During the announcement event for the Galaxy Note 20 one of the features I was most interested in was the ability to synchronize Samsung Notes with OneNote. Samsung Notes has the screen off memo function that OneNote can’t match. The problem is, when I’ve used it to jot down something quick that information ends up isolated from the rest of my repository.
For the longest time Samsung’s solution was to install their Note app on your PC. The PC version of Samsung Notes is a decent experience but lacks the integrations with other Office software that OneNote enjoys. There’s also no easy method to migrate from OneNote to Samsung Notes, both reasons kept me from using the software.
Now, the newest version of Samsung Notes on your Galaxy will synchronize to your Microsoft 365 account. The synched data can only be viewed in the Outlook web client at the moment. However, if you have selected to be an Office Insider you can see that Microsoft is building the framework for the OneNote feed to show Samsung Notes, it already appears as a non-functioning option.
UPDATE: The synchronized notes are viewable in OneNote now. See my newest post on this subject for more information. https://techbloggingfool.com/2020/12/29/samsung-notes-synch-with-onenote-feature-is-here-now-more-functional/
The first thing you’ll need to do is to upgrade both apps. Open the Galaxy Store app on your mobile and tap the hamburger menu, then tap updates and install the newest version of, well, everything. The same goes for your PC, open the Windows Store and click the … menu in the upper right. Choose Downloads and Updates then click the Get Updates button and install everything.
Now configure the Samsung Notes app on your mobile device. Open it and hit the options icon again. You should now see “Sync to Microsoft OneNote Beta”, toggle it on and sign in with the Microsoft Account you want to share notes with. You’ll also need to select the folders who’s notes you to sync. I recommend tapping the sync now button just for good measure.
To see the synchronized notes, sign-in to Outlook.com with the same account that you configured in Samsung Notes. In the upper right, click the OneNote feed icon. The OneNote Feed pane will slide open from the right. Click a note to see more of it and to get an option to copy it to the clipboard. Right now I find that copying a Samsung Note in this manner and pasting it to a blank OneNote page is the optimal way to use the tool.
We know that Microsoft and Samsung have plans to enhance this feature in the near future. The Note Feed is present in the insider edition of the Windows 10 OneNote app and Samsung Notes is an option in it although it doesn’t work yet. Hopefully they’ll get to a point where the Samsung Notes become pages in OneNote but we’ll have to wait and see.
techbloggingfool.com 
I feel like this (Samsung/OneNote) sync is stuck in an alternaverse that makes no sense to me. Firstly, I was expecting a sync to OneNote, not OneNote feed. I mean, what even is that? A feed in Outlook on the web that seems to have absolutely zero relationship with OneNote. Secondly, what comes across from Samsung are images; not text but images of text. And, once these images are in Outlook (not OneNote) there appears to be a lot of manual effort to copy and paste images from the feed to OneNote. Please help Dr Phil, is this a Mars/Venus thing?
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Thank you Kevin for the screenshots: it helps a lot! in particular, the Microsoft help document did both to explain how to set things up on the Samsung Note app, which is essential for the configuration process. And, indeed, it needs a newer version of the Samsung Note app, which shall prompt for a OneNote connection.
One limitation per the sync is that Samsung Notes in the Feed of OneNote were all time-tagged at the time of their import. Plus, not all notes were synced to the “Feed” (mine from 2019 were not at all synced through).
However, new notes were synced within 5 seconds, and are time-tagged properly. This even works for the notes taken when the screen is locked with Samsung Note: they will have a darker background but are synced to the Feed panel on OneNote very quickly (with the screen remaining locked).
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This sucks, I don’t even understand what OneNote Feed is, I was really excited about this, I thought it would be similar to the way Samsung Reminders syncs to MS To Do, instead all it does is make your Samsung Notes appear on a random thing called OneNote Feed as an image, that you can only copy and paste, not as text. How is this useful or intuitive to use to anyone?
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Truth be told this is such a waste of time. The app makes it so you can see your notes from your Samsung phone. Plus this app does not install from the Microsoft store it says that my PC is not compatible. Plus it does not sync with OneNote, every time I try to sign into OneNote for the Feed it gives an error message.
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