When you use Google Keep as a digital catch-all for your entire life, the dashboard can quickly accumulate hundreds of notes. By default, Google Keep organizes your notes purely chronologically; the newest note always appears at the absolute top left of the screen, aggressively pushing older (but potentially more important) notes down the page. If you have a critical grocery list or a daily to-do checklist that you need to access constantly, scrolling through dozens of irrelevant notes to find it is highly inefficient. To force specific, high-priority notes to permanently remain at the absolute top of your dashboard, you must use the Pin tool.
How the Pin System Works
Pinning a note structurally alters the layout of your Google Keep dashboard. Instead of a single, massive grid of notes, pinning creates a hard division on the screen. It builds a dedicated “Pinned” section at the absolute top, and relegates everything else to an “Others” section at the bottom. No matter how many new notes you create, they will never push a pinned note down the page.
How to Pin a Note
Pinning a note is instantaneous and requires only a single click.
- Open Google Keep on your desktop web browser or mobile app.
- Locate the specific note you want to prioritize (you can use the search bar to find it if it is buried deep in your archive).
- Hover your mouse cursor directly over the note. (On mobile, tap the note to open it).
- Look at the absolute top-right corner of the note itself. You will see a small icon shaped like a Pushpin.
- Click the Pushpin icon.
The note will instantly teleport to the new “Pinned” section at the top of your screen. The pushpin icon will turn a solid, dark color, indicating that the pin is actively locked.
Managing Multiple Pinned Notes
You are not restricted to pinning a single note. You can pin 5, 10, or 20 different notes to the top of your dashboard.
However, within that specific “Pinned” section, Google Keep reverts to its chronological sorting rule (the most recently edited pinned note moves to the top left of the pinned section). If you want to manually reorder the notes within the pinned section to create a highly specific, customized layout, simply click and hold your mouse button on a pinned note, and physically drag it to a new position in the grid.
To unpin a note and send it back down to the chronological “Others” section, simply hover over the note and click the solid Pushpin icon again. The note will instantly drop back into the standard timeline.