Everything you should know about the Underline App
I’m a sucker for a good book app.
I pretty much just stick to Goodreads for long-term use, but I love trying out new ones and it’s my favorite thing when you guys keep me posted about new ones you’ve heard about!
The newest book app on my radar is Underline.
Everything you should know about the Underline App
Underline is a social book-focused platform (similar to Goodreads and StoryGraph), but Underline’s focus is really on note-taking while you read.
Like other book apps, you can set what your reading goal for the year is and it’ll break down how many minutes a day you need to read (it’s wildly incorrect for me – I assume they’re just choosing an average reading speed and calculating based on that) and how many books per week.
It also has you choose what time of day you normally have free time to read and it’ll send you notifications at that time reminding you to pick up a book.
You can also mark books that you’ve already read, that you’re currently reading, or what you want to read.
But the bulk of Underline is being able to take notes and save text while you read.
So when you’re ready to read, you pick up your phone, choose the book you’re reading and click “Start session.”
A timer turns on and you can now take notes as you go, plus take photos of the page and it’ll either save it as a photo or convert it to editable text (your pick). You can add highlights, bold or italicize, and even design your quotes on a background of your choice.
If you’re a serious notetaker and want to do it digitally and be able to have all your notes and marks in one place, plus be able to share them, Underline is a pretty cool app.
For ME, as someone who rarely takes notes while they’re reading, Underline feels fairly invasive – I don’t want to read with my phone right next to me (or, even worse, in my hand), and if I WAS going to take notes, I’d rather do them with a pen rather than my phone.
One thing that makes me a little crazy about Underline is HOW MUCH they push you to upgrade. It feels like you can hardly tap anything without them suggesting you do a free 7 day trial or sign up for a monthly or annual premium membership.
And truly, I don’t think Underline is very useable without a paid membership. You only get about one reading session a day (even if one session is only two minutes of reading).
To me, it feels like a very cool concept, but not one that I’d actually use on a regular basis.
Have you tried out Underline? I’d love to hear what you think about it!
Interesting. How does it store the notes? Is there a way to catalog, file, etc them? Is there a way to store with citations? I guess I’m wondering if this might be useful for someone doing research….or if it is more for Instagramming what you are reading. Thank you for taking time to review even when it didn’t work out for you? I love hearing honest reviews of what is out there.