Best Apps For Studying

Studying has never been easier!

With the right tools and techniques, you can learn to study more efficiently. The key is to break down your work into manageable chunks of time. Here are some great apps to help you do just that.

Best Apps For Studying

We explore some of the best study apps for high school students, to help you transform your smartphone from a distraction into a handy assistant.

Is your phone your worst enemy when it comes to studying? Do constant notifications stop you from getting into the study zone? Or are you guilty of letting a 5-minute social media break turn into an hour-long TikTok session?

No judgement – we’ve all been there.

The good news is you don’t need to lock your phone away in a box or turn it off every time you sit down to study. (That would be madness.)

In fact, with the right apps installed, your smartphone could become a convenient study buddy. Here are our top 10 useful apps for students.

Shortcuts: Jump straight to the type of app you need.

Concentration apps
Productivity apps
Note-taking apps
Mindfulness apps
Flashcard apps
Apps to help concentration
The best concentration apps can help you get into the right mental zone for absorbing information. This category looks at apps that keep you from getting distracted (e.g. with white noise or by blocking other apps).

1. Forest
   Forest App
   Some of us need a little external motivation to stay focused while studying. And that’s fine.

The Forest app provides a visual incentive by letting you plant a virtual tree and then basically holding that tree hostage until your study session is over.

Want to check your Instagram for a second? Tempted to do a quick online shop between textbook chapters? Go ahead. You’ll just have to come to peace with watching your tree wither and die first.

But if you stick to your focus time, you’ll enjoy watching your trees flourish. Over several study sessions, you can build a delightful digital forest – a pleasant reminder of all your productive hours.

Bonus: The Forest app is a partner of Trees for the Future. This organisation plants real trees on behalf of the virtual ones that pro users grow (over 1 million trees and counting). So, using this app to block other apps while studying can help the environment as well as your grades. Not bad at all.

Available on: iOS, Android, Chrome
Average rating: 4.8/5 on App Store, 4.6/5 on Google Play
Cost: $5.99 on App Store, Free (with ads) on Google Play – in-app purchases available on all devices

2. Freedom
   Freedom app to block apps while studying
   Freedom is an app that locks your phone while studying (or any other time you need to focus). Flag the apps and/or websites that distract you, and Freedom will block them – great if the self-motivated apps like Forest don’t quite cut it for you. You can set a scheduled session in advance or start some ‘Freedom time’ whenever you need it.

Freedom blocks time-wasting apps and websites across all your devices, so your iPad won’t tempt you away while you’re studying on your MacBook.

Did you know? Most smartphones have built-in tools for tracking screen time and setting limits. They might not be as fancy as Forest and Freedom, but they can get the job done in a pinch. Look for ‘Screen Time’ (iOS) or ‘Digital Wellbeing’ (Android) to explore your options.

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Chrome
Average rating: 3.4/5 on App Store, 3.9/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free for basic features, premium subscription available ($40/year)
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.

3. White Noise Lite
   White Noise app to help concentration
   Silence can be deafening when you’re trying to focus, but your favourite tunes might not help so much either. There’s nothing quite like finishing an important note only to realise you started writing lyrics halfway through the sentence (thanks a lot, Billie).

A bit of white noise can help you focus without drawing too much attention to itself. The White Noise Lite app lets you build custom soundscapes to suit your preferences with a wide range of sounds including beach waves, breezes, camp fires, chimes, rain, running water and even a vacuum cleaner (hey, if that’s what gets you in the mood for study, you do you).

Packing up the textbooks for the night? Switch from your studying mix to your snoozing mix for a restful sleep.

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Chrome
Average rating: 4.7/5 on App Store, 4.7/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free for lite version, $1.49 for full version (no ads)
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.
Productivity apps for students
Alright, so you’ve got distractions out of the way and some background sounds on loop. Now let’s talk about some good apps for students that will help you get the most out of your study time. The next two study apps help you organise your schedule and stay on top of assignments so you can achieve more and cram less.

4. Todoist
   Todoist app
   Todoist can organise your school subjects, assignment deadlines, homework and… pretty much your whole life, if you want it to. This is one of the best apps for students because it keeps your schoolwork on track while also holding you accountable.

The Todoist app provides handy features including:

recurring due dates (great for weekly homework)
quick add (add new assignments and tasks on the go)
favourites and priorities (flag the subjects you need to focus on)
sections and subtasks (divide intimidating projects into small, simple steps)
integrations with other apps (e.g. Google Calendar and Dropbox).
With all your tasks and due dates kept neatly in Todoist – rather than floating around in your head – you’ll be free to focus on your studies.

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows
Average rating: 4.7/5 on App Store, 4.5/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free for basic, $5.50/month for pro (extra features)
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.

5. myHomework
   myHomework app for high school students
   While Todoist is fantastic if you need to juggle your studies with other parts of your life, myHomework shines as a dedicated school-stuff planner.

This study app for high school students tracks all your classes, projects, assignments and tests, and it sends you reminders of due dates. The myHomework app also syncs across all your devices, so you can check your assignments and timetable from anywhere and anytime – at school on your laptop, at home on your tablet or on the bus on your phone.

Available on: iOS, Mac, Windows, Chrome
Average rating: 4.1/5 on App Store
Cost: Free for basic features, premium subscription available ($7.99)
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.
Apps for sorting your study notes
Are you the type of student who needs their notes neatly alphabetised or colour-coded? Or do you thrive on the chaos of having your notes jumbled together? Either way, these study apps can store your notes safely online and organise them any way you like.

6. Evernote
   Evernote app
   Evernote gives you the freedom to take notes on the fly and edit them with rich formatting tools. This means your notes will look exactly how you like them when it’s time to revise them. And if you didn’t organise them, no problem. The powerful search tool will find what you need – even in handwritten notes and pictures. You can also add documents, images and audio recordings to your notes.

Not sure how to sort your notes? Evernote provides handy templates to get you started – check out ‘Class Notes’, ‘Cornell Notes’ and ‘Project Overview – School’. The app also lets you sync your notes across devices (two devices on the free plan, unlimited on premium).

Top tip: Evernote isn’t just a good app for studying. It’s also a great app for life during and after high school. If you find it helpful at school, it will continue to serve you well at uni and work.

Available on: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows
Average rating: 4.4/5 on App Store, 3.8/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free, premium subscription available ($10.99/month)
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.

7. LiquidText
   LiquidText app
   Taking digital notes has never quite captured the flexibility and satisfaction of pen and paper… until now. LiquidText delivers the best of both worlds. This app works on an iPad, Mac or Windows computer, but it really hits its stride with a touchscreen and stylus. You can handwrite notes, connect items by drawing lines and use gestures to zoom from page to page.

From creating mind maps to highlighting class materials, LiquidText gives you versatility and feels great to use. This is what makes it one of the best apps for students who use an iPad and/or touchscreen laptop.

Available on: iOS (iPad only), Mac, Windows
Average rating: 3.9/5 on App Store
Cost: Free, premium subscription with student discount available for $29.95
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.
Mindfulness apps to put you in a study-ready state of mind
A healthy, happy mindset can make a huge difference for focusing and absorbing your notes. That’s why some of the best study apps aren’t about studying at all. Instead, the next two suggestions are good study apps for students because they’ll get your brain ready for productive study sessions.

8. Headspace
   Headspace app
   Headspace is all about – you guessed it – getting into a positive headspace. This app provides a wide selection of:

guided meditations
mindfulness courses
sleep exercises
focus playlists.
One of Headspace’s newer features is The Wake Up, which provides a daily bite-sized story to inspire or motivate you each morning. The app also has a large library of articles addressing topics that could help you with your study routine. These range from sleeping better and waking up fresh to relieving stress and improving self-esteem.

Available on: iOS, Android, web browsers
Average rating: 4.8/5 on App Store, 4.1/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free, extra courses and exercises available via Headspace Plus ($19.99/month)

9. Happify
   Happify app
   Like Headspace, Happify aims to improve your mental wellbeing, which can help you study and perform better at school. Happify swaps the meditation-based approach for science-based activities and games that lift your mood, though it does offer guided relaxation sessions as well.

Available on: iOS, web browsers
Average rating: 4.3/5 on App Store
Cost: Free; Happify Plus subscription available ($21.99/month)
Flashcard apps
The flashcard technique can help you lock in knowledge before an exam, especially if you’re studying:

another language (translation flashcards)
mathematics (formula flashcards)
an info-heavy subject (key definitions flashcards).
However, physical flashcards are time-consuming and a little wasteful. Using a flashcard app is a faster and eco-friendly approach.

10. Anki
    Anki flashcards app
    The Anki program provides powerful, intelligent flashcards. This app aims to help you remember things, whether those things are facts, terms, equations, geographical points, details in images or even guitar chords. Anki uses a proven scheduling algorithm to automatically test you on the material you’re most likely to forget soon.

Since the app syncs across all your devices, you can use any spare minutes (e.g. at recess or waiting for the bus) to brush up on any of your subjects. Anki also has a considerable library of pre-made decks on all sorts of topics.

Note: When you search for ‘AnkiMobile’ or ‘AnkiDroid’, you may find ‘AnkiApp Flashcards’ as well. This is a separate yet similar app that has slightly less functionality.

Available on: Mac, Windows, iOS (AnkiMobile), Android (AnkiDroid)
Average rating: 4.1/5 on App Store, 4.7/5 on Google Play
Cost: Free on Mac, Windows and Android, $38.99 on iOS
Note: Please check your school’s policy before downloading this or any app to your school computer.
The final word
All these apps for students aim to give you an edge in exams and help with your schoolwork in different ways. We recommend trying a combination of the ones that seem relevant to you. Just be sure to trial them for a while before committing to any premium subscriptions.

Great news: Finding the best study apps for you while you’re still in high school can set you up for a healthy relationship between your phone and studies in university as well. (P.S. If you’ll be graduating soon, you might enjoy this article about transitioning from school to uni.)

Please note: Pricing and average rating info is from the apps’ various store profiles, updated in May 2022. This data is susceptible to change.

By the way, these are not sponsored ads. We just genuinely think these apps are helpful. Are they the best study apps for high school students? We’ll let you be the judge of that.

best apps for studying medicine

Learning all that content in medical school is a bit like trying to drink from a fire hose. There’s a raging torrent of information, and somehow you need to get it all into your head, all while attending labs, submitting assignments, and, you know, still having to tend to your basic needs for food, sleep, and hygiene.

I mean, when last did you do the laundry?

Med school is tough—and it should be. But one of the best ways to get crucial daily studying done is to repurpose all that “in-between” time in your day. Just think about it: if you used the time waiting for the bus (10 minutes), commuting (40 minutes), between lectures (15 minutes), and waiting for your partner to get ready (84 years), you’d find that by the end of the day, you’ve got a good chunk of your work done!

And the best way to capitalize on all that squandered time? These top apps for med students!

(Read our seminal guide on how to study more efficiently!)

The best apps for studying for medical school
Meme; Apps for Medical Students
If you’re looking for a little “secret sauce” to supercharge your efficiency, access to knowledge, and organization, then check out these top apps for med students. Some of them not only contain extensive medical school content for quick reference, but others, like Brainscape, have been engineered to help you study twice as efficiently as any other study tool or technique!

Top med school app # 1: Brainscape
Brainscape smart flashcard app
Brainscape is a flashcard-based web and mobile app for serious learners who need to learn, understand, and memorize large amounts of information and fast. It has a vast collection of medical flashcards, created by other top students and educators, for hundreds of popular subject areas in the field of medicine and healthcare.

It also has certified collections of expert-curated and vetted flashcards for the MCAT, USMLE, NCLEX, EMT, Paramedic, and more. Here’s an example of the question (left) and answer (right) side of a mobile flashcard from the NREMT-Paramedic class …

Top medical apps
Brainscape’s certified flashcards have been engineered as a powerful supplemental study tool for your in-class coursework, textbook study, and skills labs. And they can help you learn and remember (twice as efficiently) the fundamental information you should know to smash your exams and save lives.
So, what makes Brainscape different from other flashcard apps?

It has a far more sophisticated spaced repetition algorithm, which automates the intervals at which you revisit new information at the perfect pace for your unique needs.
It offers detailed learning analytics so that you know exactly how far you’ve progressed and how far you still have until mastery of a topic is reached.
Brainscape has flexible content formats, allowing you to make (and learn) flashcards with multi-media and different kinds of text, i.e. much more than just “vocab words”.
It enables you to make your own flashcards on Brainscape’s website and sync them to the Brainscape mobile app.
And finally, Brainscape is free for most features, while complete content access can be unlocked for a modest subscription fee that is a fraction of most other medical content repositories.

Learn more about Brainscape now!

Top med school app # 2: Anki
Anki flashcard app
Anki is another popular adaptive flashcard app used by many med students. While its design might not be quite as slick as Brainscape and Quizlet, its software is “open source”, meaning it is developed by the public community and not controlled by an evil corporation (mooo-ha-ha-ha!). It is also free to use online (at the time of writing), although the mobile app costs $25.

Because Anki does not have official partnerships with publishers or content experts, you can’t really know if you can trust the quality, comprehensiveness, and accuracy of the flashcards you find in its marketplace. So, it’s best to remember this as you look for others people’s flashcards to study.

[For a much deeper dive on this comparison, read our article: Brainscape vs Anki]

Top med school app # 3: Quizlet
Quizlet flashcard app for medical students
Quizlet is also a very popular flashcard app with pre-created card decks on topics like medical terminology, conditions, and abbreviations. There’s a huge range of user-created flashcards in Quizlet’s marketplace, and you can also make your own.

Most of the content in Quizlet is user-generated and in the form of independent “study sets”, rather than a complete progressive curriculum (like you might find in Brainscape). Because of this, it could take you a ton of time and research to compile the best and most accurate user-generated study sets for the goal you are shooting for, and there might be a lot of overlap between the different users’ content that you combine together.

But, at least it’s fun! Quizlet gamifies its learning experience, turning medical content into score-able games. For some, this may be fun but serious learners tend to prefer the hyper-efficient and clean-cut approach Brainscape takes to learning. The bottom line is if you are looking to make your medical vocab studying more fun, Quizlet may be the app for you. If you are looking for a more effective study app that will help you master medical content in less time, go with Brainscape.

[Aaaand for the detailed comparative guide on these two medical apps, check out: Brainscape vs Quizlet.]

Now, let’s turn our attention to the best medical apps for healthcare professionals on the job!

The best medical apps for learning and practicing medicine
Best medical apps for learning and practicing medicine
The apps below have been created both for medical students and qualified physicians. They’re great as references, networks, and information storehouses.

Top medical app # 4: MDCalc Medical Calculator
Being a doctor requires you to be fluent in a spectrum of formulas and equations, which is where MDCalc can make life a whole lot easier. The app contains 500+ medical formulas you’ll need for making good decisions and recommendations for patient care in the clinical environment. From pregnancy wheels, dermatome maps, and dosage calculators to eye charts and growth velocity, MDCalc is the go-to clinical decision tool for 35+ medical specialties.

For study purposes, MDCalc gives a summary of why each formula and calculator is important and how/why it’s used, as well as links to reference articles and studies to help support your understanding and decision making.

App Store | Google Play

Top medical app # 5: Prognosis
Prognosis medical app
Prognosis is a tool for practicing your diagnostic and decision-making skills, using real clinical cases submitted by 200 physicians spanning 33 specialties. Within the app, users can select a case, make their diagnosis, and then check it against the official peer-reviewed diagnosis. The case information provided includes diagnostic reasoning, test results, and key learning points, allowing users the opportunity to learn valuable lessons from each case.

Prognosis is a particularly useful app for getting to grips with different disease groups and their treatment. New cases are released every week, based on real-world clinical experiences.

App Store | Google Play

Top medical app # 6: DailyRounds
There are over 20,000 pharmaceuticals approved by the FDA for prescriptions, which is a whole lot for med students and doctors to get a handle on! DailyRounds offers an extensive drug database, with key information on 10,000+ brands and 2,000+ molecules.

Like Prognosis, this app also contains peer-reviewed clinical cases, which are presented in a way to help you prepare for examinations like the USMLE, AIPGMEE, and NEET PG. A good proportion of these cases are common clinical scenarios, but the app also branches out into rarer conditions and diseases.

All the major specialties are covered: cardiology, nephrology, pathology, anesthesiology, radiology, pediatrics, and surgery.

App Store | Google Play

Top medical app # 7: Human Anatomy Atlas
Human anatomy medical study app
The Human Anatomy Atlas offers thousands of models to help you understand how the human body works and the names of its myriad muscles, bones, arteries, organs, and more. Used by both medical students and professionals, this medical app includes textbook-level terminology, as well as dissection models, microanatomy, and animations. It’s a great study reference for pre-med and medical students, and a lot lighter to haul around with you than an anatomy textbook!

App Store | Google Play

Top medical app # 8: Epocrates
A key requirement for passing medical school and practicing safe medicine is understanding drug interactions. There are literally thousands of drugs on the market, so this is not easy … but that’s where Epocrates comes in.

The free version of Epocrates centers on pharmacology and features a powerful drug interaction checker. You can check for harmful interactions between up to 30 brands, generic, OTC, or alternative drugs at a time. There’s also a mystery pill identifier, with pills organized by shape, color, and imprint code. Then there are 600+ dosing calculators, medical equations, and other useful tools.

The professional version of Epocrates includes disease information, infectious disease treatment, laboratory panels, and support for alternative medicines. All in all, this app is a great reference for pharmacology and good prescription practice.

App Store | Google Play

Top medical app # 9: Medscape
Medscape medical app
This is one of the most popular medical apps on the market. Medscape features a tailored newsfeed, with the latest medical news and expert commentary in various specialties. There’s information on the hot-off-the-press FDA approvals, conference updates, new clinical trial data, and more.

The “consult” section has a huge network of physicians and med students where you can read new case histories and keep up with current medical thought. Medscape also contains 400+ medical calculators, a drug interaction checker, pill identifier, and step-by-step procedural videos.

App Store | Google Play

The best app for productivity and time management
The best app for productivity and time management
Being in medical school means having an enormous number of things to do, every day, for several years. So it’s hardly surprising that so many students get overwhelmed and exhausted by the workload. The productivity and time management app below will help you manage your task list in a way that makes it feel doable!

Top healthcare management app # 10: Todoist
Todoist has been called “the best to-do list right now.” It’s used by 25 million people to organize, plan, and collaborate their daily task list. You can use this app to keep your achievements top-of-mind with a widget that shows your current progress toward daily and weekly goals.

You can quickly create reminders for repetitive tasks, and order your list in terms of importance. Todoist is particularly good at breaking large amorphous tasks into small, bite-sized pieces, which is the key to building momentum and winning each day.

Google Play | App Store

The best apps for improving mindset
The best apps for improving mindset
High achievement is a mental game, as well as a physical one. Unless you learn how to unwind, let go, and relax, you’ll never be able to summon peak performance from yourself at will. The apps below will help you with the flipside of hard work: making sure you’re able to unplug your brain and get restorative rest.

Top med app # 11: Headspace
Get happy. Be less stressed. Sleep soundly. Founded by a former Buddhist monk with a degree in circus arts, Headspace is a vast store of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, tackling key problem areas like sleep, waking up, working out, focusing, relaxing, and more.

Many world-class athletes, scholars, CEOs, medical students and healthcare professionals use meditation and mindfulness skills to perform at their highest level and enjoy the process.

Google Play | App Store

Top med app # 12: Calm
Mindset apps for medical students
Calm is a hugely popular app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation. Sleep is essential for clear thought, decisive action, memory retention, and cognition—especially during times of high stress and study—all of which are crucial for medical students and practicing healthcare professionals.

This app contains guided meditations, sleep stories read by various celebrities, breathing programs, stretching exercises, and relaxation soundscapes.

Google Play | App Store

Top med app # 13: Forest
We all know phones are addictive, distracting, and a great way to derail your study time. The Forest app is a similarly addictive (in a good way) method to help you beat phone addiction and overcome distraction, which is especially helpful if you have an important medical exam coming up!

The app rewards you for leaving your phone alone, allowing you to stay focused on more important tasks, like studying. Forest also tracks your focused moments, helping you build good habits, and exercise your willpower, which you can then use to beat procrastination and get the necessary work done for medical school.

Google Play | App Store

Final thoughts on the best medical school apps
There you have it: 13 study, medical, and organization apps that will help you survive and even thrive throughout your years at medical school and as a practicing physician. The world needs good doctors and while the road is long and littered with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, a combination of daily study habits, self-care, determination, and smart study apps like Brainscape will give you the tools you need to rise to the challenge!

Conclusion

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