Speedy, no-frills notes to email from Android?

April 21, 2013 12:24 PM

Is there a free or cheap android app that will let me touch an icon, type in text, and touch another icon to have the text automatically sent via email to myself, preferably with a predetermined subject line?

Browsing through apps shows me a bunch of complicated apps with lots of features, folders, and button-clicking involved. I just want to be able to send simple text memos to myself in a minimum of time, without storing or synching or organizing.

If there's another quick way of getting text memos from my phone to my computer for later processing, I'm open to it. I use a Mac.

(I'm new to Android, sorry if the answer to this is obvious.)

posted by moira to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

If you have the Gmail app installed, compose an email but don't send it. Once you have internet connection, you can then sync it up to your account's draft folder and view with your computer (log into Gmail). I've been using this to store grocery and to-do list.
posted by lucia_engel at 1:06 PM on April 21, 2013

why not the stock android "email" (not "Gmail") app. That's what i use. Also, most apps have a "share" button...it looks like this <: (sometimes it's in the menu, sometimes at the top of the screen...it's def in the 'gallery' app) that pulls up a list of apps you can share with..email, text, tumblr, facebook etc. Picking 'email' will open email with text (or pix) in place. the address line will autofill and prob the subject line too...you will just have to type it in full once or twice.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:10 PM on April 21, 2013

(and your notes will be saved in the 'sent' folder)
posted by sexyrobot at 1:11 PM on April 21, 2013

Evernote will sync notes between your phone and computer.

It's very fast. Just open the app and hit "new note." Checkmark to save. You can add tags, etc. but you don't have to.

I prefer this to sending myself an email because I always feel compelled to clear out the new mail notification.
posted by payoto at 1:58 PM on April 21, 2013

If you use Nova Launcher you can create a shortcut to person->send mail. No automatic subject line but I use it for notes to myself all the time. It's set up as a swipe action on my gmail app.
posted by monkeymadness at 2:05 PM on April 21, 2013

Seconding that I used to use Gmail on Android to send myself note, and now prefer Evernote. It's very good at doing simple text notes and hiding all the synching and cloud stuff (and to my mind, storing drafts on a mail server = storing notes in the cloud)
posted by zippy at 2:06 PM on April 21, 2013

Long-press the search button to activate google voice search and say "note to self, [contents of note]".
posted by grahamsletter at 3:54 PM on April 21, 2013

I agree that notes in email is probably the least sleek method of doing this. So many people swear by Evernote. I haven't used it enough to recommend for/against it. I do almost all my laptop-based note-taking on Notational Velocity--which is so fantastic yet no-frills that I recommend it to almost everyone!--which I use Simplenote to sync to a decent Android port called Notational Acceleration. I've only logged into Simplenote's web interface a couple times in the past few years, but it's very, well, simple and straightforward if you ever need to access your notes from someone else's computer.
posted by tapir-whorf at 3:58 PM on April 21, 2013

Jotter in the Play Store.
posted by PSB at 4:26 PM on April 21, 2013

Not sure if this will help for your use, but if you hit the Google Voice search button and say "Note to self" followed by a message, it will automatically email you the voice to text translation of your message (quality on that is getting better) and the kicker is it also attaches the recording of your voice as a reference file. Great feature on Android.
posted by shinynewnick at 5:15 PM on April 21, 2013

The new Google Keep app may be what you're looking for. I've mailed to do lists from inside the app to myself.
posted by arcticseal at 8:37 PM on April 21, 2013

Click the microphone in the Google Search bar (or Google Now), say, "Note to self [whatever you want to send]" and it'll be emailed to you. Or, you can configure it so a different app catches the note. I use Catch Notes.

Ack. I see shinynewnick has beat me to it.
posted by dobbs at 12:21 PM on April 22, 2013