From student discounts to smarter note-taking, these apps can make university life easier.
University life comes with plenty to juggle, from lecture notes and presentations to assignments, exams and, of course, staying within a student budget.
The good news is that your phone can do much more than store your university timetable. These five apps can help you study smarter, stay organised, save money and even make your next presentation look more polished.
If you have a presentation coming up and want to move beyond a collection of plain slides, Canva is an easy place to start.
Canva offers hundreds of customisable templates for presentations, posters, projects and other university work. Choose a design, add your content, and tweak the colours, fonts and images to suit your project.
It can also come in handy when you need to make a quick edit from your phone instead of opening your laptop.
Best for: Presentations, projects and visual assignments
Stubbly.ai
Studying can quickly become overwhelming when notes, readings and presentation slides start piling up across different classes.
Stubbly.ai can help make that material easier to work through, especially when you have a lot of information to revise before an exam. Rather than facing pages of notes and wondering where to start, you can use the app as part of your study routine to break down your material and make revision feel more manageable.
Best for: Revision and making study material easier to work through
Notes+
Keeping your university notes organised can be just as important as taking them in the first place. Notes+ gives you a convenient way to keep your notes together, making it easier to find and review them when you need them.
Sometimes you don’t need a complicated study system—you just need a simple place to put everything down and keep your thoughts organised.
Notes+ can be useful for students who prefer to keep their lecture notes, reminders and university to-do lists in one place.
You can use it to jot down key points during a lecture, plan what you need to get done that week or save quick notes you might otherwise forget. It is also handy for those moments when an idea pops into your head during class and you need somewhere to capture it.
Best for: Notes, lists and staying organised
Tolaab
Being a university student comes with one particularly useful perk: student discounts.
Tolaab brings student offers together in one place, with deals covering everything from restaurants and cafés to shopping, entertainment and activities. It can be a handy way to save money on the things you already spend on while making the most of your student status.
Instead of asking every time whether a place offers a student discount, you can check Tolaab to see what deals are available. Once you find an offer you want to use, simply scan the QR code through the app.
Whether you’re looking for a cheaper coffee between lectures, planning a meal with friends or heading out for an activity, it’s worth checking Tolaab first.
Best for: Student discounts, restaurants, cafés, shopping and activities
NotebookLM
If your university folder is packed with lecture slides, PDFs and notes, NotebookLM could become one of your most useful study tools.
You can upload your own study material and use the app to help you make sense of it. Need a quick summary of an entire chapter? You can do that. Struggling with a particular slide or topic? You can focus on that too.
One of its most useful features for students is the ability to turn your study material into quizzes and flashcards. That gives you a way to actively test yourself rather than simply reading through your notes again and again.
It can be especially useful before exams, when you want to turn a lengthy chapter into something more manageable to revise in a shorter amount of time.
Best for: Summaries, quizzes, flashcards and exam revision
Save these before the semester gets busy
You don’t need to download every productivity app you come across. A handful of useful tools can go a long way towards making university life more organised and manageable.
Keep Canva handy for your next presentation, Notes+ for everyday reminders, Tolaab for student deals and NotebookLM for those “I have 100 slides to study” moments. Stubbly.ai can also be a useful addition to your study routine when you have a lot of material to work through.
