An open source Google Keep alternative with built-in Keep import

Leave Keep without leaving your notes behind

Google Keep is genuinely good at what it does - which is exactly why leaving it is hard. Most "Keep alternatives" fail at the same hurdle: your years of notes are stuck in Google's export format, and retyping them is not going to happen.

OpenHabitTracker is a free, open source note-taking app with a built-in Google Keep import. Export your notes with Google Takeout, pick the file in the app, and your notes, checklists, labels and colors come along.

How the Google Keep import works

Go to takeout.google.com, click "Deselect all", then select only Keep and create the export
Download the resulting ZIP file - no need to unpack it
In OpenHabitTracker, open Data, choose Import and pick the ZIP

What carries over:

Text notes become notes, with their created and edited dates preserved
Checklist notes become tasks - every checkbox item comes along, including its checked state
Labels become categories, one per note, taken from its first label
Note colors are mapped to theme background colors
Trashed notes land in the trash, not in your active notes

Google Keep vs OpenHabitTracker

	Google Keep	OpenHabitTracker
Price	free	free
Open source	❌	✅ GPL-3.0
Account required	✅ Google account	❌ no account
Where your data lives	Google's servers	on your device
Notes	✅ plain text	✅ Markdown - headings, lists, tables, code
Checklists	✅	✅ tasks with sub-items
Habit tracking	❌	✅
Labels / categories	✅ labels	✅ categories
Note colors	✅	✅
Reminders / notifications	✅ per note, by time or place	✅ daily summary and reminders before planned tasks, not per note
Collaboration / sharing	✅	❌
Images, drawings, audio	✅	❌ text only
Native desktop app	❌ browser only	✅ Windows, macOS, Linux
Mobile apps	✅ Android, iOS	✅ Android, iOS
Sync	✅ Google cloud	✅ optional self-hosted server (Docker)
Export your data	Google Takeout	Markdown, JSON, YAML, TSV - any time
Languages	many	20
Themes	light / dark	26 themes, dark and light

What you give up, honestly

If your Keep usage leans on per-note reminders, shared notes, or photos, drawings and voice memos, OpenHabitTracker is not a drop-in replacement - it is a text-first app. It does notify: a daily summary of what is due, and a reminder before a task's planned time. What it has no equivalent for is a reminder attached to one note, or one that fires when you arrive somewhere.

What you get in exchange: your notes in portable Markdown on your own device, no account, a real desktop app on Windows, macOS and Linux, tasks and habit tracking in the same place, and - if you want sync - a self-hosted Docker server under your control instead of someone else's cloud.