A commonplace book app for iPhone: the old practice, without the notebook
What a commonplace book is, why the digital versions usually fail (nothing resurfaces them), and how to keep one on iPhone with Kandou.
The short answer. A commonplace book is a personal notebook of passages worth keeping, a practice that goes back to the Renaissance. A commonplace book app has to do two things the paper version does: keep each passage with its source under a heading, and get reread. Kandou is a commonplace book for quotes on iPhone: save a line with its source, file it under a category, search it later, and let a daily rotation and a Home Screen widget do the rereading for you. Free, no account; Pro is $4.99 USD once. It is text-only and on-device, which is exactly what a commonplace book should be.
What a commonplace book is, and why it worked
For centuries, readers kept a commonplace book: a notebook where you copied passages you wanted to keep, organized under headings (“On courage,” “On friendship”), with the source noted. Erasmus recommended it, Locke wrote a method for indexing one, and Thoreau, Emerson, and Virginia Woolf all kept them. The point was never storage. Copying a passage by hand was the first reread; the headings made it findable; and the habit of flipping through the book was how the passages became part of how you thought.
The digital versions usually keep the first half and lose the second. Notion databases, Apple Notes, Evernote, a Google Doc: they are excellent at storing passages and terrible at making you reread them, because a note you do not open is a note that does not exist.
What a commonplace book app needs
- A passage with its source. The author, book, or conversation, not just the text.
- Headings you choose. Categories in your own words, not tags imposed by the app.
- Search. The reason Locke wrote an indexing method.
- A rereading mechanism. Something that puts a passage in front of you unasked: a daily rotation, a widget, a wallpaper.
- Privacy. A commonplace book is a record of what moved you. It belongs on your device, not on a server with a recommendation engine.
Keeping one in Kandou
In Kandou
- Create your headings as categories. Tap the plus button, switch to Category, and make the ones you will actually use: On work, On love, On grief, Stoic, Books, Funny. Each gets an icon or emoji and a color.
- Copy passages in by hand. Plus button, type or paste the passage, fill in Author or Source, choose the category, tap Add. Typing is part of the practice, not friction to remove.
- Set the rotation in Settings (daily, every other day, weekly, or up to four custom times a day) so the Home tab shows a different passage each time. Filter the Home tab to one heading when you need a specific kind of line.
- Put the widget on your Home Screen so the rotation reaches you without opening the app. Small is free; the medium widget (Pro) shows the author and category too and can carry your own photo, font, and colors.
- Search when you are looking for something. The Browse tab searches the passage text, the author, and the category at once.
- Seed it from the library if you want company: the free Starter collection has 25 public-domain lines, and Pro adds Stoic Wisdom, Motivation, and Love, more than 100 passages from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Emerson, Thoreau, and Dickinson, with sources.
Habits that keep a commonplace book alive
- Fewer entries, chosen. The paper versions worked because copying by hand was slow. Kandou’s free limit of 15 of your own passages is a useful constraint for the first months; Pro removes it when the collection has earned it.
- One heading per passage. A quote holds one category in Kandou. Choose the heading you would look under, not every heading that applies.
- Reread on purpose once a week. Open Browse, scroll the whole list, and delete anything that no longer moves you. A commonplace book is edited, not just added to.
- Make the best line a wallpaper. The passage you want to live with for a month goes on the Lock Screen. Share, Wallpaper, Save to Photos.
Where Kandou is the wrong tool
A commonplace book can hold anything: sketches, recipes, long extracts, images. Kandou holds quotes, which is to say text with a source. If your commonplace book is a place for pages of notes, clippings, and pictures, a notes app or Notion is the right shape, and Kandou can sit beside it holding the lines you want to see every day. Kandou also lives on one iPhone: no sync, no web version, no account, by design.
Frequently asked questions
What is a commonplace book?
A personal notebook of passages worth keeping (quotes, lines, ideas) copied from books and conversations and organized under headings with their sources. Readers have kept them since the Renaissance as a way to remember and reuse what they read.
What is the best commonplace book app for iPhone?
For quotes and short passages, Kandou: each entry has a source and a category, search covers all three, and a daily rotation plus a Home Screen widget make sure you reread them. It is free with no account, and Pro is a one-time $4.99 USD purchase. For long notes and images, a notes app is the better shape.
Can I use Apple Notes as a commonplace book?
Yes, for storage. Notes has no way to resurface an entry, so most Notes commonplace books stop being read. Many people keep long extracts in Notes and the lines they want to see daily in Kandou.
Is my commonplace book private in Kandou?
Yes. Kandou stores everything on your iPhone, with no account, no cloud sync, and no analytics tied to your quotes.
Is Kandou free?
Yes. The free version includes 25 curated quotes, up to 15 of your own, categories, rotation, a small widget, search, and share as image. Kandou Pro ($4.99 USD once) adds unlimited quotes, the full library, the customizable medium widget, and the Photo and Bold share styles.