# MarginNote 2 Pro — user reviews > 50 indexed App Store user reviews of MarginNote 2 Pro by Beijing Yunsi Software Technology Co., Ltd, rated 4.60/5 from 822 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/marginnote-2-pro/id723205553/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/marginnote-2-pro/id723205553.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 665 · 4★ 83 · 3★ 28 · 2★ 13 · 1★ 33 ## What do users think of MarginNote 2 Pro? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 👍 Useful for studying and note-taking - 🚀 Great for organizing and annotating PDFs - 💡 Innovative features like flashcards and mind maps **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs - 🔋 Performance and battery issues on some devices - 🤔 Confusing or unintuitive user interface **Commonly reported bugs** - Inability to edit folder names - Compatibility issues with certain devices - Unreliable Dropbox integration **Most requested features** - Add support for more file formats (e.g. MOBI) - Improve cloud sync and file management capabilities - Provide free upgrade path for existing users ## Newest reviews (15 of 50) ### 4/5 — Love the app *2020-04-13, version 2.7.22* I just hope you can change the icon, it looks odd 😂 ### 3/5 — Margin 2 for FlashCards over margin 3 *2019-12-11, version 2.7.22* Brought margin 3 a while ago but just recently brought margin 2 because I like how I can hide the information on the BACK of the flashcard. However Margin 2 keeps crashing and closing out on me. ### 4/5 — MarginNote team should offer free upgrade for old pro users *2019-10-19, version 2.7.22* MarginNote note team show upgrade features for old pro users or you all should give free upgrade option to MarginNote 3 since we have paid already in the past. This app is outdated and not a polished version. **Developer response:** Hello, MarginNote3 has been fully upgraded compared to MarginNote2, and has added many new features such as OCR, PDF plus or minus pages, highlighter highlights, video excerpts, etc. MarginNote3 is constantly upgrading and optimizing, while MarginNote2 will not add new features for the time being. It is. Old users have a half price to buy 3 offers ### 4/5 — It’s great but have problems in downloading the book from cloud *2019-10-14, version 2.7.22* I find it cannot download the books by the file, the uploading have the same problems. ### 4/5 — Apple Pencil friendlier please! *2019-09-15, version 2.7.22* I love this app. The only thing that’s not perfect is when I am adding comments or annotations, it cannot be hand written. I tried to write in the margin, but there was not enough space left for me. It would be wonderful if you help solve this problem! ### 3/5 — Everything are perfect except *2019-07-18, version 2.7.20* Please inform me to change to 5 stars if you update a new version to fix the inability to change size of the picture dragged from Google . Looking forward to it. Thanks. ### 2/5 — Ugh *2019-07-10, version 2.7.20* 安装了pro之后一直卡机闪退 还不如正常版 ### 2/5 — Bad experience in hand writing *2019-06-03, version 2.7.20* I use Apple Pencil,but my handwriting often disappear , I don’t know whether my way is wrong,but it’s really really bad experience ### 2/5 — why cannot i edit the folder name? *2019-05-06, version 2.7.20* it is so so annoying ### 4/5 — Nice app but still bugs *2019-01-31, version 2.7.19* Every time when I tried to delete a card from the outline or the highlighted part from the pdf itself, the app always quit for no reason **Developer response:** Thank you for writing this review notifying us about this crash issue, which was caused by a known-and-fixed bug. We have already submitted an emergency update build to the AppStore. It is under review now and should be released pretty soon. ### 4/5 — Cannot really sync *2019-01-09, version 2.7.18* This is really disappointing. ### 4/5 — Review from experience *2018-10-03, version 2.7.17* I have been using this app for almost two years. This app has the potential to be the best app for note taking!!! No note taking app is like marginnote in regards to hashtag note taking. It could be the indispensable to students,medical professionals..... The problem I have with this app is speed! As the notes get larger the app becomes very slow and crashes frequently. I hope you guys can fix this,otherwise it’s an awesome app ### 4/5 — Two versions *2018-09-28, version 2.7.17* I upgraded to pro, but now have two versions on my iPad, and my current notebook is only in the free one. (Otherwise I quite like the app). ### 3/5 — Great Concept with Bugs *2018-08-24, version 2.7.16* Love concept but Dropbox link does not work. I get error message stating platform used has been retired. Emailed developer 3 days ago, no response. Also, crashes every time I try to send or convert to PDF. ### 4/5 — Need support of mobi files *2018-07-25, version 2.7.15* Please consider supporting mobi files in coming MarginNote release, thx. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — No Google Drive? No use. *2019-08-22, version 2.7.20* Well, my University keeps everything on Google Drive. So, without the ability to import the files from Drive, my Margin Note purchase was a waste of money and will never be used. ### 1/5 — Need pay to get note 3 *2019-01-21, version 2.7.18* I barely use this app, only read two article in this app, most of the time i use PDF experts, then I saw 3 come up and want to take a look, and i see it need to pay again, this is why your app will never get into top 10 apps. ### 1/5 — Worst writing experience among all note taking apps *2019-01-17, version 2.7.18* This app provides lots of features which is pretty unique, including combining mind flow chart with reading & note taking, BUT, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS APP, the author has already published margin note 3. UNLIKE GOODNOTES, WHICH PROVIDES FREE UPGRADE BUNDLE FROM GOODNOTES 4 TO 5, THIS ONE DOES NOT!! So please don't waste your money even if you really need the feature, search the other marginnote and compare it, then decide. Admittedly this app provides really good feature which allows the user to combine mind flow chart with pdf reading, but as a note taking app, it has THE WORST writing experience among Note Plus, GoodNotes(including 4 & 5), notability and PDFExpert! THE WORST. I really don't want to waste my money to buy marginnote 3 to see if it gets better, but marginnote pro is really unfriendly for users with heavy writing tasks. My device is iPad pro 10.5 and apple pencil, and when taking note with marginnote pro, it'll become super laggy, the color of the note may shift when you taking notes (I understand it's about the mechanism of how this app record the handwriting and eventually they'll be the same color, but it is really not a good experience if the alpha value of your notes keep changing when you write the note). The feeling is also not good, in all other app, it is easier to control it and much less laggy when taking note. Also, the pen's width has some problem, if you write something and then zoom in and write something, with out change the configuration of the pen, your notes will look different because they have different width, in all other app I mentioned before, they just don't have these problems. So, if you just want to make flow charts, I think app like Xmind would be a better choice, if you want to read pdf files, PDFExpert would be better, if you want to take notes, you can use either Note Plus, Good Notes or notability. And only if you want to complete all these tasks simultaneously marginnote may become optional, although all of these tasks are completed at an unpromising level. ### 1/5 — R u guys going to fix the dropbox issue? *2018-07-01, version 2.7.12* R u guys going to fix the dropbox issue? ### 1/5 — It over heats my iPad Pro. *2018-06-13, version 2.7.12* The iPad Pro is brand new and gets overheated because of this app. My battery goes down drastically because of the app. Hating it ### 1/5 — DESPERATE *2018-06-03, version 2.7.12* DESPERATE I was working in this program very good, when I took the decision to download my data but NEVER got my data successfully. I sent a messenge to support for help but NEVER reply me. the BAD part of this is that I LOSS ALL of my DATA because I HAD TO start to ZERO in other program. BAD service for customer. ### 1/5 — Zero customer support, missing basic file management functions *2018-03-29, version 2.7.12* I’ve been using MarginNote (not pro) and wanted to upgrade to full version, and as suggested there are two ways, I downloaded ‘margin note pro’ fresh hoping it would sync without an issue. But it had an issue (margin note has several missing features and issues, it’s a separate discussion below), so I tried to restore purchase in the original non-pro app ‘margin note’ and it failed to restore purchase. Since the popup said I better just click ‘upgrade’ if ‘restore purchase’ doesn’t work and it will not charge again for the paid customer, I did just that. And I got the receipt for both, I was charged for both. Sent the email right away, and didn’t hear any response from them. Zero customer support. I had to talk to Apple support to cancel the charge. Margin note, explain what happened. For missing features and issues, 1. cloud sync unreliable, limited. I have over 1000 files, only couple hundreds are on icloud. I need to have all of them in icloud, whether or not they have notes attached. You can upload files to icloud by selecting one by one, when you have many files this is too much of a labor. So this is related to #2. 2. impossible to select “all” for import, send, edit In general it’s impossible to ‘select all’ or select big chunk of files with a lasso tool or drag select tool for any operation in MarginNote, need to select one by one, such a pain. This is very basic file management feature, why not have it. Lots of use cases, change icloud setting, change category for subset of files, send multiple files to another device if not synced automatically, uploading & downlowding all files etc. 3. separate the ‘listing’ and ‘downloaded’ function Once you imported a file/book on one device and ‘cloud’ option is default, you should be able to see it on another device without downloading it. ### 1/5 — Great app but it’s unclear if the company has a future *2017-12-18, version 2.7.9* The iPad app is very recently updated, but the developer’s website looks almost abandoned - he doesn’t reply to any contact attempts. I’d hate to see it go away, but it sure worries me? ### 1/5 — Fraud *2017-11-20, version 2.7.7* If you need to read info only from this app, then it’s okay. If you need to open in another app, then forget it. This app creates formats that cannot be open in other apps. ### 2/5 — Bad app *2020-01-25, version 2.7.22* Lots of bugs and nobody respond back to help. cost to much don’t buy Still have not fix the problem no up date since 4 months it need fixing now!!! ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — 偶尔会闪退 *2020-04-21, version 2.7.22* 导入照片会闪退 ### 5/5 — Very nice *2020-03-30, version 2.7.22* It’s been best studying app ever I used ### 5/5 — 太难用 *2019-10-23, version 2.7.22* 图片不兼容，拍照的图片不能插入编辑 ### 5/5 — Love it *2019-10-13, version 2.7.22* This app is great because I love studying the Bible and other like material. The one thing that make it difficult is around the time it needs updating it has glitches. And it had some features they no long have that I loved but over all I use it EVERYDAY 🥰 ### 5/5 — Everything is gooooooood *2019-09-27, version 2.7.22* The app is very easy and good ### 5/5 — It’s the best app for PDF. But could you please develop the windows version, please? *2019-08-29, version 2.7.21* It’s the best app for PDF. But could you please develop the windows version, please? There must be much much more users. Beyond words is my gratitude!!! **Developer response:** Sorry,sorry. We are focusing on perfecting MarginNote3 on IOS and macOS , so we have no time to launch PC, android or other versions. Really sorry. ### 5/5 — One of the best note taking app I have ever used *2019-04-27, version 2.7.20* iPad is just worthless without this app ### 5/5 — Long winded praise (updated) *2019-03-27, version 2.7.20* Letter to MargiNote developers I just have to say that I've had MargiNote for years and I never truly got around to using it, thus it remained in my pile of apps (over 200 at least) on my home screen buried deep in a folder titled pdf, until I decided it was time to learn logic once and for all. I basically went on a logic downloading binge, finding every logic resource I could and downloading it to MargiNote. I had over 100 PDFs that I downloaded, so much that the app was unresponsive because it had to upload all documents to iCloud Drive. So there I was, left with the daunting task of transferring them all to Readdle Documents (which was no easy task), as well as left with the realization that maybe this app wasn't for me because of sluggishness. Not only was I using the app completely wrong, as I found out later how to use it on a whim, but I almost missed out on an app I would say is as invaluable as Ulysses for iPad. Now to the fun part, after I came to this realization, it wasn't until today that I was able to harness your app's true potential. I first just added a pdf from the internet and noticed it didn't have an outline (or so I thought), because under the outline tab I didn't see any writing. Then I decided to find a workaround for this, thus I added what I thought were notes at the time to the beginning of each chapter, so that I could at least go back and forth more easily. I found this to be somewhat cumbersome and I went about my day. Then I tried, on the hunch that maybe I did it wrong, to highlight something instead. As I was familiarizing myself with the navigation icons, I noticed the icon that looks like a bulleted list with a magnifying glass and assumed it was just search, boy was I wrong. To my amazement, there the outline was in all its glory, but I wasn't done there, because it was at that moment that I figured out the aforementioned note icon was actually flash cards that can have a title, referenced text, notes, and question and answer. Now I was able to make notes that would double as my notecard answers. I simply tapped the notecard title icon, added a title that hinted at something in the notes, and typed parts of the term definition. Last but not least, the export options are great, especially Omnioutliner. Omnioutliner is able to present my data from MarginNote into a list, which can hide the data I made on the notecards and it can link back to the specific notebook in MarginNote. I also like the iThoughts and Mindnode export. I'm not sure if it can export to Things 3 for iPad, but it's always an idea. I feel this is now one of my favorite apps and it sits on my dock. Thanks for making such a wonderful app being provided to the masses, especially power users like me. Eventually I will review MarginNote 3, which at first glance is a huge improvement. ### 5/5 — Great experience of structural reading and not-taking *2019-03-25, version 2.7.20* A perfect tool for implementing syntopical reading from “How to read a book”. ### 5/5 — fantastic！ *2018-07-24, version 2.7.12* very easy to use， excellent！ --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*