(Archived) One Way to KO your Evernote Account

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

One Way to KO your Account

• If you want to knock out your account, try moving 9,000+ notes from one notebook to another.
  •  My computer has been trying to accomplish this task since 8:30 this morning. It is 5:30 in the evening and the task is finally getting close to finished. This means that I have been unable to do anything with my Evernote account for about 9 hours now. I cannot make new notes, I cannot edit old ones, I cannot search for anything, and the note counts are quite wild as well (see screenshot).
  • I knew it was going to be bad, so I took precautions (I am using another app today), but I am still surprised at how long this is taking to finish.
• My recommendation to other users would be NOT to move a large number of notes (no matter how small/large they are) unless you have many hours to spare (maybe do this overnight).
• My recommendation to the Evernote team would be to solve this problem, because people with large databases tend to move a lot of stuff around, and this kind of behavior can not only be devastating for productivity, but it is also entirely unexpected for users who haven't tried to perform this kind of operation in the past. Until the speed improves, you may want to flash a warning message: "Approximate time to complete process: 9 hours. During this time, you will not be able to use your Evernote account."

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s74/sh/ac9b424b-2708-41bb-8d00-d146bb65c072/b8e9e374ed18c43122b1d36548422bf8

[gazumped 11,652]

Thanks for the headsup - a good experience to avoid!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Wow!?!?!  This is ridiculous!

 

This really makes me wonder about the underlying database structure.  In a SQL DB. changing one field (Notebook) in 9000 records (Notes) would be done in a flash.

 

Oh yeah, I just remembered, I think EN Mac doesn't use a DB, but stores each Note in a separate file on on the Mac.   So I suppose it is having to rewrite 9000 files.

 

Even so, it should not take 9 hours.

 

AGREED:  Evernote really does need to fix this issue.  As I have mentioned several times now, it is just a matter of time before all active Evernote users have a large database (storing our whole life in Evernote). 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Wow!?!?!  This is ridiculous!

 

This really makes me wonder about the underlying database structure.  In a SQL DB. changing one field (Notebook) in 9000 records (Notes) would be done in a flash.

 

Oh yeah, I just remembered, I think EN Mac doesn't use a DB, but stores each Note in a separate file on on the Mac.   So I suppose it is having to rewrite 9000 files.

 

Even so, it should not take 9 hours.

 

AGREED:  Evernote really does need to fix this issue.  As I have mentioned several times now, it is just a matter of time before all active Evernote users have a large database (storing our whole life in Evernote). 

 

Yep. The great thing about having Evernote storage like this on the Mac is that it can be easily indexed and searched by Spotlight (and other programs). This slow processing of batch operations might be one of the downsides. 

 

I agree that more and more of us have large databases (in terms of space on the disk, mine is actually smaller than most), and one reason I wanted to post this is to provide a warning to other users. As your database grows larger, you have to adjust your usage accordingly. The app runs completely differently with 10,000 notes than it does with 10.

 

The Evernote developers are aware of the large database issues, and are working towards a solution, but until we get there, I do think a warning message would help. Otherwise, unsuspecting users could be in for quite a shock!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

 

Yep. The great thing about having Evernote storage like this on the Mac is that it can be easily indexed and searched by Spotlight (and other programs). This slow processing of batch operations might be one of the downsides.

 

 

That may be true, but I would not call using Spotlight an advantage.  I would call it a work-around to an inadequate Evernote search engine.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

 

Yep. The great thing about having Evernote storage like this on the Mac is that it can be easily indexed and searched by Spotlight (and other programs). This slow processing of batch operations might be one of the downsides.

 

 

That may be true, but I would not call using Spotlight an advantage.  I would call it a work-around to an inadequate Evernote search engine.

 

 

That assumes you have everything in Evernote. Unfortunately, there is a considerable amount of data that simply cannot be put into Evernote because (1) my local drive is too small to store the 1TB+ amount of data I would like to have in Evernote, (2) many of my files are larger than the 100MB per note limit, and (3) if 10,000 notes in one account is too much, several hundred thousand spread across a few accounts would be unworkable. With Spotlight (I prefer the HoudahSpot app interface) I can search everything inside Evernote and on my external drive with a single search. 

 

In other words, as much as I would like to see Evernote's search improved, one of the main reasons I use Evernote (and one of the reasons I have stuck with Mac) is because Evernote (and other apps like VoodooPad) play friendly with Spotlight. If I had to go back to the old days of opening up one app at a time to search for things (this makes me think of the infuriating Kindle ecosystem) I think I'd be pretty displeased, and I'd rather settle for the slow database.