Stickies: The Best Free Sticky Notes Program 

Last summer a reader asked us what we thought was the best free, no-nonsense sticky notes program. And we recommended a program from UK developer Tom Revell. He’s so proud of his program, he even provides his email address so you can contact him. And he says he tries to reply to everyone that writes to him.

How’s the program though? It’s GREAT. Microsoft has been improving the Windows 10 sticky notes program and we’ve written about that here.  But even Microsoft’s highly paid best have not made the Windows 10 sticky notes nearly as good as Tom Revell’s  (Zhorn Software) Stickies.

What can it do? It can do a lot and we’re going to let Tom tell you about it, but before we give you the page and download links, we need to tell you something.

If you’re using Windows 10 64-bit (and most of you Windows 10 users are) you may get a warning when you start to install Stickies that you need to download a Microsoft C++ redistributable package before you can install and use Stickies. It’s an inconvenience, but you should not let this deter you from installing Stickies. Because Stickies is the best free sticky not program we’ve ever tried. And it’s the only one we know of whose author is confident and proud enough of his program to include his email address so you can write to him with request for help, complaints, or praise.

So, if you download Stickies and start to install it and you see this:
Click the link to download the C++ Redistributable Package and install it. After you do click “Check again” and Stickies installer will find it and continue to install Stickies on your computer.

Now that we have this out of the way, let’s bring in Developer Tom to tell you all about Stickies…

What is Stickies?

Stickies is a PC utility I wrote to try to cut down on the number of yellow notes I was leaving stuck to my monitor. It is a computerised version of those notes.

The design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores information in a single text-based ini file.

Stickies will never support animated dancing figures, or play “Greensleeves”. They are instead yellow rectangular windows onto which you can put some text notes. Once created, they will stay on screen until you take them away. Just like a real sticky piece of paper.

Main features:

• Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots
• Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and styles saved. Stickies can be resized.
• Stickies can store text or images
• Stickies can snap to each other and to the sides of the screen to keep them neatly lined up
• Stickies can be attached to an application, web site, document or folder so they only show when it’s on screen
• Stickies can be transferred from one machine to another either over a TCP/IP network connection, or by using an SMTP mail server or MAPI client:
  • Hierarchical friends list, which may be automatically transferred from other friends
  • Play a sound file on receive
  • Signature for transmitted or emailed stickies
  • Favourite friends, and custom lists can be made
• Stickies can be hidden for a certain period, until a specified date and time, or to wake every day, week or month, to act as reminders.
• Stickies can have alarms set to ensure you notice them at a point you choose
• International language, Unicode and RTL text support
• Stickies works with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10
• Stickies is small and simple, it writes to a single text file, and does not alter the registry…
• API to allow integration with other applications
• …and Stickies is completely free!

That sums it up pretty well. The best way to find out what it can do is download it, install it and try it out. It contains no malware, no ads, no sneakyware, no tricks, no bloat, just Stickies and a nice help file.

Above: When you install Stickies, you get a nice greeting from Tom.

And when you make your first sticky note with Stickies, right-click on the title bar to see a menu of Stickies options.

The little alarm clock icon at the top left (in the title bar) means I’ve set an alarm to remind me of something. In this case, I’ve set an alarm for 9:00 AM tomorrow to check for packages from Amazon in case Darcy sends me a nice new 4K TV or a box of money (ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!)

See? I really did set an alarm. I am really expecting that package!

And if you like bright colors, Stickies has you covered.

Stickies is one of the best, if not the best freeware sticky note program – and its features are many. You’ll just have to visit this page to learn more about Sitckies – and download it. If you’re a sticky notes fan, you’ll love it — we tells ya!