More than 256 notebooks needed

[antitech 0]

I have need of more than the limit of 256 notebooks at top level.   Any plans to increase this limit without going to a business account?

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, antitech said:

I have need of more than the limit of 256 notebooks at top level.   Any plans to increase this limit without going to a business account?

Evernote's given no indication of increasing the notebook limit beyond 250 for personal accounts

The primary organization method in Evernote is Tags; limit 100,000
Other benefits

• Unlimited hierarchy (Mac/Windows)
• Multiple tags for a note

[ruudhein 29]

You can name, setup, and nest your tags any way you like.

Here's a part of my "notebook" tag tree. 

If you like or prefer thinking in the notebook terminology, just name them like that or think of them like that.

It can work really well.

As to your question: no, all signs over the past 10 years point to Evernote not expanding on anything notebook-related: not their number, not more levels, etc.

[Ed B 0]

I've been a paying Evernote customer for years and I've been waiting patiently for the addition of more levels or more stacks, but it seems that they aren't listening to the many customer suggestions/complaints.   Evernote, remember the customer is important - you need to please the customer.  Every. Day.  

I'm now at a point with my business where I REALLY need additional levels  - NOT tags.  Unfortunately, I'll be switching back to OneNote...

[chirmer 567]

On 1/24/2018 at 11:05 AM, Ed B said:

I've been a paying Evernote customer for years and I've been waiting patiently for the addition of more levels or more stacks, but it seems that they aren't listening to the many customer suggestions/complaints.   Evernote, remember the customer is important - you need to please the customer.  Every. Day.  

I'm now at a point with my business where I REALLY need additional levels  - NOT tags.  Unfortunately, I'll be switching back to OneNote...

I'm curious - what is your use case where you need to use Notebooks vs. Tags? There are only a few things different between them, and in many ways they function exactly the same. Is it sharing? I could see that being a problem easily.

IIRC, there's a valid reason why they can't just add more notebooks to the limit:

(INSERT PARAPHRASING FROM MEMORY)

I believe, from what I can remember, it's because of the way the database works. Notebooks are like folders, and moving content actually moves the data. Tags, however, are an attribute to the data - adding or removing them doesn't actually move the data anywhere. I am not a software developer, but I imagine that drastically impacts the performance and speed of Evernote.

I should have bookmarked the post. I'm going to go dig for it...

[DTLow 5,736]

14 minutes ago, chirmer said:

use case where you need to use Notebooks vs. Tags?

Sharing, Sync/Local, Offline

>>I believe, from what I can remember, it's because of the way the database works. Notebooks are like folders, and moving content actually moves the data. 

Actually both Notebooks and Tags are attributes
- No data is actually moved
On Win/Mac computers, we can actually open and review the sqllite database

[chirmer 567]

29 minutes ago, DTLow said:

>>I believe, from what I can remember, it's because of the way the database works. Notebooks are like folders, and moving content actually moves the data. 

Actually both Notebooks and Tags are attributes
- No data is actually moved
On Win/Mac computers, we can actually open and review the sqllite database

Interesting. I distinctly remember a post, years ago, from an Evernote staff member discussing this. I must be remembering it wrong. However, since the forum search is terrible, I can't find it. Yay!

 

EDIT: Google got me this comment: 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

29 minutes ago, AndreasM said:

This is not really a tag tree, by the way. Any note tagged with BOOK will not show under ".NOTEBOOKS" and vice versa. In reality all tags are independent separate attributes of a note.

This is true; tag trees are not always displayed

On my Mac, there are menus and pages that display tags in tree form.  I find it useful for tag organization.  
This feature is not available on my iPad (IOS)

I find it useful to prefix my tags; for example all budget tags are of the form "Budget_aaaaaaa"

• the tags are listed in alphabetical order
• child tags can be included by using wildcards in a search; for example     tag:Budget*

[ruudhein 29]

4 hours ago, AndreasM said:

This is not really a tag tree, by the way. Any note tagged with BOOK will not show under ".NOTEBOOKS" and vice versa. In reality all tags are independent separate attributes of a note.

True. If that was important for me, though, I would use Filterize's "Enforce tag hierarchy" option to make sure everything is also tagged with the parent tag(s).

The thing for me is this; I'm not advocating tags vs notebooks or vice versa -- I'm looking how I can make things work within what Evernote is and does. 

 

3 hours ago, DTLow said:

I find it useful to prefix my tags; for example all budget tags are of the form "Budget_aaaaaaa"

Exactly. I have recipes with under it things like recipes.bread, recipes.pizza etc.

[CalS 5,280]

28 minutes ago, ruudhein said:

Exactly. I have recipes with under it things like recipes.bread, recipes.pizza etc.

Sometimes as easy to have a Recipes parent tag and Bread, Pizza and the like as children.   

I am too lazy to type recipes if it is all needed to find the tag, much easier to type piz<enter>.  Horses for courses.

[DTLow 5,736]

12 minutes ago, CalS said:

Sometimes as easy to have a Recipes parent tag and Bread, Pizza and the like as children.   

I am too lazy to type recipes if it is all needed to find the tag, much easier to type piz<enter>.  Horses for courses.

+1 for lazy.  When I type the tag name, reci produces a short drop down list

[CalS 5,280]

4 minutes ago, DTLow said:

+1 for lazy.  When I type the tag name, reci produces a short drop down list

Good for short lists but not so much for longer lists.  Plus, for me standard set up is left panel closed and I don't have much trouble remembering the tag names.  I can open the left panel and look at the tag tree if I forget one. 

Full disclosure, I do use prefixes, _ for years, ! for task like stuff, = for contacts, . for projects, 1040 for tax stuff.  IAC, we all have what works best for us.  

[TK0047 422]

I am a firm believer in Tags thus the limit on number of notebooks does not bother me at all. I find the Notebooks similar to the old folder structure which is not an efficient way for document control in my opinion. You still need some notebook/folder structure to help with separating certain items which I do by "Actionable" vs. "Reference Material"  but rest of my system relies on tags to locate anything.

95% of the times I search via tags in all notebooks, not necessarily inside a specific notebook. I have a text expander that I use for tag searching which also comes in super handy.

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, TK0047 said:

I find the Notebooks similar to the old folder structure which is not an efficient way for document control in my opinion.

I agree with the folder structure being inefficient
Really, it's just a name; a label assigned to a note.  I don't care if the name is Folder/Notebook/Tag

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

>>You still need some notebook/folder structure to help with separating certain items which I do by "Actionable" vs. "Reference Material"

I use tags;  "!Type-Actionable" and "!Type-Reference"
I have various note types, which leads to options for such things as tags, reminder, ...

I have minimal notebooks; mostly for their local/sync, shared, offline feature