Notes Feature Finally Arrives on the Steam Deck

A recent update to the beta software branch for Steam Deck added the ability to access the Notes app. Notes are a handy, yet little-known feature in Steam that let you jot down objectives, hints you pick up along the way, or other thoughts in a simplified text field. They’re useful because they are saved on a per-game basis, and for PC gamers who already have notes for games, they’ll sync over to your Steam Deck, and vice versa.

Finding notes on your Steam Deck isn’t difficult: When you’re in-game, click the Steam button, and you’ll find “Notes” nestled a few options above the “Exit game” button. From there, you can look at notes, and even add new ones. They can also be accessed at the bottom of game details pages for titles that you own.

Notes exist in Steam’s stack of software tools, including Game Recording, that, on PC, you can pull up in-game by punching in the Shift + Tab keyboard combo. Notes can even be pinned to your game screen for easy reference (this isn’t available on the Steam Deck). However, outside of gaming time you can find notes you’ve already made within each game page, along the right-hand side near your screenshots and achievements.

For now, this feature is not available in the stable software release for the Steam Deck. To try it, you’ll have to enable the beta software within the console’s system settings. The good news is that toggling between beta and stable retains your game saves, installs, notes, and all other data. So if you’re experiencing bugs, it’s easy to switch back to stable in a jiffy.