How NapkinNote works

NapkinNote gives every school its own private note-sharing and marketplace hub. Students share class notes with their classmates; admins and teachers keep the content trustworthy; nobody from another school can see your stuff. Here's the whole thing from top to bottom.

Five steps from sign-up to study group

1

Sign up with your school email

Use the email address your school gave you. NapkinNote automatically figures out which school you belong to from the domain (for example @demohigh.example puts you in Demo High School). You'll get a confirmation email to verify the address before your account activates.

If your school isn't set up yet, sign up anyway and we'll add it. You can also start with the demo below to see how it feels before you commit.

Create an account
2

Find your courses, see classmates' notes

Every school has its own list of courses (your real classes, loaded in by the school admin). Browse the dashboard to see recent notes from students in your school, or filter to a specific course to find study material for tonight's homework or next week's quiz.

  • Search by title, content, tag, or course
  • Bookmark notes you want to come back to
  • Like the ones that actually helped
Try the search
3

Upload your own notes — with AI summaries

Drop in a typed note, a PDF of a handout, a photo of your notebook page, or a combination. NapkinNote extracts the text, indexes it for search, and can generate an AI study guide with practice problems + an answer key from your note's content.

  • Supports PDFs, images, DOCX, TXT, and Markdown
  • Batch-upload a whole semester at once
  • Tag notes so classmates can find them
Log in to upload
4

Buy, sell, and swap with the marketplace

Stuck with a textbook from last year you'll never crack open again? List it. Need a graphing calculator before Monday? Buy one from another student at your school. The marketplace is school-scoped, so prices stay fair and pickups are local.

  • Add photos, price, and a condition grade
  • Chat in-app to arrange a meetup location
  • Admins can remove anything that violates school rules
Browse listings
5

Admins and teachers keep it honest

Each school has its own admins with tools to moderate notes, comments, and listings — plus automatic filters that flag profanity or test content for review. Teachers can be given access to review notes in their subject. If something does slip through, any student can report it in one click.

  • Per-school moderation, invisible to other tenants
  • Profanity + test-content keyword flagging
  • Full activity logs for safety investigations
Read the full policy

What you get out of the box

Multi-school tenancy

Every school is isolated — students, courses, notes, and marketplace listings never cross the aisle.

AI study guides

One click generates a summary, practice problems, and an answer key from any note's content.

OCR for photos & PDFs

Google Cloud Vision extracts text from scanned handouts and notebook photos so they're searchable.

Student marketplace

Per-school buy/sell for textbooks, calculators, and supplies with in-app messaging and meetup spots.

Admin & teacher tools

Each school gets its own admin dashboard to manage users, lock or remove content, and review reports.

Safe by default

Email verification, CSRF protection, rate limiting, profanity filtering, and audit logs throughout.

Try the live demo

We run a demo tenant, Demo High School, pre-loaded with courses, sample notes, and marketplace listings. Log in with either of the accounts below to explore. The demo resets periodically — feel free to create notes, comments, and listings.

Student ava@demohigh.example / DemoStudent123!
School admin admin@demohigh.example / DemoAdmin123!
Log in to the demo

Frequently asked

Can students from other schools see my notes?

No. Every piece of content — notes, comments, listings, even the course catalog — is scoped to your school. Students at a different school literally can't see it in search, on the marketplace, or by visiting URLs directly.

Is posting past tests allowed?

No. Tests, quizzes, and exam content are off-limits regardless of whether they're old. See the Academic Integrity Policy for the full list of what you can and can't share.

How do I bring NapkinNote to my school?

Send us a message. We'll get your school set up, import your course catalog, and help onboard your first admins. Most schools go from zero to launched in under a week.