What is Google Keep Rich Text Formatting?
Recently, Google updated Google Keep to support basic Rich Text Formatting. This allows you to bold, italicize, underline, and apply heading styles (H1, H2) to the text within your notes.
While many users requested this feature, others heavily relied on Google Keep specifically because it was a pure, plain-text environment. If you frequently paste text into Keep from other websites to strip away the original formatting, the new Rich Text update ruins that workflow, as Keep now attempts to preserve the bolding and sizing of the pasted text.
How to Disable Rich Text in Google Keep
You can turn off the Rich Text formatting features entirely within the Google Keep settings menu.
- Open your web browser and navigate to Google Keep (keep.google.com).
- In the top-right corner of the screen, click the Settings gear icon.
- Select Settings from the dropdown menu.
- A popup window will appear. Look for the toggle switch labelled Enable rich text formatting.
- Toggle the switch to the Off position.
- Click the Save button at the bottom of the window.
What Happens to Existing Formatted Notes?
When you disable this setting, Google Keep will immediately revert to a pure plain-text application. Any notes that you previously formatted with bold, italics, or headers will instantly lose that formatting and revert to standard text. When you paste text from external websites, Keep will once again automatically strip all formatting, ensuring your notes remain clean and uniform.