle I had ignored a dozen times before: OneNote floatie.

I flipped the switch, and a small, translucent purple line appeared on the edge of my screen. It is similar to the Edge panel on the Samsung phones.

I tapped it, and instead of the entire app launching and hijacking my screen, a clean, compact note window slid out over whatever I was already doing.

After I started using floatie, there was no going back. It solved the three biggest problems I had with mobile productivity.

The floatie appears on top of every single app. I can slide it up or down the edge of my screen so it doesn’t block what I’m reading, but it’s always one thumb press away.

If I’m reading a long-form PDF and find a quote I love, I tap the floating button, type it in, and tap Save. The windows disappear, and I’m exactly where I left off in the PDF.

The biggest surprise was the screenshot superpower. There is a dedicated camera icon that lets you take a screenshot of your current screen and extract text from it.

You can copy that text and save the screenshot directly to a new sticky note. Neat, isn’t it?

I can even scan a document from the floatie menu and save it in my OneNote account with necessary tweaks and edits.

I would love to see better, smoother animations when opening and closing the floatie from the sidebar.

Real-world use cases with OneNote floatie

After that little purple badge became a permanent resident on my screen, it stopped being just a note-taking tool and became a multi-purpose scanner and digitizer.

For instance, if I receive a new business card, I can tap the camera icon and use the Office Lens technology to automatically find the edges of a business card or document, flatten it out, and save it to Sticky Notes.

It’s frustrating when you are in an app like Instagram or looking at a protected PDF, and you want to copy a specific sentence, but the app won’t let you select the text.

Here, I use the floatie to take a screenshot, and then use the extract text feature. It performs OCR like a charm.

Every note I take with OneNote floatie lands in my Sticky Notes account. Once a week, I spend five minutes on my laptop dragging those notes into permanent notebooks.

Previously, there was a way to store a note in a specific notebook in OneNote. It’s a shame to see Microsoft removing that option and instead forcing users to opt for Sticky Notes only.

The essential OneNote Android adjustment

The best productivity hacks aren’t usually complex new systems; they are simple tweaks that remove friction from your current one.

I thought I needed a different note-taking system, but the solution was hidden right there in the settings all along.

If you have been feeling like your ideas are dying due to constant app-switching on Android, give OneNote floatie a try.

It’s a tiny adjustment that takes ten seconds to set up, but the impact on your daily productivity is massive.

After OneNote floatie is up and running, make sure to read this post to get the best out of Microsoft’s note-taking app.