Google Keep desktop app: what exists and what works

Popular sites · November 4, 2026 · 7 min read

Google does not offer a Keep app for Mac, Windows or Linux, and the old Chrome app ended in early 2021, so on a computer Keep is the website at keep.google.com. You can install that site from Chrome or Safari, or wrap it in a small Pake window that stays on top or sits in the menu bar. The Pake route has one serious catch: Keep needs a Google sign-in, and Google may refuse sign-in inside an embedded web view, so test that before you build anything else.

What Google offers

Google's help center treats Keep on a computer as a website. Its system requirements page lists Chrome and Firefox, Internet Explorer 11 and Edge on Windows only, and Safari on Mac only, with cookies and JavaScript on. The page on migrating from the Keep Chrome app says support for that app ended in early 2021 and points to keep.google.com. Nothing in the help center offers a download for Mac, Windows or Linux (as of November 2026), so treat a "Google Keep for desktop" installer from elsewhere as another company's product.

Keep also appears inside other Google pages. Google's page on using products side by side says Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides have a side panel where you can choose Keep and write a note. If you only take notes beside what you are reading, that already covers it.

What the web client does

Labels come from a note's More menu, up to 50 of them, and notes can be coloured and pinned. Lists, image notes and drawings share the editor, and a shared note lets collaborators edit its text, lists, images, drawings and audio recordings. Keep's keyboard shortcuts include c for a new note and / to search.

One limit applies to every route. The migration page says offline access to notes is available on the mobile apps but not on a computer, so a Keep window has no offline mode whether it comes from Chrome, Safari or Pake.

Install it from Chrome or Safari

Google's Chrome help says to open the site, choose More, Cast, save, and share, then Install page as app..., or click the Install icon at the right of the address bar on some sites. In Safari on a Mac, Apple's page describes File, Add to Dock, which needs macOS Sonoma 14 or later. Both sign in through the browser, which Google treats as a supported place to do it, so they are the safe choice for most people.

Why a Pake window is worth considering

Keep is a site you want in a corner while you work, not in tab number nineteen, and a narrow, tall Pake window fits a column of notes and a checklist. Always on top keeps it in front of everything else, and the always-on-top guide covers the pin and the size that goes with it. A menu bar or tray icon with hide on close keeps the app running when you dismiss the window; the menu bar guide shows how the two work and that the icon opens the normal window, not a popover with your notes.

It adds nothing Keep lacks: it is the same web client in the system web view (WKWebView on Mac, WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux).

Google's OAuth policy says an authorization request must not go to an embedded user-agent, and a Pake app is a window around the system web view. Pake's own FAQ says Google properties and sites that rely on Google OAuth may fail to sign in even with --new-window or --multi-window, and calls it provider policy, not a packaging bug.

Run the app and click sign in before you adjust anything. If Google says you cannot sign in from this browser, or shows disallowed_useragent, stop there and use the browser install. Changing --user-agent is not a supported way around it, and signing in in your browser does not help because the Pake app keeps its own cookies. The sign-in guide lists what else to check, and the Gmail and Google Calendar guides reach the same conclusion for their sites.

Build it with the CLI

After the CLI setup, one command builds a small pinned window:

pake https://keep.google.com --name "Google Keep" --width 420 --height 700 --always-on-top --show-system-tray --hide-on-close

--width and --height set the starting window size, 1200 by 780 by default. --always-on-top pins the window, --show-system-tray adds the menu bar or tray icon, and --hide-on-close hides the window instead of quitting, which is already the default on macOS and off on Windows and Linux. For a shortcut that shows and hides the window from anywhere, add --activation-shortcut CmdOrControl+Shift+K. Leave --incognito off, or you will sign in on every launch. The CLI options list the rest.

On Linux the CLI works on any distribution with WebKitGTK. Without the appindicator development package the build stops with "Can't detect any appindicator library", and the FAQ gives the package names. For one format, pass --targets with deb, rpm or appimage, or zst on Arch.

With the Pake desktop app

The desktop app needs no Node.js or Rust and runs on Mac (macOS 14 or later), Windows (x64 and ARM64) and Linux on Arch-based systems such as Omarchy (x86_64). On Ubuntu or Fedora use the CLI. After installing it, paste keep.google.com into Paste a web address or search the apps below to start on the Create tab, turn on Always on top, set the window size, keep Hide on close on (the Mac default, off on Windows), turn on Menu bar icon on Mac or Tray icon on Windows, leave Incognito off and click Create App. Create an app lists every field.

Reminders and notifications

Google's reminder help says you pick a date, time and optional recurrence, the reminder appears in Keep, Google Tasks and Google Calendar, and it sends a notification at the set time and again 24 hours later. With both Tasks and Calendar installed, only one sends it, and Tasks takes priority.

A Pake app answers a page's notification request itself, reports permission as granted and hands the alert to the system, as the notifications guide explains. That covers sites that call the standard Notification API while the page is open, and Pake has no handling for push messages that arrive while the page is closed. Google's reminder page does not say how a computer receives that notification, so do not make a Pake window the only place a reminder can reach you. Use the phone app or Google Calendar for reminders you cannot miss, and the window for writing and reading notes.

What goes wrong

Sign-in is refused. The disallowed_useragent case above. Use the browser install.
You are signed out on every launch. The app was built with --incognito, or Incognito is on in the desktop app.
No reminder alerts. Check the system's notification settings and Focus or Do Not Disturb, then run the console test from the notifications guide in a --debug build.
The window will not come back. Use Show from the tray or menu bar icon instead of clicking it repeatedly, since a click toggles.
Keep's c and / shortcuts do nothing. They belong to the web page; test them in your build.

Several Google accounts mean several apps with different names, as two accounts on one website explains.

FAQ

Is there an official Google Keep app for Mac, Windows or Linux?

Not in Google's help center as of November 2026. Keep is on the web, Android and iPhone or iPad, and the Chrome app was retired in early 2021.

Does Google Keep work offline on a computer?

No. Google says offline access to notes is available on the mobile apps, not on a computer.