The digital notebook for students and teachers
Free · Privacy-friendly · Developed with teachers
Handwritten notes with Apple Pencil®, PDF and Office import, real rulers and set square, shared notebooks and direct integration with school cloud providers like BayernCloud Schule, Nextcloud and NetMan for Schools — all in one app, without subscription, without ads.
Download on the App Store®
NiblyNotes is developed in Germany — together with teachers. We took care to include every function needed without overloading the app. Privacy-friendly school cloud providers are integrated directly. The app is completely free, with optional support for the developers.
Developed in Germany. No dependency on third-party servers for your notebook content.
Every function was tested in real classroom use — enough features for school needs, without unnecessary bloat.
BayernCloud Schule, Nextcloud and NetMan for Schools are available directly in the app — no detours.
No ads, no subscription, no tracking. The app has a supporter area where users can buy the developers a coffee. We are also actively seeking public funding to keep the app free in the long term. Even without funding, our promise stands: NiblyNotes will remain free for at least 5 years.
All notebook content is stored locally on the device. Cloud connections are optional and only use the accounts you set up yourself.
The entire interface is available in both German and English, and follows the system language automatically.
Can be pre-configured centrally via MDM, optionally with the school's own server.
The start screen of NiblyNotes is a bookshelf: every notebook gets its own cover colour and is clearly displayed. Create folders for subjects, classes or courses and sort the notebooks into them.
Smart page management: new pages appear where you want them, and nothing gets lost by accident.
The page overview opens as a sidebar on the right (or on the left if you prefer) and shows every page of the notebook as a thumbnail. Tap a thumbnail and the editor jumps straight to that page — no more swiping through the whole notebook.
In addition to the outline, individual pages can be marked as bookmarks — for the spots you keep coming back to.
NiblyNotes builds a table of contents automatically from the topics you assign. Main topics appear in bold on the far left, their sub-topics indented beneath them — with the page number after each entry. One tap on an entry jumps straight to that page.
Four different pen variants, each available in many colours and thicknesses:
Straight line on hold — Draw a line and briefly rest the pencil on the display at the end — the line is automatically replaced with a perfectly straight one. Useful for table lines, underlines and arrows.
The lasso selects an area, which you can then move, scale, rotate, delete — or paste somewhere else. Perfect for adjusting drawings later.
Draw a shape freehand — NiblyNotes recognises and corrects it automatically:
Change the shape afterwards: Two small buttons appear right next to the recognised shape. The first one converts the shape within the same bounding size — a circle becomes a rectangle, a rectangle becomes a diamond, a diamond becomes a circle again. So if you drew a rectangle but really wanted a diamond, one tap is enough — no need to redraw.
Make the corners movable: The second button turns the recognised shape into connected lines with movable corners — exactly as if drawn with the line tool. A clean rectangle becomes a trapezium or any quadrilateral in two drags. Perfect when the shape needs straight edges but not the standard proportions.
Lines and arrows are not just drawn — they can also be edited: endpoints are draggable, and multiple lines can be joined into polylines.
The line and grid patterns in NiblyNotes aren't arbitrary designs — they follow the standardised spacing for school notebooks. Measure on the Apple® iPad® with a real ruler and you'll see: the distances are 100 % accurate.
Ruler, set square and compass in NiblyNotes work just like the real tools from your pencil case. Draw along the edge, rotate with two fingers, and combine the tools for more complex constructions.
When you draw with the pen along the ruler or set square, your stroke snaps to the edge — just like in real life. Perfectly straight lines and precise angles.
With two fingers you can move and rotate the ruler or set square at the same time — just like you would with a physical tool. No need to switch modes.
The ruler can be attached to the set square. This enables the classic parallel shift: the set square slides along the ruler, and every drawn line is exactly parallel — just like in geometry class.
In addition to the ruler and set square, a compass is available. Set the radius, place the centre point, draw a circle or arc — like a real compass from the maths toolbox. The circle can then be turned into a permanent stroke with a tap on “Lock in”. It then becomes part of the page and can be erased with the regular eraser — perfect when guide lines should disappear later.
After locking a circle in, the compass window reopens automatically — so several circles can be created quickly one after another. While the compass is open, the ruler and set square are hidden temporarily and restored automatically afterwards, so the two-finger gestures of the tools cannot interfere with each other.
The compass can be switched between "Full circle" and "Arc". In arc mode the circle is shown only as a dashed guide line. Place the pen on that line and drag along it — exactly the arc you need appears. Several arcs on the same circle are possible.
To keep the centimetre and millimetre scales true to real-world size, zoom is fixed while the ruler, set square or compass is visible. So that you can still reach another part of the page, there is a scroll bar along the right and bottom edge of the writing area.
In addition to handwriting, you can add text boxes anywhere on the page. Ideal for headings, task descriptions or table labels. Formatting can even be applied per word.
A slider in the text box menu adjusts the line spacing continuously. The value is shown in points and in millimetres — so the spacing can be matched precisely to the lines of a scanned worksheet or form. A single text box is then enough to fill in an entire form, with every line sitting exactly where it belongs.
A table is placed on the page as a grid and then filled in with the Apple Pencil®, exactly as in a paper notebook. Measurement series, vocabulary comparisons or calculation tables are ready in seconds, without drawing a single line by hand.
Photos from your library or taken straight from the camera — every image runs through the built-in photo editor where you can crop, rotate and adjust before it lands on your page.
The photo editor offers both routes. If you just want the picture on the page, tap "Whole image" and you are done. If you only need part of it, use the crop frame or trace the area freehand with the Apple Pencil®.
An image sitting in another app doesn't have to be saved first — it can be passed straight to NiblyNotes through the iOS share menu.
The built-in scanner lets you capture worksheets, blackboard photos or pages from a book directly with the iPad camera and add them as notebook pages. The app detects the document edges automatically, corrects the perspective and delivers a clean, straight image — no shadows, no distortion.
Audio files can be placed on a notebook page as their own box — for example a listening exercise in language lessons, a vocabulary list to repeat after, or a music example. The file is picked from the plus menu and then sits in the notebook as a small player.
Video links can be pasted directly into a notebook page. The video appears as a neutral placeholder — the connection to the provider is only established when the user taps "Play". NiblyNotes uses the most privacy-friendly embed mode each provider offers.
Inserting a video link merely creates a neutral placeholder with a play symbol on the notebook page. At this point no connection is made to the provider. The iPad only opens a connection to the video provider when "Play" is actively tapped. NiblyNotes uses the most privacy-friendly embed mode each provider offers — no tracking cookies are set before active playback.
Note: A detailed description of the data flows when external videos are played is available in the privacy policy.
Worksheets, task sheets or presentations can be added directly as a page background. Multi-page documents are automatically spread across multiple notebook pages.
Microsoft Word and PowerPoint are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. NiblyNotes is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Conversion uses the document handling capabilities available on your device.
Every page in a notebook can be zoomed freely — no matter the page format. Whether portrait or landscape, A4 or custom: pinch to zoom in, pan with one finger to move around. This makes detail work just as comfortable as overview work — perfect for corrections, fine drawing or showing things on the projector.
Pinch with two fingers to zoom in or out — the page enlarges smoothly. Zoom works dynamically in any page format; the previous app version was limited to a single fixed level. Writing with the Apple Pencil® stays active while zoomed, so even tiny details can be edited precisely.
Zoom writing opens a magnified writing panel at the bottom of the screen. Whatever is written there at a comfortable size lands neatly and small on the notebook page. Ideal for students with large handwriting — and for clean notes inside narrow rulings.
A selection rectangle on the page marks where the text will end up. The bottom panel shows that exact spot strongly enlarged. The Apple Pencil® writes there at a relaxed size — on the notebook page, the writing lands precisely scaled.
In landscape orientation the notebook page can be split: a pure reading area on the left, the normal writable page on the right — or the other way round if you prefer. The worksheet, the board photo or the textbook PDF sits right next to your own notes — no switching apps, no constant flipping back and forth.
Pull vertically at the page edge — with both pages in view. Besides swiping and the page buttons, you can also pull vertically at the page edge to reach the neighbouring page. You may deliberately stop between two pages: the end of one and the beginning of the next are then visible at the same time — handy when a calculation or a text runs across the page break.
In fullscreen mode the entire toolbar, the notebook title and the top navigation bar disappear. Only a small floating mini-toolbar with the three most important tools stays visible: pen, tool switch and eraser. The whole screen is now available for the page itself.
When the iPad is mirrored to a projector or Apple TV via AirPlay or cable, NiblyNotes automatically switches into presentation mode: the external display only shows the notebook page, without the toolbar or any menus. On the iPad itself, everything stays fully usable.
As soon as an external display is detected, an extra button appears in the toolbar. Use it to switch any time between presentation mode (only the page, no menus) and standard mirroring (everything is mirrored, including controls) — depending on whether the class should follow along or a colleague needs to demo something.
One tap on the freeze button locks the image on the projector while the teacher carries on working on their iPad. Ideal for preparing the solution on the next page or quickly looking something up — without the class seeing it.
The curtain fully covers the notebook page. A handle at the top edge of the curtain lets you pull it downwards step by step — revealing the content from the top down. Like a classic blackboard with a flap.
The teacher has prepared a notebook page with tasks or a step-by-step solution, but only wants to show parts of it at a time. With the curtain, the whole page is hidden first. Using the handle at the top edge of the curtain, the curtain is pulled downwards smoothly whenever the class should see the next step.
Besides the curtain, there is the sticker function: individual areas of the page — for example the solution to a task — can be covered with a coloured sticker. A single tap on the sticker reveals the result underneath. This way solutions can be uncovered one at a time and in any order, while the rest of the page stays hidden.
With Classroom mode, teacher and class exchange content directly over the school's Wi-Fi — without a cloud account and without signing in. At the start of the lesson, students scan a QR code once, and the connection stays active afterwards.
▶️ Watch the Classroom feature on video
Students scan the QR code only once at the start of the lesson. After that they stay connected to the classroom — even if the teacher closes the classroom in between and starts it again the same day, there is no need to re-scan. Only the next day is a new scan required.
The teacher can place a wide range of content into the students' mailbox. Students have their own mailbox from which they can insert the provided content directly into their own notebook with just a few taps.
The inbox runs from the teacher to the class. The way back has its own route: students open the share menu inside their notebook and choose "Submit to teacher". No e-mail, no cloud account, no third-party servers.
Tap the share icon in the notebook and choose "Submit to teacher". Two formats are then available:
On the teacher's iPad, incoming submissions are filed automatically as notebooks in the submissions folder — nothing has to be imported by hand. An additional list shows the most recent submissions for quick access during the lesson; it can be cleared at any time and is emptied automatically when the classroom is closed. The notebooks themselves stay in the submissions folder.
With ScreenView, teachers can get a picture of how the class is progressing during the lesson. The students' iPads send a small image of the page they last worked on.
Not every class is an iPad-only class. For students with a Windows laptop, Chromebook or Android tablet there is the compatibility mode: the mailbox is then additionally provided as a simple web page on the school Wi-Fi and can be opened in any browser.
Many school networks separate devices from each other for security reasons ("client isolation"). The iPads then cannot reach each other over Wi-Fi. For this case, mailbox, hand-in and ScreenView can be routed through a web server — everything else in the lesson stays exactly the same.
The join QR code can be shown full-screen on the projector or display. The whole class scans at the same time — even from the back row.
If a student is ill and not in the classroom, the mailbox content can be sent to them directly via BayernCloud with just a few taps. Likewise, a BayernCloud space can receive the entire content of the mailbox in just a few taps.
Teachers can see their students' notebook pages directly on the iPad — without a cloud account, without sign-in credentials, fully end-to-end encrypted. Students decide for themselves which notebooks they share, and they can pull a teacher's annotations straight into their own notebook.
▶️ Explained in the videoThe teacher opens "Student notebook viewing" and creates a class. NiblyNotes generates a QR code that the students scan to sign in. Already signed-in students appear in a list on the right with the time of their last activity. The number of pages that can be viewed is configurable per class — typically the last 5 pages, so only the current work is visible.
The class detail view shows the QR code for sign-in, the list of signed-in students with the time of their last activity, and the class settings. From here you can change the number of viewable pages, regenerate the QR code or delete the class entirely.
From the class overview, the teacher opens a student's notebook and sees every shared page. With the Apple Pencil®, hints and corrections can be drawn directly on the page. The annotation appears shortly after in the student's own notebook.
Ticks, corrections, a "Very good" with a smiley — the annotation is drawn straight onto the student's page and transferred a moment later automatically to the student's iPad. Digital correction now feels like the familiar marking-up of a paper notebook.
Students connect to the teacher once by scanning a QR code. Through a central view called "Teachers & notebooks" — reachable via the blue eye icon right on the home screen — they can then conveniently decide which notebooks are visible to which teacher. Sharing and un-sharing happen directly from the home screen, without having to open the notebook.
Teacher annotations appear automatically in a central overview. Per notebook the affected pages are visible — including the teacher's annotation. With one tap on "Insert into notebook" the annotated page can be pulled in as an image — the integrated photo editor opens, and the desired area can be cropped before it is inserted into the student's own notebook.
The feature is built around privacy from the ground up. Pages and annotations are encrypted on the iPad with a class-specific key before they ever reach the server. The server only ever sees encrypted data — class names, student names, notebook titles and images do not appear in clear text. Even the hosting provider cannot do anything with the stored data. Only the teacher and the students who scanned the QR code of the same class can read the content.
Schools can run the server on their own school website — a simple PHP web hosting is enough. The (encrypted) data then stays entirely in the hands of the school. Anyone who does not want to run their own server can use the NiblyNotes server we run — hosted in a data centre in Germany.
Share a notebook and collaborate — for group work, class projects or teacher collaboration. Synchronisation runs through your personal iCloud® — no third-party servers.
There are two ways to invite participants:
The shared notebook function exclusively uses Apple®'s iCloud® as infrastructure. There is no publisher server in between that could see the content.
iCloud and Apple are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. NiblyNotes uses the iCloud infrastructure through the developer interfaces provided by Apple (CloudKit).
All participants work together on one notebook. So that no one overwrites anyone else, only one page is edited at a time:
When a sharing session ends — whether the owner stops it or a participant leaves the session — everyone keeps their current state. The notebook moves back into the participant's own notebooks and can be used as normal.
NiblyNotes saves you the detour through "Share" to another app. Print, send, save and upload directly to your school cloud — all from one app.
Print or send entire notebooks, or selected pages, with a preview that lets you decide what really gets shared.
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When sending or saving, you can choose to export the page unedited. Perfect for teachers: the master solution you wrote on the worksheet doesn't need to be shared with students — they get the clean, empty template.
The highlight: upload notebooks or individual pages directly from NiblyNotes to a school cloud and, if wanted, share them with a person in one go. The detour "save file → open cloud app → upload → share" is gone.
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Three privacy-friendly cloud providers for educational use are integrated directly in NiblyNotes.
The school cloud offering of the Free State of Bavaria — specifically for Bavarian schools. Login is handled via your school's official ByCS sign-in procedure.
The free, open-source cloud solution many schools self-host. NiblyNotes uses the official Nextcloud login with app password — secure and standards-based.
The school network solution by H+H Software. User and teacher drives as well as exchange shares are supported directly. (Supported from NetMan for Schools version 6 onwards.)
Trademark notice: The integration with BayernCloud Schule, Nextcloud and NetMan for Schools is provided without support or official partnership from the respective providers. NiblyNotes uses only the publicly available interfaces of the cloud providers.
"BayernCloud Schule" is an offering of the Free State of Bavaria. "Nextcloud" is a registered trademark of Nextcloud GmbH. "NetMan for Schools" is a trademark of H+H Software GmbH. All product names, logos and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. They are named here solely for the purpose of describing compatibility.
The built-in cloud browser shows the files in BayernCloud Schule, Nextcloud or NetMan for Schools. A worksheet can be opened directly, with the choice to create a new notebook from it or append it to an existing one.
NiblyNotes can back up your notebooks automatically to your school cloud. Set it up once in the settings — the backup then runs daily in the background.
In addition to the automatic cloud backup, all notebooks can be saved into a single ZIP file with one tap. This file can be stored anywhere — in iCloud Drive, on a USB stick or in another cloud. When creating it, you can additionally choose to place all notebooks as PDFs into the same ZIP file — so the content is later readable even without NiblyNotes.
A local backup contains handwriting, photos and worksheets — and therefore possibly personal data. When exporting, you can set a password; the file is then stored encrypted.
In the settings, NiblyNotes shows what the used storage consists of. Temporary files created when converting Office documents, downloading from the cloud or during interrupted backups can be removed with a single tap.
NiblyNotes can be pre-configured through any common device management system (MDM). IT staff store the settings centrally once; nothing then needs to be set up on the individual iPads.
In a short video we show 15 practical tips and tricks for everyday work with NiblyNotes — small touches that make teaching even faster and more comfortable.
▶️ Watch the videoWe are asked this regularly — and we understand why, since many schools use a mix of devices side by side.
Our approach is a deliberate one: we first want to complete all planned features in the iPad version and prove them in everyday school life. NiblyNotes is closely tied to the Apple Pencil® and to what the iPad makes possible — and that is exactly what creates the writing experience. Only once the iOS version is complete will we examine whether, and in what form, the app can also be made available for Android and Windows.
Until then: students without an iPad do not have to be left out of the lesson. Using the classroom's compatibility mode, they can open and download the materials provided by the teacher in any browser — whether on a Windows laptop, a Chromebook or an Android tablet.
NiblyNotes is now available for Apple® iPad® on the App Store®. Free, no subscription, no ads.
Download on the App Store®