Google Keep is finally adding basic text formatting options for your notes

Google Keep was released in 2013 – that’s almost ten years ago! Within that time, the service has seen many improvements, but aside from the note backgrounds, a material you remake and new homescreen widgets for rapid logging ideas (all recent developments, I might add) almost none of them have been user-facing. Now, it looks like the service will finally be receiving the ability to apply basic formatting options to selected text. You know, the same basic formatting that you expect from well, any service.

Discovered by 9to5Google in its latest APK Insights post, several code strings pertaining to bold, italic, and underline were uncovered in version 5.2.182.00 of the Google Keep Android app. The icons you see below were buried in the app’s code, and show exactly what these options will look like while you’re editing a note.

In addition to the three aforementioned, you’ll also be able to “clear” the formatting you’ve applied to text as well as show or hide the formatting options with a tap of the underlined “A” icon. Google Keep has lots of tools and features baked into the editing, so being able to condense newly added formatting tools will be useful.

The update will likely be a server-side one, appearing as Google performs their infamous staged rollout for users across different regions. Right now, there’s no exact timeline on when this will occur, but it’s exciting to see that you will soon be able to add emphasis on some level to your thoughts as you jot them down. Why this took nearly a decade baffles me beyond belief, but Google’s services pride themselves on maintaining a simplistic and minimalistic user experience as to grab the largest audience, so while I’m shocked it’s taken this long, I really shouldn’t be whatsoever.