Evernote and local cache / files behavior ?

[Gauthier 7]

Hello,
As a Premium member I regularly save files to Evernote.
Since my disk space is limited on my work computer, I want to know how Evernote saves the files I attached on my notes. Does Evernote download and stock on my computer, locally, all the files that I attach to my notes... or does it NOT download any kind of attachment locally, unless I explicitly need to download something ? 
And if there is a "cache" somewhere on my local computer, how can I empty it ? 
Basically I want to know if I upload 20 GO of data in my Evernote account, will these 20 GO be downloaded on every computer where I install Evernote ? How does Evernote deal with that, temporary files, and use of memory / cache in general ?
Thanks

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, Gauthier said:

Does Evernote download and stock on my computer, locally, all the files that I attach to my notes... or does it NOT download any kind of attachment locally, unless I explicitly need to download something ? 

Depends on the device/platform

Window/Mac platforms; an entire copy of the database is maintained on the database, including attachments.

Window users have a “Demand Sync” option that delays this download until the notes are referenced

Web platform; the note data is only accessed via the internet; no data is maintained on the computer

IOS/Android platform; minimal data is maintained on the device, but there is an “Offline Notebook” option to have selected notebooks downloaded 

 

[Gauthier 7]

On 7/25/2017 at 1:52 PM, DTLow said:

Depends on the device/platform

Window/Mac platforms; an entire copy of the database is maintained on the database, including attachments.

Window users have a “Demand Sync” option that delays this download until the notes are referenced

Web platform; the note data is only accessed via the internet; no data is maintained on the computer

IOS/Android platform; minimal data is maintained on the device, but there is an “Offline Notebook” option to have selected notebooks downloaded 

 

Thanks for your answer.

Nevertheless, It would make sense if Evernote only stored locally the "most used / recents" files. I attach a lot of files to my Evernote notes, and I could soon have to download several GB of data every time I install Evernote on a desktop... That's problematic. This should be a suggestion of feature.

[gazumped 11,652]

10 minutes ago, Gauthier said:

Nevertheless, It would make sense if Evernote only stored locally the "most used / recents" files.

As @DTLow said,  we have 'on demand' syncs now,  which (on another laptop of mine),  shrank a 19GB database to a few hundred KB.  On the WIndows release thread where this was introduced,  we discussed the problem that with each new and edited note,  the database would increase in size.  One of the developers commented that Evernote were looking at a system where after a certain (and hopefully, optional) period,  notes would be dropped from the local database while a copy would be maintained on the server.

While that seems to meet your need,  the fact that the majority of the database is maintained by a third party on a remote server isn't exactly a plus point for me - I want a way to maintain a local backup.  Which is why this 'work' laptop of mine has the full database on it,  available for backup processing.  (It's not possible to backup from the web or mobile clients,  or those using on-demand sync).

Evernote,  or course,  maintain server-side backups,  but they aren't easily available other than via Note History.  I don't question their security or stability,  but - for my data,  I want a local backup series I can get to easily if/ when I need it.

[lamborghini 3]

On 25/07/2017 at 11:14 AM, Gauthier said:

 

On Mac it stores even deleted attachments. I'm not talking about notes in trash. I had 5GB of video attachments and replaced them with links to Google Drive. 5GB still there.

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, lamborghini said:

On Mac it stores even deleted attachments. I'm not talking about notes in trash. I had 5GB of video attachments and replaced them with links to Google Drive. 5GB still there.

On Macs, the delete sequence is   Notebook > Trash > Purgatory Folder > gone

(Purgatory is an actual OS file folder)

 

[lamborghini 3]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

On my Macs, the delete sequence is   Notebook > Trash > Purgatory Folder > gone

(Purgatory is an actual os file folder)

 

Yeah I have almost 1GB in purgatory folder, but what about rest of deleted data? Will reinstall help?

[DTLow 5,736]

28 minutes ago, lamborghini said:

what about rest of deleted data? Will reinstall help?

Reinstalling the app has no impact on the database

Deleting the database will force it to be rebuilt from the servers. This could help cleaning up your data issue

Warning; the rebuild does not include Local Notebooks or unsync’d notes.  

[Gauthier 7]

On 7/31/2017 at 3:41 PM, gazumped said:

As @DTLow said,  we have 'on demand' syncs now,  which (on another laptop of mine),  shrank a 19GB database to a few hundred KB.  On the WIndows release thread where this was introduced,  we discussed the problem that with each new and edited note,  the database would increase in size.  One of the developers commented that Evernote were looking at a system where after a certain (and hopefully, optional) period,  notes would be dropped from the local database while a copy would be maintained on the server.

Thanks, I didn't know that this feature was accessible.

For those interested, I found out how to use it there:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/105063-evernote-for-windows-65-ga-released/

This feature should have more visibility, especially for heavy users. A pop-up or something when you reach more than 500 MB of data could be useful for example. 

[jefito 5,589]

4 hours ago, Gauthier said:

This feature should have more visibility, especially for heavy users. A pop-up or something when you reach more than 500 MB of data could be useful for example. 

Only if it wasn't crowding your storage device; for a laptop with limited storage, this might be a problem, but some of us desktop users like to keep the whole database locally, so that it can be backed up.

[CalS 5,280]

7 hours ago, jefito said:

Only if it wasn't crowding your storage device; for a laptop with limited storage, this might be a problem, but some of us desktop users like to keep the whole database locally, so that it can be backed up.

Plus, some of us are not the most patient of souls....