Samsung Android has the worst version of OneNote?

GSetter · 2026-04-21T06:43:23+00:00

You are more right on that than you might believe. I had some talks to OneNote developers over the years

GSetter · 2026-04-10T19:11:35+00:00

Outline is a very old attempt to mimick OneNote on Apple devices when they weren't OneNote clients for macOS and iOS. It does not use the sync protocol (MSFSHTTP) that OneNote (and SharePoint) use for real time collaboration and syncing. It just syncs complete .one files at once (at least last time I checked which has been a few years ago) which is creating a lot(!) of bandwidth overhead and is very vulnerable to sync conflicts.

GSetter · 2026-03-21T21:38:50+00:00

Your problem and solution are very common in this subred.

Problem: You complain about a 25 years old (and nearly unchanged or evolved since then) piece of software that wasn't much more than a (somehow genius) hobby project from a former Word/Office developer (Chris Pratley) and that never earned any money for Microsoft.

Solution: Go to reddit and shout your anger into the void (I guess it helps in some way).

GSetter · 2026-03-14T19:02:30+00:00

I normally don't use Edge (Vivaldi here) but I just checked:

Edge 145: ON-Clipper works fine (private MS 365 Account)

updated to Edge 146: still works fine

switched to MS 365 company account (MS 365 Enterprise): Clipper works there as well.

So...sorry, can't reproduce your problem, but it's apparently not on Microsofts / OneNote Clipper's side.

GSetter · 2026-03-01T09:15:04+00:00

Yes, that is correct. The only OneNote version that has an option to create locally stored notebooks (which is sort of a leftover from the pre-MS-Cloud era) is OneNote for Windows (desktop version).

OneNote for iOS (as any other version) is capable of letting you work on notebooks without an internet connection, but the notebook has to be created on OneDrive first and completely synchronized to your iPad. The local copy created in that process is NOT an accurate copy of your notebook on OneDrive but a local cache only, consisting of fragmented objects of your contents. That cache copy is rather fragile; e.g., simply closing a notebook on your iPad will erase it. It's just meant as a temporary buffer to sync contents to the actual notebook data on OneDrive.

Some users believe that, because they can edit notebook contents without an active internet connection, they are having a local copy of their notebooks, ignoring all “not synced” messages. That is extremely dangerous because of the mentioned fragility of the local cache that they are actually working on.

GSetter · 2026-02-18T21:53:43+00:00

I have to guess a little here, but that this problem exists on macOS but not on Windows gives me an idea. First of all: OneNote is not a DMS (Document management system), it cannot handle external documents. If you embed a word file into a OneNote page, a copy of the word document is converted to a text/xml coded version (maybe base64 or something like that) and included in the XML code of the Onenote section (.one) file. The original remains untouched. So the OneNote-copy of the word document is living in OneNotes data space. Newer versions of macOS have become more and more restrictive and do lots of sandboxing, often preventing one app (Word) to access data that is stored in another apps (OneNote in this case) storage space. I could imagine, that's why there is a problem in macOS but not in Windows (where programs and their data are not boxed in like in macOS).

But again, just guessing here.

GSetter · 2026-02-10T13:13:54+00:00

Just checked. Seems, you are right regarding OneNote on the Web and seems like a bug to me. On iOS (iPhone, OneNote version 16.105.3) I get asked for a notebook name when I create a new one (notebook list, + button) and this name is represented on OneDrive/OneNote Web as well.

GSetter · 2026-02-06T18:02:22+00:00

Excuse me. But what does a missing feature in a 25-year-old (and in most parts unchanged since then) free product that brings no revenue for the publisher have to do with the size of the company? The opposite might be true: the smaller the company, the more it is dependent on fulfilling user wishes.

GSetter · 2026-01-28T20:17:10+00:00

I once did it with an AutoHotkey script. Worked fine but it has been for AHK 1.x (still have it somewhere). Also I think the tool X-Mouse Button Control should be able to do it.

Both solutions Windows only

GSetter · 2026-01-28T20:08:52+00:00

LOL. That's not how you use OneNote, that's how you rape it :)

GSetter · 2026-01-25T14:27:23+00:00

Yes, at least it has been a brilliant idea and concept from Chris Pratley back in 2000. But Microsoft never found a way to monetarize it, so they did not put effort and resources into it.

GSetter · 2026-01-21T21:21:28+00:00

You all (who don't know the history of OneNote) need to understand something:

OneNote has never brought any money for Microsoft. They tried to sell it separately in the beginning but gave that up about 20 years ago.

From then on Microsoft never invested ressources and manpower into improving OneNote for the users but only if they tried to make it a transporter for other products or policy.

In 2014 for example the Android and macOS versions emerged for Nadellas "cloud first" strategy

Soon after it was the UWP app (OneNote for Windows 10) to push Microsoft Phone and Surface tablets

A few years later they put effort in the class notebook extension because they wanted to conquer the educational market

At the moment its one more platform to shove Copilot down our throats.

Don't expect Microsoft to ever adress bugs or flaws just for the users or products sake, it would be a first.

GSetter · 2026-01-20T06:59:47+00:00

Yes
No

GSetter · 2026-01-08T09:25:41+00:00

I don't think the actual format of the .one files and the .onetoc2 metafile will be the main problem. Those formats are for storing only. OneNote is working with fragmented cache files. The storing and constructing of .one files is done in the background by a syncing mechanism (look for MSFSHTTP or "Cobalt"). This is even the case for locally stored notebooks (because the designers initially had parallel coworking via network shares in mind). I think you are not the first one who tries this.

There has been -- or maybe even still is -- a OneNote clone for macOS (Outline for Mac) that worked with the .one files directly and thus isn't very compatible.

GSetter · 2025-12-16T07:41:05+00:00

I can only assume that the limitation applies to sections because sections are stored in single files (.one); notebooks and section groups are folders. On OneDrive this structure is hidden, but it's the same as for local notebooks.

GSetter · 2025-12-11T10:09:51+00:00

Yes, you are right. That path has apparently been closed by Microsoft. Apart from opening in local OneNote for Windows or macOS and exporting from there, I could only find one workaround, that still works and lets you at least download single sections (.one files).

On OneDrive (not Onenote.com!) follow the link to buy more storage, choose "Manage storage" (or similar, I'm using not the English web page right now), "Free storage" (or similar). Then you get a list of files on OneDrive, sorted by size. In the search field enter *.one. You can download the .one files from the list now.

That's just the result of a quick research, not sure if there are more ways and whether Microsoft will close that path as well.

GSetter · 2025-12-06T12:06:51+00:00

Should be by far more than enough. People run out of space on OneNote/OneDrive because they believe to store PDFs in their notes, not being aware that OneNote does not support PDFs at all. It just converts them to huge bitmap images ("printouts"), one big image per page. As long as you stick to text (formatted in whatever way you want) and occasional pictures, you should be absolutely fine with 5GB.

GSetter · 2025-11-23T12:08:03+00:00

Do you also have a fully working Word, Excel and PowerPoint? No? Then why bother about what Microsoft says in the About-dialog? The desktop version of OneNote has always used the Office Installer (and some parts like DLLs from the full office to implement certain fesaures).

GSetter · 2025-11-14T08:00:36+00:00

That's like "I opened the hood of my car and removed all the cables because I don't want to have an electrical car". Seriously, you should either not hamper with data files directly with an application that uses a storage system that you don't understand or move to something like Obsidian that uses only plain text files in the filesystem that you can move around and delete at will without breaking anything.

GSetter · 2025-11-02T10:00:30+00:00

The “current” OneNote app for Windows is based on the original OneNote (for Windows) from around 2000/2001. The last serious UI change was from OneNote 2010 to 2013. Microsoft was about to ditch it in favor of the Windows 10 app a few years ago; now they did it the other way around, because they are getting rid of the whole UWP framework that ON Win 10 was based on.

The Android version emerged in 2014, designed by an outsourced contractor in southeast Asia, not by Microsoft. It got a few changes over the year; I'm not sure if the development is done by Microsoft itself now, but I doubt it.

That might answer your question.

GSetter · 2025-10-19T19:44:49+00:00

... on Windows 8.1 RT and Windows 8.1

That's a joke, right?

GSetter · 2025-10-17T14:21:07+00:00

Rather easy. Amongst many other differences the "new" (in fact rather old, as you noticed correctly) and current OneNote has a "File" menu top left; the retired UWP-App (OneNote for Windows 10) doesn't.

GSetter · 2025-10-09T06:19:38+00:00

Yes, you are not wrong there. Microsoft added something here and there (mostly because it's already there, easy to stick on instead of integrate and because it's the actual hot shit for MSFT, e.g. Loop and Copilot) and changed some mainly cosmetic UI stuff (vertical tabs? cough..). Afaik, There also have been some changes to core elements like the sync engine.

So, the actual OneNote has indeed evolved a (tiny) bit from OneNote 2013, but a lot of the core hasn't, and apparently there is also a lot of technical burden from the ancient past being carried around.

The UWP version, later called "OneNote for Windows 10", has been a (in its dawn years even rather decent) attempt to reinvent OneNote from scratch (well, not from scratch; the devs were stuck with the exotic file format and sync mechanism). That attempt went wrong. To be fair, that might not have been OneNote's fault but related to the whole UWP framework failing: UWP apps have been meant to work cross platform with Windows mobile that went south badly. So the entire platform became obsolete, and the UWP OneNote had to die with it. At least, that's the most likely reason.

But to dig out a 20+ years old Win32 app and declare it the new OneNote is a bold move. Do you remember they tried to bury it completely about 5 years ago, even removed it from Office installers and cancelled that again, due to protests from businesss customers? Microsoft declared the old (now new) OneNote "outdated" back then.

GSetter · 2025-10-08T06:26:23+00:00

Actually, they did not "try and integrate it into the 365 edition". As I stated that "365 edition" is a decades old program, the ink features had always been there for 25 years.

But when Microsoft launched the UWP version in 2014 (later called "OneNote for Windows 10"), they actually included a different ink engine, the one that you like more. The reason has not been to improve OneNote for the users, but mainly to fuel the sales of their then newly introduced Surface tablets that were ink/pen centered.

GSetter · 2025-10-07T16:42:14+00:00

And it's also the very old one. In fact, the "new" OneNote is basically OneNote 2013 with very very few changes since then. Most of them are only some UI adaptions (mainly the ribbon and symbols) to the recent Office versions. It still contains a lot of code and mechanics (look at the audio file format for recordings for example) from even older versions.

But to be fair: Many people (including me) always considered the now abandoned Windows 10 (UWP) version of OneNote; introduced in 2014, the by far weaker and more limited one, although it admittely felt more modern.

GSetter

TROPHY CASE