(Archived) When sharing notebook, character limit on optional message

[hodnettd 0]

If I choose to share a notebook from within the Mac desktop client, the link takes me to my Evernote account web page where I can subsequently choose which notebooks to share, whom to send an invitation to (via email), the level of access I want and finally, an optional message I want to include in the invitation.

That optional message is limited to 255 characters, which is probably the equivalent of three sentences. However, you won't be notified of the limit until after you've typed the message and submitted the request, and the resulting error message does not inform you by how many characters you've exceeded the limit.

I ended up having to edit my outgoing message no fewer than four times trying to get it down to an acceptable level. Since this message is presumably embedded in an email and not retained by the Evernote team, 255 characters seems like an awkwardly low limit.

Is there any chance we can have one of the following solutions?

a) Raise the limit to 511 or even 1023 characters.

Add the character count to the error message so that I know if I'm off by just a few characters and can substitute contractions, or if I'm off by entire sentences.

c) Get rid of the limit entirely but add a captcha to thwart spammers.

I'm open to other suggestions as well, including workarounds. I just don't want to have to edit my request more than once if I want to share notebooks with my friends and family.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm open to other suggestions as well, including workarounds. I just don't want to have to edit my request more than once if I want to share notebooks with my friends and family.

Would seem the easiest thing is to simply send a regular email to everyone, imparting all the info you want. Then send them the invitations through Evernote.

[hodnettd 0]

Would seem the easiest thing is to simply send a regular email to everyone, imparting all the info you want. Then send them the invitations through Evernote.

I considered that but if this is the very first time I'm sharing an Evernote folder, I'm not going to have the foresight to send a separate email.

In other words, if I'm the stereotypical Grandma, I'm a brand new user, I've just installed Evernote, I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, there's a big bright shiny "share this folder" button, I know Evernote's marketing strategy is very dependent upon word of mouth and ease of usage, and there's nothing on the share-my-folders web page to suggest there's an character limit, what would otherwise prompt me to send an separate email (or make a separate phone call)?

One thing that Evernote does, that's really nice, is that I can send invitations to multiple addressees in one fell swoop. Following this chain of thought, making multiple phone calls or launching a separate email program and cut-and-pasting multiple addresses, is just enough friction that it can discourage some people from sharing folders and using Evernote as a collaborative tool.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not filing this as a bug that needs to be fixed right away. I'm suggesting that this is a rough edge that can be filed down when Evernote develops "version 2.0" of their web interface. It's not that hard to change the error message from (I'm paraphrasing) "Your message is limited to 255 characters" to "Your message is 3,464 characters long and exceeds the maximum of 255 characters. May we suggest a welcome page in your notebook instead?"

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I considered that but if this is the very first time I'm sharing an Evernote folder, I'm not going to have the foresight to send a separate email.

Agreed. But now you know. And I suppose, had it been me, after the first rejection (which at least informed me of the cause of the rejection (according to your post -I've never experienced it firsthand)), I would have done what I suggested above, rather than try four more times. There's a saying that used to be more prevalent than it is now. Don't sweat the small stuff.