Sticky Notes is included with Windows. Open it and a note appears on your desktop and opens where you left your notes. This guide covers starting a note, moving and coloring it, pinning the app to the taskbar, finding notes that seem to have vanished, and getting them to sync.
Open Sticky Notes and start a note
These steps are for the Store app on Windows 11 and 10.
- Open Start, type Sticky Notes, then press Enter. You can also browse Start, pick All apps on Windows 11 and select Sticky Notes from the list.
- A note opens on the desktop. If the app is not in your list, install Microsoft Sticky Notes via the Microsoft Store first.
- On the first launch a welcome screen offers to sign in with a Microsoft account so notes can sync. You can sign in now or skip it.
- Click into the note and type. To make another one, press Ctrl+N or click the plus sign in a note.
- To start a note without opening the app first, right-click the app's taskbar icon and pick New note.
Move, resize and recolor your notes
Notes behave like small windows, and Sticky Notes remembers where you put each one.
- Drag the top edge of a note to place it anywhere on the desktop.
- Drag the edges to make it wider or taller.
- Select the ellipsis (...) in the upper-right corner of a note and choose a color.
- In the notes list, open the settings icon and use Color to switch between light, dark or the same mode as Windows.
- Press Ctrl+F in the notes list to search all your notes for a word.
Pin the app to the taskbar, since notes cannot stay on top
Sticky Notes has no setting that keeps a note above other windows, so a note will slip behind whatever app you open next. The workaround is a taskbar shortcut. With Sticky Notes open, right-click its icon and choose Pin to taskbar. One click on that icon brings back your list of notes, and a right-click on it starts a new one.
Close, delete or find a note that seems to be gone
In the Store app, from version 3.0 on, the X on a note only closes it. The note stays in your notes list and you can open it again from there. If only one note is showing, select the ellipsis in its corner and choose Notes list. To delete a note for good, select the ellipsis and choose Delete note. A deleted note cannot be recovered, so open the settings icon in the notes list and turn on Confirm before deleting.
- If the app is missing from the Start menu, install Microsoft Sticky Notes again via the Microsoft Store.
- The Store app replaced the older Sticky Notes and moves existing notes into the list automatically, so they should be in the list.
Sign in and sync your notes between devices
In the Store app, notes sync from version 3.0 on, and every device needs the same Microsoft account.
- Open the notes list and select the settings icon in the upper-right corner.
- Choose Sign in, enter your Microsoft account details and select Continue.
- If a note is absent on another device, return to the settings icon and select Sync now.
- Still nothing? In settings, scroll to the About section and check the version number. If it is not above 3.7.106, update Sticky Notes via the Microsoft Store.
Where your synced notes show up, and work account limits
Signed-in notes also appear on the web at onenote.com/stickynotes, in the desktop version of Outlook, and in OneNote on iPhone, iPad and Android phones, where you tap Sticky Notes. Work or school accounts need an Exchange Online mailbox, on-premises Exchange mailboxes are not supported, and your administrator may have switched syncing off. Notes also count against that mailbox quota. To keep a backup of notes that were already synced under version 3.0 or later, export them from Outlook.com.