Turn your notes into flashcards with AI
Paste or type your notes and get a flashcard deck you review with spaced repetition and self-rating. Works on iPhone, iPad, and the web.
Key takeaways
- Paste or type your notes and BrainLift drafts a flashcard deck, one fact per card.
- Self-rating each card lets spaced repetition bring hard cards back sooner and easy ones later.
- A few minutes of checking cards against your notes catches most AI mistakes before you memorize them.
Writing flashcards by hand eats into the time you could spend studying them, so BrainLift does the drafting for you. Paste or type your notes, get a deck back, and spend your time on recall instead of on index cards.
How it works
- Paste or type your notes. You drop in text from class, a study guide, or a document, and it shows up in the input box exactly as you entered it.
- Create the deck. BrainLift splits the material into cards, and you see each one as a prompt on the front and a short answer on the back.
- Study with spaced repetition. You flip through the deck, rate each card by how well you recalled it, and cards you rated hard return before cards you rated easy.
What you get
Here is a realistic example from typed anatomy notes on muscles of the upper and lower limb.
| Line in your notes | Flashcard BrainLift drafts |
|---|---|
| Biceps brachii: inserts on radial tuberosity, flexes elbow and supinates forearm | Front: What are the two main actions of the biceps brachii? Back: Elbow flexion and forearm supination |
| Deltoid: main abductor of the arm, innervated by axillary nerve | Front: Which nerve innervates the deltoid? Back: The axillary nerve |
| Quadriceps femoris: extends the knee, femoral nerve | Front: What action do the quadriceps perform at the knee? Back: Knee extension |
| Diaphragm: phrenic nerve, roots C3 to C5 | Front: Which nerve supplies the diaphragm, and from which spinal roots? Back: The phrenic nerve, C3 to C5 |
Each note line becomes a card that asks you to produce the answer, which is harder and more useful than recognizing it on a page.
Tips for better results
- Put one idea per line or bullet. Dense paragraphs can turn into cards that test three things at once. Short, separate statements become cleaner cards.
- Keep each deck to one subject. A deck for "upper limb muscles" is easier to schedule and review than one that mixes anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology.
- Include the "why" when it matters. Cards that only test a name are quick to forget. Adding a cause, function, or comparison to your notes gives the AI more to work with.
- Delete cards you already know cold. Reviewing facts you will never miss wastes time, so trim them after the first pass.
- Add a quiz when you want exam practice. Flashcards build recall of single facts. For mixed questions, generate a quiz from the same notes and set the question count and difficulty to match your exam.
For a full card-writing method, see how to make flashcards from lecture notes. Anatomy students can pair this page with memorizing muscle origins and insertions.
What it costs
You can make decks from your notes for free, with limits on usage. Premium costs $6.99 a month, $49.99 a year, or $2.99 a week if you need more.
Accuracy
AI sometimes drops a qualifier, swaps a detail, or writes a back side that is too vague to grade yourself on. Read through a new deck once with your notes open and correct anything that does not match before you start rating cards. Spacing those reviews out is worth the effort: in one study, flashcards studied in a single large spaced deck were remembered better than the same cards crammed in smaller batches, even though learners believed cramming worked better (Kornell, 2009).
Ready to try it with your own notes? Download BrainLift on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
Nursing student with a stack of anatomy and pharm notes? See how BrainLift works for nursing students.
FAQ
What kind of notes can I use?
Typed or pasted text works directly, and you can also make flashcards from a photo of your notes or from a PDF. Notes from any app work as long as you can copy the text.
How much text should I paste at once?
A single lecture or topic is a good amount and keeps the deck focused. Very long pastes can produce a deck that is hard to review, and usage limits depend on your plan.
Can I turn handwritten notes into flashcards?
Yes. Photograph the page and BrainLift reads the handwriting, though tidy writing works noticeably better than quick scribbles, so check those cards against your page.
Can I make flashcards from notes on the web?
Yes, the BrainLift web app works in a browser on any computer. The iPhone and iPad app does the same, and Android users can use the web app since there is no Android app yet.