Looking For An Evernote Alternative .. Probably found the closest option

WilliamL · October 7, 2020

15 hours ago, Chris_W said:

Yeah, I have. But it's still mostly intended as a writing app like 1A Writer or Ulysses, as reflected in their own description from their website. While Bear has powerful features, it still is comparing Apples to Oranges when Evernote and Keep It (and even Apple Notes) have more features overall. Bear can't even do OCR. You might not need those, that's fine, but Bear is a completely different category of app.

I also think you don't know Keep It well, because it has features that Evernote (and Bear) don't have, especially now when comparing it to iOS version 10 and the upcoming desktop updates.

Look, I really don't care what app you use. But since you mentioned that Keep It was “subpar“, I made the list below, so other users can get a brief overview of the things Keep It does that Evernote does not, and then decide if that's something they would consider “subpar“ or something they could be interested in.

A selection of Keep It features that Evernote (now [iOS] or soon [Desktop]) lacks or never had:

Markdown support

Finder and Files app integration (open file structure, no lock-in)

Tag mirroring with Finder and iOS Files app

Better share sheet options (PDF, Webarchive)

Ability to append text or any file to any existing note via the share sheet

Complete feature parity between iOS and Mac

Bundles

Colored Status Labels

Zero knowledge AES-256 encryption for any note (not just text)

Zero knowledge AES-256 encrypted notes can be unlocked on iOS with FaceID and be edited without issues (Evernote can only show them)

Reliable system integration features that are gone in the upcoming Evernote clients, like:
AppleScript support

Watched file folders

Service menu integration (add anything to Keep It from anywhere)

Working internal links

You can search notes fast without switching to the app via Spotlight integration (or with tools like Alfred)

The stationary feature to create templates with any file type you want

Integrated annotation tools that are compatible with all other software = non-destructive (instead of Evernote's annotations that can only be edited with Evernote)

Third-party editing of files stored in Keep It's iOS file provider location, meaning you can use any third-party tool to edit Keep It files without exporting and importing them

In attachment search that works and even keeps the zoom level intact while scrubbing through results

Saved Searches can be sorted independently

Saved Searches can exist on any level (even within folders or subfolders), not just the top level

Folders/Notebooks can be sorted independently

Folders/Notebooks can have up to 9 subfolders, all with their own saved searches, bundles, or other tools

Display options for folders can be set to include files from subfolders, to exclude them, or only show them when the main folder is collapsed

Tag filtering is possible within the notes list view, with “any“ and “all“ as further options

The view options for the notes list are more comprehensive, e.g., you can display tags beneath notes

Better and many more Shortcuts actions on iOS

I'm sure I forgot several others.

The only stuff I can think of that Evernote has and Keep It hasn't is Web/Cross-Platform apps, Reminders and a higher price. Others like the API and mail-in stuff can be easily done better with tools like Hazel and Shortcuts.

I downloaded keep it to give it a better test. It seems 'ok' i guess? That folders only seem to go one depth is a little frustrating in comparison to bears unlimited nesting, i guess similar to evernote. The part that really gets me is the rich text files, to make something bold - its not on the keyboard, I have to open another box which obscures part of the text to make something bold or interact with text in any way, thats odd and would become really frustrating really quickly. I know Evernote has elements of this but the basics are right at hand when it comes to text formatting. There seems to be no export options for rich text either, no check boxes for organization. I guess for those who dont user their notes software for organization of tasks/projects it might be really useful, for me this is a key aspect of my use.

Escaped to Keep It · October 7, 2020

6 hours ago, wbutchart said:

I downloaded keep it to give it a better test. It seems 'ok' i guess? That folders only seem to go one depth is a little frustrating in comparison to bears unlimited nesting, i guess similar to evernote. The part that really gets me is the rich text files, to make something bold - its not on the keyboard, I have to open another box which obscures part of the text to make something bold or interact with text in any way, thats odd and would become really frustrating really quickly. I know Evernote has elements of this but the basics are right at hand when it comes to text formatting. There seems to be no export options for rich text either, no check boxes for organization. I guess for those who dont user their notes software for organization of tasks/projects it might be really useful, for me this is a key aspect of my use.

Did you really took an effort to try Keep It? Did you really read the post of Chris_W?

You can nest deep; up to 9 levels or so.

Formatting text is in the toolbar of the editor and making it bold is via the well-known (???) short-cut Cmd-B.

For export, do you know of the Services menu? Have you looked at the file menu?

Just be honest, you're clearly not interested in Keep It, otherwise you would have made a serious attempt.

Which of the 23 points in Chris_W's post can you do in Bear?

WilliamL · October 7, 2020

25 minutes ago, Escaped to Keep It said:

Did you really took an effort to try Keep It? Did you really read the post of Chris_W?

You can nest deep; up to 9 levels or so.

Formatting text is in the toolbar of the editor and making it bold is via the well-known (???) short-cut Cmd-B.

For export, do you know of the Services menu? Have you looked at the file menu?

Just be honest, you're clearly not interested in Keep It, otherwise you would have made a serious attempt.

Which of the 23 points in Chris_W's post can you do in Bear?

Please before I engage with anything else you have said, let’s deal with this - how does one used cmd b on the iPad touch keyboard? If you can answer that I’ll engage with the rest. Otherwise, what I said is entirely valid and what you have retorted with is well, not.

Chris_W · October 7, 2020

1 hour ago, wbutchart said:

Please before I engage with anything else you have said, let’s deal with this - how does one used cmd b on the iPad touch keyboard? If you can answer that I’ll engage with the rest. Otherwise, what I said is entirely valid and what you have retorted with is well, not.

As @Escaped to Keep It mentioned, formatting text options are in the toolbar (if you don't use an external keyboard and are not using cmd+b). It says “Aa“ on the left and it quickly gives you access to “Styles“, like Title, Heading, Subheading, Body and you can also save new styles, in this case bold if that's what you want. Or you can also just select “Format“ and do everything from there. If you don't wanna press “Aa“, just tap into the text field in any note and there will be Bold, Italic and Underline options right at the cursor. You can obviously also just select any text make it bold. The options are multiple, but these are really basic interaction features in iOS and iPadOS, not sure what you are missing?

Checkboxes are also there in the “Aa“ submenu.

For subfolders, just drag one folder into another folder, done. Or, just long press any folder, select edit and then choose the folder it should go into. Again, multiple options, based on interactions features like drag and drop or long-pressing.

Dave-in-Decatur · October 7, 2020

Umm ... This is starting to be a lot of detailed tech support (not just recommendations) for a non-Evernote program. If Keep It has its own forums, might be good to work on these details there. Just a suggestion.

Chris_W · October 7, 2020

10 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Umm ... This is starting to be a lot of detailed tech support (not just recommendations) for a non-Evernote program. If Keep It has its own forums, might be good to work on these details there. Just a suggestion.

Yeah, I wasn't gonna write anything, especially for basic features like making text bold or checklists.

I made the comparison of features between Keep It and Evernote to provide an objective comparison after @wbutchart's nonfactual feedback and then somehow Bear was dragged into this and then tech support. As @Escaped to Keep It mentioned, it has become obvious that @wbutchart is not familiar with even the basics of the app (and iPadOS features like drag and drop and long-press???) and I would just recommend he consult the in-app documentation for further questions instead of claiming missing features here, only because he can't find them.

mprogram · October 8, 2020

The biggest issue that I’ve run into with Keep It is that notes need to have unique titles. It’s a small thing, but pretty annoying.

John in Michigan USA · October 8, 2020

On 10/6/2020 at 2:57 PM, Kolmir said:

Yep, exactly. I recently started to use MS One-Note and I'm pretty happy with it.

Off topic warning....the correct way to interpret this graph: Stock prices, especially tech, are bubble-prone. After the 2009 crash, the US Fed, indeed the entire globe, re-inflated the markets. That means stocks, especially tech, now have even less connection to events than they did before 2009. That IMO is a far bigger factor than the CEO effect (which probably exists but is nowhere near this strong).

WilliamL · October 8, 2020

5 hours ago, mprogram said:

The biggest issue that I’ve run into with Keep It is that notes need to have unique titles. It’s a small thing, but pretty annoying.

I had a few issues as I tested it out, puzzlingly though, as I tried to discuss them here a few users acted like I had just kicked their dog or something. The software seems ok, it’s subscription model is good value, support is good - emailed Steve the chap who writes it and he was back to me in hours. Disengaging though due to some of the responses here, what I though was a conversation on tech was apparently, bizarrely, something more personal.

Coffee First Thing · October 15, 2020

On 12/30/2019 at 4:26 AM, TechPerplexed said:

Not by choice

Still happy with Joplin - will post some additional insights in the coming weeks - and also my final decision whether I moved across or not, which at this point is not yet a given. I have given up on Notion though, since I found it sort of hard to make friends with the block based approach. I blame it on the simplicity of my brain

One limitation to Joplin seems to be that when it comes to keeping notes on your device, it's all or nothing. There's no serve/cloud access. My Evernote database is 14GB, which would take up a lot of space on my Android phone and especially on my Chromebook.

Alvin C · October 15, 2020

I think everyone has his/her particular needs, so there are no best apps or the best replacement of Evernote.

We use Evernote as it suit everyone's different needs. That's it. But when you leave EN, you have to ask yourself which apps suit you most.

Yes, Keep It and Nimbus seems similar to Evernote, but their UI and UX can be a bit different in which users can find it not satisfied. This is not the app's fault.

For me, I will prefer Notion, Bear and Apple Notes. Notion is in a different approach but I can figure out how to change the way to organise and write notes, but no offline support and security issues (no 2FA yet; enlarging photos/documents needs to open a web browser and generate an Amazon public link which is valid for 24 hours). I don't mind there are lacks of PDF support on Bear, and some features like layout, export, wiki-link and tagging are nice. Solid, reliable and fast on the whole. But do I really need it?

Apple Notes do not have export functions, but I find out even an app allows you to export, importing to other services still needs a lot of work, and most of the notes are useful only for a long time ago. Thus I don't mind adding a new note again, copy and paste and even rewrite in a few simple sentences. What I like Apple Notes is just simple enough, note layout not so beautiful and tidy as Bear while not so messy as Evernote (especially after v10) which is difficult to revise.

But do mention that this is my case. Your circumstance is much different from me, and I won't force others to try or argue which is the best or not.

Sudsy · October 15, 2020

On 8/28/2014 at 2:27 PM, CalS said:

Wow. Ecco, now there's a blast from the past. Truly a notes only app if ever there was one. Brings a tear...

Actually still use a big legacy ECCO database holding my historical research material pretty much every day. Finally stopped adding items a few years ago, but still works great for finding stuff that I need. Now I shovel everything straight into Evernote, and find myself desperately hoping that I don't end up depending on two orphaned programs instead of just one before long.

Coffee First Thing · October 18, 2020

As far as I can tell, none of the major Evernote alternatives let you selectively sync notebooks with an Android phone. (I don't know about iOS.)

Like other other long time Evernote users, I have a lot of notes, which take up many gigabytes of space on my PC. If I were to sync my entire notes database with one of these notes app, it might use a prohibitively large amount of storage on my phone. Alternatively, not syncing at all slows down note loading and means that I can't access notes without a data connection.

I hope I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, these apps don't have selective notebook syncing:

OneNote
Joplin
Notion
Zoho Notebook*
Nimbus

*Zoho is the only Android app, other than Evernote, that lets you quickly write a note from the notification bar.

Dave-in-Decatur · October 18, 2020

In my understanding, Evernote never syncs an entire notebook to Android unless you request it to for offline use. Generally, all that is synced is enough metadata to display a note list and maybe search.

Coffee First Thing · October 19, 2020

3 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In my understanding, Evernote never syncs an entire notebook to Android unless you request it to for offline use. Generally, all that is synced is enough metadata to display a note list and maybe search.

That's correct. I have a few key notebooks that I always sync for offline access, which Evernote lets me do.

With all the other alternatives, I have to choose either to sync no data or all of it. And all if it is a lot.

For that reason, none of the Evernote alternatives appeal to me.

TechPerplexed · October 22, 2020

Sorry, I hardly visit this forum any longer... I missed the quote I don't think Joplin offers selective sync, though you can enable or disable syncing attachments (images, PDF, etc) automatically. I can't imagine anyone having 14gb of written notes (I know I don't) so for me, Joplin's sync is more than sufficient.

That said, in the almost-a-year I have been using Joplin they have added no end of features such as the much appreciated WYSIWYG editor and a few others I don't personally use. They also engage with their userbase and actually add useful features on a very regular basis. I wouldn't be surprised if selective sync would be possible if it gets requested.

In short, I'm still a very happy Joplin user and never looked back... not once. Now that my premium will expire coming December I will delete my Evernote notes because Joplin does everything I need and then some. Besides, my Evernote content is severely out of date by now.

Side note: I fully agree though that picking a note app on the basis of what you HOPE they will offer some day is a bad idea, so if Joplin currently doesn't offer a feature you desperately need (and Evernote has it), you definitely need to stay with Evernote!

MJ17 · October 22, 2020

Yes evernote is callous towards the user base. There is definitely an elitist attitude in the company and they don’t take user feedback seriously. Recently some hacker was able to log into my Evernote account because I did not have two factor authentication enabled. Can you believe that? Can you imagine my bank allowing someone with an unrecognized device to log into my bank account from a foreign country? When I presented that analogy to Evernote they basically just turned their nose up at me. I guess they don’t consider our notes to be as valuable as currency. Pathetic. Just one small example of the callousness. And don’t even get me started on this new user interface “update.” It is a complete joke and a mess and has complicated my life greatly. It’s really a shame because Evernote used to be my favorite app by far. But they are just bound determined to run it into the ground. Funny, I have over 20 years experience as a software project manager, product manager, and user interface architect. I have offered my services and consultation to Evernote for free and they have declined. They think they know better than everyone else. Even as their product continues to decline and their user base criticizes them. Unbelievable pride. Oh well. Peace out As soon as I can get my archive downloaded. By the way, company callousness starts at the top. What you are seeing is the attitude of the senior executives at evernote. Execs create that kind of culture of the company when power goes to their head. It always starts at the top.

TonyLim · October 24, 2020

I just started to test out Joplin. It has many similarities as Evernote. The most important thing is: it is open source. I can see the source code. I can contribute to the change to correct a bug or to add a feature. If it goes different direction (like Evernote) one day, I can continue to use it and change it to whatever way I like.

Dave-in-Decatur · October 24, 2020

19 hours ago, TonyLim said:

I just started to test out Joplin. It has many similarities as Evernote. The most important thing is: it is open source. I can see the source code. I can contribute to the change to correct a bug or to add a feature. If it goes different direction (like Evernote) one day, I can continue to use it and change it to whatever way I like.

This is great for people who are able (and have the time) to do their own coding. But Evernote (and presumably Joplin too) is mainly aimed at people who just want to get some work or household stuff done without much hassle. V 10 introduced a bunch of unannounced hassle, but hopefully it will improve in the coming weeks and months.

avevers · October 24, 2020

On 10/22/2020 at 4:33 PM, TechPerplexed said:

Sorry, I hardly visit this forum any longer... I missed the quote I don't think Joplin offers selective sync, though you can enable or disable syncing attachments (images, PDF, etc) automatically. I can't imagine anyone having 14gb of written notes (I know I don't) so for me, Joplin's sync is more than sufficient.

That said, in the almost-a-year I have been using Joplin they have added no end of features such as the much appreciated WYSIWYG editor and a few others I don't personally use. They also engage with their userbase and actually add useful features on a very regular basis. I wouldn't be surprised if selective sync would be possible if it gets requested.

In short, I'm still a very happy Joplin user and never looked back... not once. Now that my premium will expire coming December I will delete my Evernote notes because Joplin does everything I need and then some. Besides, my Evernote content is severely out of date by now.

Side note: I fully agree though that picking a note app on the basis of what you HOPE they will offer some day is a bad idea, so if Joplin currently doesn't offer a feature you desperately need (and Evernote has it), you definitely need to stay with Evernote!

Interesting, @TechPerplexed. I must add it to my list. @lisec - this might be of interest - tags, search, markdown and your choice of cloud sync: https://joplinapp.org/

TonyLim · October 25, 2020

5 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

This is great for people who are able (and have the time) to do their own coding. But Evernote (and presumably Joplin too) is mainly aimed at people who just want to get some work or household stuff done without much hassle. V 10 introduced a bunch of unannounced hassle, but hopefully it will improve in the coming weeks and months.

Besides people who are able code, I see other advantages for non-developer too. You see, we spend so much in this forum trying to tell Evernote our frustration, our views. They all fall on deaf ears.

Joplin provide a roadmap that you can see, ask questions, feedback and even influence. Evernote don't. There are many discussion, feedback, bug reports in the forum by non-developers. Most developers take pride of their work. If the bug is due to their work, they want to correct/fix them. And you can see the bugs being addressed, discussed and fixed. Unlike Evernote, we have no idea if they taking our feedback and our bug report seriously.

Users (non-developers esp) can request features that they would like to see (like what we did here in Evernote). They will be discussed, debated and subsequently put into roadmap. But here in Evernote.....? I rather spend time now in Joplin forum to help than to spend time in Evernote voicing our frustration in v10. I continue to use the old 6.25.1.9091 (not even want to use their Legacy version) waiting for my subscription to end. I don't have high hope that they will take our feedback seriously and correct v10. But I can see our bug report and feedback being addressed actively in Joplin.

TechPerplexed · October 25, 2020

I agree. I'm not a coder, but I have submitted a few ideas on their forum. They were all discussed seriously. Some had counter arguments why it wouldn't be feasible and that is perfectly fine, at least you know what is going on.

With Evernote I struggled twelve years with the same lack of basic formatting features, and the biggest thrill was a change of their logo two years ago... From a green elephant to a white one.

WilliamL · October 25, 2020

I have Joplin and love the theory of it, my notes on my platform, but the notes editor is prehistoric. And the new beta one is somehow worse, a split screen with one side code and the other what it looks like....it should be wysiwyg and I can’t take it seriously when it can’t get basic things like that simply executed. It’s still an app for markdown folks, not general public sadly. Which is a shame because it could be awesome if it did the basics properly.

avevers · October 25, 2020

3 hours ago, wbutchart said:

I have Joplin and love the theory of it, my notes on my platform, but the notes editor is prehistoric. And the new beta one is somehow worse, a split screen with one side code and the other what it looks like....it should be wysiwyg and I can’t take it seriously when it can’t get basic things like that simply executed. It’s still an app for markdown folks, not general public sadly. Which is a shame because it could be awesome if it did the basics properly.

I expect the Joplin community is improving things at a rate though - EN's rate has felt glacial (and many feature requests were never implemented) but Joplin's feels like an active, vibrant community. It's marketed as an alternative to Evernote; this v10 release may see an influx of new Joplinites, some of whom are ready to improve it themselves. There's no such option with Evernote. Maybe this product is the future...

avevers · October 25, 2020

3 hours ago, wbutchart said:

I have Joplin and love the theory of it, my notes on my platform, but the notes editor is prehistoric. And the new beta one is somehow worse, a split screen with one side code and the other what it looks like....it should be wysiwyg and I can’t take it seriously when it can’t get basic things like that simply executed. It’s still an app for markdown folks, not general public sadly. Which is a shame because it could be awesome if it did the basics properly.

Also @wbutchart you can use external editors. Typoria is often mentioned. But yeah it's still markdown, not HTML.

WilliamL · October 25, 2020

2 hours ago, avevers said:

I expect the Joplin community is improving things at a rate though - EN's rate has felt glacial (and many feature requests were never implemented) but Joplin's feels like an active, vibrant community. It's marketed as an alternative to Evernote; this v10 release may see an influx of new Joplinites, some of whom are ready to improve it themselves. There's no such option with Evernote. Maybe this product is the future...

Oh it’s one I’m watching closely, I have so many in my device and when I see updates I’m in checking them out. Personally, until they have a proper wysiwyg editor, even if it’s markdown based, no issue with that! But until that’s there it’s not an option - and I know markdown but I’m writing notes to write, not code. I’ll keep watching and hopefully soon the iOS app leaps forward.

TechPerplexed · October 25, 2020

10 hours ago, wbutchart said:

I have Joplin and love the theory of it, my notes on my platform, but the notes editor is prehistoric. And the new beta one is somehow worse, a split screen with one side code and the other what it looks like....it should be wysiwyg and I can’t take it seriously when it can’t get basic things like that simply executed. It’s still an app for markdown folks, not general public sadly. Which is a shame because it could be awesome if it did the basics properly.

Well, in the 10 months since I started using Joplin they went from no wysiwyg editor to a rudimentary test one (which actually butchered one of my notes in the very early days, thank goodness for note history and a robust one click backup/restore feature in Joplin) to one that is currently still experimental (use at your own risk), but getting better by the day. Since my notes are kinda vital I decided to wait until the experimental label disappears, but it's there now and actively being developed. Which goes to show that Joplin accomplishes more in a few months than Evernote... ever.

I have also heard good stories about Notion but personally I couldn't make friends with it - I tried it a few times but came running back to Evernote after only days each time. Same with OneNote, Zoho Notebooks, and a number of others that I don't even remember now. I would definitely not recommend to just move over to Joplin (or any other app), but test it for at least a month... if you still find it suits you better than Evernote you can move across.

I found my true alternative with Joplin at last... I love the fact I control everything including the cloud storage/sync. If Joplin decides to perform an "Evernote 10" type of release today, I can stick with the version I use now indefinitely and no fears of them ever forcing an update or else (you can't use the old product any longer, you will lose your cloud sync unless you upgrade your version, etc).

Of course not all is rosy: for example the Android app is not very good. It's very slow to edit large notes but my main computer is my desktop anyway, I just use my phone to consult notes and that works just fine. The initial sync is very slow too - it took several hours to get my 2GB worth of notes/attachments on all devices. It's especially slow if you use encryption. And the phone only syncs when you open the app, so if you have no connection and you need that one recent note that you created on your desktop before you opened the app on your phone, it won't be there.

All in all it boils down to preference and need. I was so relieved to finally feel free from Evernote's "clutches" and their constant antics of not listening to the user base, not communicating, price hiking, feature crippling, promises of doing better we never actually see happen, etc, that I am willing to take Joplin, few warts and all. Wishing you luck with whatever you (plural, not just the one person I quoted haha) decide!

avevers · October 25, 2020

5 minutes ago, TechPerplexed said:

Well, in the 10 months since I started using Joplin they went from no wysiwyg editor to a rudimentary test one (which actually butchered one of my notes in the very early days, thank goodness for note history and a robust one click backup/restore feature in Joplin) to one that is currently still experimental (use at your own risk), but getting better by the day. Since my notes are kinda vital I decided to wait until the experimental label disappears, but it's there now and actively being developed. Which goes to show that Joplin accomplishes more in a few months than Evernote... ever.

I have also heard good stories about Notion but personally I couldn't make friends with it - I tried it a few times but came running back to Evernote after only days each time. Same with OneNote, Zoho Notebooks, and a number of others that I don't even remember now. I would definitely not recommend to just move over to Joplin (or any other app), but test it for at least a month... if you still find it suits you better than Evernote you can move across.

I found my true alternative with Joplin at last... I love the fact I control everything including the cloud storage/sync. If Joplin decides to perform an "Evernote 10" type of release today, I can stick with the version I use now indefinitely and no fears of them ever forcing an update or else (you can't use the old product any longer, you will lose your cloud sync unless you upgrade your version, etc).

Of course not all is rosy: for example the Android app is not very good. It's very slow to edit large notes but my main computer is my desktop anyway, I just use my phone to consult notes and that works just fine. The initial sync is very slow too - it took several hours to get my 2GB worth of notes/attachments on all devices. It's especially slow if you use encryption. And the phone only syncs when you open the app, so if you have no connection and you need that one recent note that you created on your desktop before you opened the app on your phone, it won't be there.

All in all it boils down to preference and need. I was so relieved to finally feel free from Evernote's "clutches" and their constant antics of not listening to the user base, not communicating, price hiking, feature crippling, promises of doing better we never actually see happen, etc, that I am willing to take Joplin, few warts and all. Wishing you luck with whatever you (plural, not just the one person I quoted haha) decide!

More interesting stuff @TechPerplexed. You'll probably be able to answer this quick question - does Joplin allow partial sync on Android (just as EN allows you to make only chosen notebooks offline)?

TechPerplexed · October 25, 2020

No, they don't... but you can select how you want to download attachments (images, pdf, etc) - download all, download when you open the note or download manually. Which I realize is useless if you are a writer and you have 16G worth of written notes

TonyLim · October 27, 2020

On 10/25/2020 at 3:32 PM, wbutchart said:

I have Joplin and love the theory of it, my notes on my platform, but the notes editor is prehistoric. And the new beta one is somehow worse, a split screen with one side code and the other what it looks like....it should be wysiwyg and I can’t take it seriously when it can’t get basic things like that simply executed. It’s still an app for markdown folks, not general public sadly. Which is a shame because it could be awesome if it did the basics properly.

Agreed. An editor should be wysiwyg for us to quickly enter/edit notes without worry about the markdown code. I think that is the reason they are working actively on a wysisyg editor. At the moment, I simply use Typoria as the external editor, until the Joplin wysiwyg editor is stable. Typoria is a wysiwyg editor, so you need not do any markdown code.

Stuhrer · October 27, 2020

On 10/24/2020 at 2:53 AM, TonyLim said:

I just started to test out Joplin. It has many similarities as Evernote. The most important thing is: it is open source. I can see the source code. I can contribute to the change to correct a bug or to add a feature. If it goes different direction (like Evernote) one day, I can continue to use it and change it to whatever way I like.

Yes, Joplin is interesting. I tried it using WebDAV sync on my Synology NAS. But I found a number of problems which at this moment are showstoppers.

The Evernote import does not recreate internal note links. These links are still pointing to notes in the Evernote database. I would have to re-create all internal links which is impossible.
I had serious problems with syncing. All attachments in the imported notes had conflicts and many notes could not be synced at all. And since I am using my notes on different devices this is important for me. But this could be due to the installation on my NAS and might not be Joplin's fault.
There is no Web client. This is the biggest problem. The web client allows me to access my data on any computer without an installation of a client.

avevers · October 27, 2020

Shame about internal links @Stuhrer - that's a big one for me too. Might be worth requesting on the forum - it seems to be an active set of devs over there.

Have you considered Nimbus Note? https://nimbusweb.me/

DTLow · October 28, 2020

15 hours ago, Stuhrer said:

The Evernote import does not recreate internal note links. These links are still pointing to notes in the Evernote database. I would have to re-create all internal links which is impossible.

My plan would be to switch the internal links from url to note-id
Instead of a link, I would be using a text search

I could do this processing on my Mac with Applescript

TonyLim · October 30, 2020

With regard to Evernote recreate the internal note links, I think I will face this problem too, though I don't have many linked notes.

But I think this is a tricky one. I will need to look at the code. Currently, I believe the import is simply a converting of Evernote format to Joplin markdown format. To recreate the internal note links will be a bit complex. What if the linked note is not imported? Anyhow, you can post this request in joplin forum. More can be discussed there. See how it evolve.

@DTLow Care to elaborate how you solve this problem?

DTLow · October 30, 2020

2 hours ago, TonyLim said:

Care to elaborate how you solve this problem?

An example is Evernote provides a note link which we insert into notes
evernote:///view/1156250/s10/ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069/ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069/]
<<<<<<<<<<<< Note-Id >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I use Applescript to append the Note-Id to notes
ID: [ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069]

I can use text search ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069
- to list all notes that cross-reference the note
- to retrieve the note referenced by a link

Stuhrer · October 30, 2020

On 10/28/2020 at 12:54 AM, avevers said:

Shame about internal links @Stuhrer - that's a big one for me too. Might be worth requesting on the forum - it seems to be an active set of devs over there.

Have you considered Nimbus Note? https://nimbusweb.me/

I think this has been addressed but the ENEX-Format does not provide enough information to recreate the links in Joplin. I don't know whether other apps like OneNote are able to do this when importing ENEX files from Evernote.

And no, I have not tested Nimbus because I also need either a Linux client or a Web access as with Evernote because my work platform is Linux. But thanks for the tip.

Coffee First Thing · October 30, 2020

43 minutes ago, Stuhrer said:

I think this has been addressed but the ENEX-Format does not provide enough information to recreate the links in Joplin. I don't know whether other apps like OneNote are able to do this when importing ENEX files from Evernote.

And no, I have not tested Nimbus because I also need either a Linux client or a Web access as with Evernote because my work platform is Linux. But thanks for the tip.

Nimbus has web access. Nimbus is missing some features that Evernote has, but then again, the new Evernote is missing features that Evernote has.

Stuhrer · October 30, 2020

2 minutes ago, Coffee First Thing said:

Nimbus has web access. Nimbus is missing some features that Evernote has, but then again, the new Evernote is missing features that Evernote has.

OK, thank you. I might give it a try.

eric99 · October 30, 2020

4 hours ago, Stuhrer said:

I think this has been addressed but the ENEX-Format does not provide enough information to recreate the links in Joplin.

Is evernote not capable to recreate the links from the ENEX-Format?

gazumped · October 30, 2020

Hmmn. Anyone tried this one? https://speakai.co/

Quote

Harness the information that matters in your conversations, notes, research, media and more.
We help individuals and teams capture, analyze and share media to improve communication, awareness, well-being and productivity.

As far as I can see it isn't a note-taking app, it just helps you communicate better... allegedly. It can tell you whether or not you're most productive on a Wednesday evening, and how often you use the word 'splendiferous' in your text (I paraphrased some of their stuff). But honestly - I don't see the point. 🤔

Vstk · October 30, 2020

On 10/27/2020 at 11:22 AM, Stuhrer said:

Yes, Joplin is interesting. I tried it using WebDAV sync on my Synology NAS. But I found a number of problems which at this moment are showstoppers.

The Evernote import does not recreate internal note links. These links are still pointing to notes in the Evernote database. I would have to re-create all internal links which is impossible.

I had serious problems with syncing. All attachments in the imported notes had conflicts and many notes could not be synced at all. And since I am using my notes on different devices this is important for me. But this could be due to the installation on my NAS and might not be Joplin's fault.

There is no Web client. This is the biggest problem. The web client allows me to access my data on any computer without an installation of a client.

1. (edit : hadn't seen your following post)

About internal links, the issue was discussed. To quote the main developer (Laurent) :

Yes I've just checked and indeed since Evernote doesn't export the note IDs, the links to notes cannot be preserved. Unfortunately another reason not to use Evernote since they don't allow exporting the complete data.

2. I set up Joplin sync to my Synology NAS through WebDAV. I haven't had issues (except with >100MB attachements on the mobile version but this is a documented limitation). I am using Android, Windows, MacOS and iOS.

DTLow · October 30, 2020

7 hours ago, Vstk said:

Evernote doesn't export the note IDs

This is my issue also; missing metadata
I made it a practice to maintain a copy of the metadata appended to the note body.
I had this scripted on my Mac

TonyLim · November 2, 2020

On 10/30/2020 at 12:00 PM, DTLow said:

An example is Evernote provides a note link which we insert into notes
evernote:///view/1156250/s10/ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069/ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069/]
<<<<<<<<<<<< Note-Id >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I use Applescript to append the Note-Id to notes
ID: [ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069]

I can use text search ec88ea9c-1741-41e3-a718-59660fff8069
- to list all notes that cross-reference the note
- to retrieve the note referenced by a link

Thanks. I did a quick export to ENEX and HTML format. I can find Note Link (thus the Note-ID) in both exports. Did I miss something here?

Even with that, I think it is still not easy to import/re-create the link in joplin (or any other notes app). The Note-ID seems to be a random/hashed id created by the notes app (evernote, or joplin) during noes creation. Thus the id if the linked note after imported will be different.

DTLow · November 2, 2020

13 minutes ago, TonyLim said:

The Note-ID seems to be a random/hashed id created by the notes app (evernote, or joplin) during noes creation

I don't try to recreate the Note-Id
I save it as a text field appended to the note contents

MrWagstaff · November 3, 2020

On 8/27/2014 at 4:39 PM, GrumpyMonkey said:

I have very strong feelings about the reliability of features, and I react quite badly to the loss of things upon which I depend, especially when it happens without notice. Evernote does have a disturbing habit of developing wonderful stuff and abandoning it in some or all of the platforms. I am hoping that the latest kerfuffle over public notebooks will be an opportunity for them to reflect on these bad tendencies and implement a little more transparent and considerate approach towards users when it comes to changes they want to make.

This is my issue in going forward with Evernote. They cannot be trusted to not break a workflow and create havoc, frustration and inconvenience and with no warning.

Based on history, given that Evernote have this habit of abandoning features and worse, doing so in the manner that they have just done with version 10 whereby users suddenly discover that their software is not functioning as expected, perhaps as has happened with my workforce, being prevented from executing critical tasks such as emailing a copy of a note to a client (now removed along with printing to boot!!) then discovering that with Android and IOS there is no going back once an auto update has occurred, why on earth would anyone affected in this way want to remain with this company.

The logic is that any new 'improved' features or replaced features with future updates are by default, transient. Simply put, one cannot trust this software no matter what Evernote now does to fix missing features. Here today but maybe not here tomorrow. The fix required to win back my confidence goes way beyond bug fixes and restoring features. I would need to see evidence of acknowledgment of the damage done to users trust and some kind of pledge to never do this again at least without some kind of guaranteed transition period. Management need to make a statement and an apology. I have been a premium user for many years and Ive had enough of this attitude.

Once bitten, twice shy!

avevers · November 4, 2020

8 hours ago, MrWagstaff said:

The fix required to win back my confidence goes way beyond bug fixes and restoring features.

This.

It's not just about "wait and see"; we shouldn't have to. It's important they acknowledge this sh*tstorm and reassure us or, I at least, am finally getting off this train.

DTLow · November 4, 2020

1 hour ago, avevers said:

It's important they acknowledge this sh*tstorm and reassure us

I don't know about being reassured but I appreciate the release of the Evernote Legacy product (Mac/Windows)

avevers · November 4, 2020

A roadmap would reassure, but I'm not aware of one.

gazumped · November 4, 2020

1 hour ago, avevers said:

A roadmap would reassure, but I'm not aware of one.

There's definitely nothing available AFAIK.

I have some (very limited) sympathy for Evernote in that having "disappointed" a lot of heavy users, if they did say that feature X (forinstance) will be out next month - and then failed for any reason to hit that target - there would be another flood of aggression, complaint and general negativity.

Having been involved with projects like this I know that unexpected hazards often do crop up when you're under the gun. I've made the decision before now to turn up my collar, ignore any distractions or complaints, and just get on with fixing a problem.

Plus there's the individual and corporate psychology (and frequent legal influence) of "if we admit we made a mistake, does that threaten me / us / our liability / our investment prospects in any way?" - Better for everyone to tough it out with a feline "I meant to do that" attitude.

But as a long-term user, frequent contributor and supporter, & general optimist... I'm not at all impressed to be on the receiving end. 😠

aashish108 · November 4, 2020

I tried Joplin with my huge Evernote library. It took over a day to import/encrypt/decrypt on desktop mac/windows. That part I can live with. I can't work with the Joplin Android client though; there is no background sync so my phone goes to sleep in 10 minutes max and so does the sync. So syncing on Android just is not feasible for me; its impossible!

So my choices seem to be Nimbus Notes or wait for Evernote to get better. So far Nimbus seems great and the roadmap seems promising thus far.

avevers · November 4, 2020

48 minutes ago, aashish108 said:

I tried Joplin with my huge Evernote library. It took over a day to import/encrypt/decrypt on desktop mac/windows. That part I can live with. I can't work with the Joplin Android client though; there is no background sync so my phone goes to sleep in 10 minutes max and so does the sync. So syncing on Android just is not feasible for me; its impossible!

So my choices seem to be Nimbus Notes or wait for Evernote to get better. So far Nimbus seems great and the roadmap seems promising thus far.

You tried asking about the Android sync on the Joplin forum?

Nimbus Note haven't reassured me about my huge Evernote library. To quote just now:

"I just replied to someone who has 90GB file
Hate to say, but it looks like your married to EN for the rest of your life :)"

which doesn't instil confidence. Nor have they adequately answered my questions (despite asking them twice now). Judging by their comments (not just this above), they're not for me, so I won't be jumping to them as part of their current offer.

aashish108 · November 4, 2020

10 minutes ago, avevers said:

You tried asking about the Android sync on the Joplin forum?

Nimbus Note haven't reassured me about my huge Evernote library. To quote just now:

"I just replied to someone who has 90GB file
Hate to say, but it looks like your married to EN for the rest of your life :)"

which doesn't instil confidence. Nor have they adequately answered my questions (despite asking them twice now). Judging by their comments (not just this above), they're not for me, so I won't be jumping to them as part of their current offer.

90GB! Holy cow. Would like to know what the actual issues were. I have been importing and not seen any issues thus far though my library size is not that huge!

Yeah I asked in Joplin forums but its kinda obvious on how it works that large libraries on Android is just unfeasible.

Vstk · November 4, 2020

3 hours ago, DTLow said:

I appreciate the release of the Evernote Legacy product (Mac/Windows)

Officially unsupported, so will not receive updates / security fixes (if needed). The least they could have done is maintain the two versions for as long as v10 is a work in progress.

gazumped · November 4, 2020

1 hour ago, avevers said:

Nimbus Note haven't reassured me about my huge Evernote library

I apparently have something around 30GB and had a chat with them too... they recommended to me that I should choose one notebook at a time to convert if I wanted to go that way - which would cut the average size a lot (I have 300 notebooks).

I also considered the idea that lots of my notes are (now) archive and history. I could work on a 'lean' basis of starting a new project with Nimbus and only converting notes from a continuing Evernote Basic v6 account as and when they were required. I'd delete the originals, so over time the Evernote account would become inactive and purely archive and history.

Nimbus has other issues though (for me) so that's all on hold for the meantime. Plus Evernote might still deliver...(!) and Legacy, for all its "we're not going to support this because we need you all to move over to v10" is still open, stable and secure (AFAIK).

I don't believe in crossing bridges (or burning them) until I absolutely have to...

aashish108 · November 4, 2020

17 minutes ago, gazumped said:

I apparently have something around 30GB and had a chat with them too... they recommended to me that I should choose one notebook at a time to convert if I wanted to go that way - which would cut the average size a lot (I have 300 notebooks).

I also considered the idea that lots of my notes are (now) archive and history. I could work on a 'lean' basis of starting a new project with Nimbus and only converting notes from a continuing Evernote Basic v6 account as and when they were required. I'd delete the originals, so over time the Evernote account would become inactive and purely archive and history.

Nimbus has other issues though (for me) so that's all on hold for the meantime. Plus Evernote might still deliver...(!) and Legacy, for all its "we're not going to support this because we need you all to move over to v10" is still open, stable and secure (AFAIK).

I don't believe in crossing bridges (or burning them) until I absolutely have to...

I get you about not burning bridges but Nimbus has this workspace feature. It will make it more organised and show only relevant workspace tags and folders/notebooks.

Pros/cons and depends on your needs really. I am still weighing!

DTLow · November 4, 2020

1 hour ago, Vstk said:

Officially unsupported, so will not receive updates / security fixes (if needed). The least they could have done is maintain the two versions for as long as v10 is a work in progress.

Evernote Legacy is currently supported by the sync process

It's working well for me during this work-in-progress

stocky2605 · November 4, 2020

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Evernote Legacy is currently supported by the sync process

It's working well for me during this work-in-progress

for me it works , too - but I was using V10 since Monday on a daily basis for hours on my Mac, surprisingly 🤪

s2sailor · November 4, 2020

3 minutes ago, stocky2605 said:

I was using V10 since Monday on a daily basis for hours on my Mac, surprisingly

Same here. I’m using v10 on the Mac for home use and it is mostly ok for my needs. The work system is Windows with many local notebooks so I’m still on legacy there.

CalS · November 4, 2020

They lost me on V10 with no local notebooks. That being said a quick foray into Nimbus (peeled off 500 notes as a test) revealed an import function that performs poorly and a rudimentary search capability which has its own set of issues. That and the little things missing I like in EN such as side list, shortcut bar, search information, reminder searches ...

May be unfair after only a few hours of usage but it is what I saw. Benched it for now. That being said Nimbus are highly interactive on their forum and talk about adding to their road map. Time will tell there.

s2sailor · November 4, 2020

14 minutes ago, CalS said:

That being said a quick foray into Nimbus (peeled off 500 notes as a test) revealed an import function that performs poorly and a rudimentary search capability which has its own set of issues.

My plan for my work local notebooks was OneNote. As a test, I tried an import of a notebook with about 4000 notes. The import ran for 8 hours, seemingly successfully. After completion it showed a few error messages. One saying that 1200 notes were NOT imported due to exceeding section limits, or something like that ... sigh. I haven't dug into it further, but need to.

CalS · November 4, 2020

20 hours ago, s2sailor said:

My plan for my work local notebooks was OneNote. As a test, I tried an import of a notebook with about 4000 notes. The import ran for 8 hours, seemingly successfully. After completion it showed a few error messages. One saying that 1200 notes were NOT imported due to exceeding section limits, or something like that ... sigh. I haven't dug into it further, but need to.

I've mentioned it before. As most of my local notes contain PDFs I have a plan for local notebooks using Windows folders and Windows search. A quick test of a 1000 notes proved positive. I added [tagname][tagname]... to the file name using a bulk file name editor utility. So things are searchable by text within the PDF and/or tagname. Looks a lot the same with preview mode selected.

The work is going to be in cleaning up file names and the one offs of text only notes, other attachment type notes. Maybe some bulk PDF prints for the text notes. Not an insurmountable conversion for 8000 notes but a PITA I would just as soon skip. What ever drove me to want to be paperless and trust a 100 year company to be my partner in the endeavor? :wacko:

Vstk · November 4, 2020

4 hours ago, DTLow said:

Evernote Legacy is currently supported by the sync process

It still works, but is unsupported by Evernote : if a security patch is needed, Evernote will simply point out Legacy is no longer under development and that they told users to upgrade to v10.

s2sailor · November 4, 2020

8 minutes ago, CalS said:

Not an insurmountable conversion for 8000 notes but a PITA I would just as soon skip. What ever drove me to want to be paperless and trust a 100 year company to be my partner in the endeavor?

For home, I can limp along with v10 but I need to do something for work. I'll give this a try, or maybe I'll just retire 🙂

DTLow · November 4, 2020

24 minutes ago, Vstk said:

It still works, but is unsupported by Evernote : if a security patch is needed, ...

So you agree we're ok for the time being
with the Mac/Windows Legacy product
(IOS users are screwed)

PinkElephant · November 4, 2020

8 minutes ago, DTLow said:

So you agree we're ok for the time being
with the Mac/Windows Legacy product

Who would not agree to this - after being exposed to EN v10 for sure !

avevers · November 4, 2020

7 hours ago, aashish108 said:

90GB! Holy cow. Would like to know what the actual issues were. I have been importing and not seen any issues thus far though my library size is not that huge!

Yeah I asked in Joplin forums but its kinda obvious on how it works that large libraries on Android is just unfeasible.

My EN library is closer to 70GB, but downloading just headers to Android doesn't trouble it. If Nimbus can't handle that, Nimbus isn't for me.

CalS · November 4, 2020

9 minutes ago, avevers said:

My EN library is closer to 70GB, but downloading just headers to Android doesn't trouble it. If Nimbus can't handle that, Nimbus isn't for me.

Nimbus has a titles only option, IOS anyway. Other issues exist though.

avevers · November 4, 2020

1 hour ago, CalS said:

They lost me on V10 with no local notebooks. That being said a quick foray into Nimbus (peeled off 500 notes as a test) revealed an import function that performs poorly and a rudimentary search capability which has its own set of issues. That and the little things missing I like in EN such as side list, shortcut bar, search information, reminder searches ...

May be unfair after only a few hours of usage but it is what I saw. Benched it for now. That being said Nimbus are highly interactive on their forum and talk about adding to their road map. Time will tell there.

I found the same, @CalS - I've trialled Nimbus quite a bit now and search (among other things) let me down. Lovely UI and great potential, but the product still feels immature compared to EN. And some of Nimbus' weak answers on appsumo have put the final nail in the coffin. I can't trust this product to deliver, and I can't wait around for it to become as seamless and solid as EN6.5 . So, for me, it's either v10 with massive improvements, or I'm out. And at this point I feel like I'm a stuck record on this topic now, like a lot of us. EN have let a lot of people down, and I don't feel I can trust then again after this. That's pretty much irreparable.

Sayre Ambrosio · November 4, 2020

On 8/28/2014 at 10:16 AM, JMichaelTX said:

OneNote for Mac and iOS Users

I just ran across this MacWorld article which you might find useful:

Microsoft OneNote embraces Mac and iOS users with a raft of new features, Jul 30, 2014

Combined with the new DropBox Pro (1TB for $10/mo), this might be a better solution than Evernote for some users.

The great thing about DropBox for Mac users is that you can use Spotlight to search the DropBox folders/files for both file attributes and content.

I'm going to preface this with the OneNote team for Mac is not helpful. The head of their education arm is condescending to say the least. So as you can see I have had personal experience with them and it wasn't pleasant.

With that said, THERE IS NO CLIPPER FOR SAFARI on OneNote. When Apple upgraded the process for extensions, Microsoft decided that it wasn't worth their time even though it's been a big feature request from that subset of users. That alone makes it unusable for me. Also the fact that you can't use iCloud to store notebooks.

The Mac app is crippled and missing features available on Windows (which I get since it's not windows), but it irks me that they are touting using it in education for ALL students and my son with a learning disability can't use it because he does video notes and you can't capture those in the app on Mac. Yes, he could record and insert a file, but due to issues that hasn't worked out well.

Okay, I'm done.

PinkElephant · November 4, 2020

The thread makes an interesting read on a long, cold winters night.

In the end a lot of talk about EN Alternatives, but IMHO not a single „hot“ contender.

Probably somebody really needs to take a hard look at the personal use case, and define what an alternative MUST offer to pursue it.

When thinking bad about the Electron Framework, several strong names drop out of the race. The same with local notebooks, if these are needed. Many apps are cloud only, and when this is the criteria, one can stick with EN anyhow.

aashish108 · November 4, 2020

22 minutes ago, avevers said:

I found the same, @CalS - I've trialled Nimbus quite a bit now and search (among other things) let me down. Lovely UI and great potential, but the product still feels immature compared to EN. And some of Nimbus' weak answers on appsumo have put the final nail in the coffin. I can't trust this product to deliver, and I can't wait around for it to become as seamless and solid as EN6.5 . So, for me, it's either v10 with massive improvements, or I'm out. And at this point I feel like I'm a stuck record on this topic now, like a lot of us. EN have let a lot of people down, and I don't feel I can trust then again after this. That's pretty much irreparable.

What you gonna do then? I am finding Nimbus ok actually but I never did use search in any other way than simple in Evernote.

Joplin sync can't handle my library on Android or its just too much. I don't see any alternatives! Still looking.

avevers · November 4, 2020

13 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Probably somebody really needs to take a hard look at the personal use case, and define what an alternative MUST offer to pursue it.

Exactly what I'm doing, @PinkElephant. It's different for everyone. I think this is a great thread for alternatives -

aisu825 · November 4, 2020

I recently upgraded Evernote to v10 without realizing what a joke it is. Totally unacceptable. I agree with the poster above that said the company is way too arrogant and ignores their customers. This is not the first time I've been unhappy with dubious Evernote changes so I looked around at other options (again).

I haven't spent a huge amount of time with it, but Nimbus seems pretty nifty. Seems to do most things Evernote does. I like the organization scheme and appreciate that all the data is encrypted in transmission and during storage. I think security is a extremely important and Evernote has really dropped the ball on this issue IMHO. I purchased the lifetime deal on Appsumo for $59. Seems like a no-brainer to me. 👍😀

I also like Standard Notes. I installed it a couple of years ago and use the free version occasionally. It works pretty well for me for basic notes and again, the encryption is great. I understand on Black Friday they offer a 50% discount so I might get the five year plan for that also.

I sense it's time to move on from EN. I've been using it since 2005 and a paid customer for over 10 years.

avevers · November 4, 2020

15 minutes ago, aashish108 said:

What you gonna do then? I am finding Nimbus ok actually but I never did use search in any other way than simple in Evernote.

Joplin sync can't handle my library on Android or its just too much. I don't see any alternatives! Still looking.

I'm trying to come around to the benefits of switching from writing in rich (HTML) format (EN) and move over to writing in Markdown. Then, once I'm comfortable with it, and accept its limitations (and embrace its advantages over HTML), I'll probably switch to Joplin. I don't trust Nimbus. Love Notion, but it's not a great match for me (I'll use it for more tabular stuff).

Of course, I hope to stick with ENv6, but I can't see v10 improving anything like enough much before my premium renewal is due in 5 months. No guarantee from them. No comms nor roadmap. Gutted. And p*ssed off!

avevers · November 4, 2020

2 minutes ago, aisu825 said:

I recently upgraded Evernote to v10 without realizing what a joke it is. Totally unacceptable. I agree with the poster above that said the company is way too arrogant and ignores their customers. This is not the first time I've been unhappy with dubious Evernote changes so I looked around at other options (again).

I haven't spent a huge amount of time with it, but Nimbus seems pretty nifty. Seems to do most things Evernote does. I like the organization scheme and appreciate that all the data is encrypted in transmission and during storage. I think security is a extremely important and Evernote has really dropped the ball on this issue IMHO. I purchased the lifetime deal on Appsumo for $59. Seems like a no-brainer to me. 👍😀

I also like Standard Notes. I installed it a couple of years ago and use the free version occasionally. It works pretty well for me for basic notes and again, the encryption is great. I understand on Black Friday they offer a 50% discount so I might get the five year plan for that also.

I sense it's time to move on from EN. I've been using it since 2005 and a paid customer for over 10 years.

I think Nimbus will swallow up a lot of users moving off Evernote. It's no coincidence they're on appsumo (despite them saying they wouldn't do a LTD again). Good to know about Standard Notes - looks like a very interesting alternative.

tdwatts · November 5, 2020

Having been a paid customer for several years, I was surprised by the automated response I received to a ticket I submitted today. It read, in part "My name is Brittany, and I manage the support team here at Evernote. I wanted to let you know we are currently experiencing a higher than normal volume of requests. The average wait time for a response is currently 10-12+ days."

10 to 12+ DAYS ?

I think I will start long process of moving years worth of data to a new platform

gazumped · November 5, 2020

8 hours ago, tdwatts said:

Having been a paid customer for several years, I was surprised by the automated response I received to a ticket I submitted today. It read, in part "My name is Brittany, and I manage the support team here at Evernote. I wanted to let you know we are currently experiencing a higher than normal volume of requests. The average wait time for a response is currently 10-12+ days."

10 to 12+ DAYS ?

I think I will start long process of moving years worth of data to a new platform

I had one of those too...

Evernote seems to have stimulated quite a response to their launch of v10, for which they were clearly not ready. I can sympathise with the support team who have to deal with legions of unhappy users, but I agree it's not a good look for Evernote.

If you have any issues and can describe them in more detail, the (equally exasperated) users here might be able to help...

Chris_W · November 12, 2020

While I switched to Keep It a while ago, I just wanted to come back to this thread and mention a new app called Craft. It's more of a writing/research app and not really a file bucket solution, but it might be of interest to others. I've been beta testing it and it's the most performant and fluid user experience I've ever seen. Like Federico from MacStories mentioned, a native Notion, done well.

So, if you want to feel embarrased for Evernote version 10, Craft version 1.0 will do the trick. The difference in quality just couldn't be higher, it's absolutely nuts. And that's just UI and UX.

Take a look at some videos on their Twitter for a glimpse of all the things it can do that Evernote can't.

There's also a nice review on MacStories.

tavor · December 25, 2020

On 10/30/2020 at 6:13 AM, Stuhrer said:

I think this has been addressed but the ENEX-Format does not provide enough information to recreate the links in Joplin. I don't know whether other apps like OneNote are able to do this when importing ENEX files from Evernote.

To clarify, the ENEX files do not include GUIDs (unique note identifers), so nobody - not Joplin, not OneNote, not even Evernote itself - can recreate the note links during import.

Yes, that's right - if you rely on enex backups, in the event your database has a problem and you import those enex files into Evernote, all your note links go bye-bye. This is a failure on the part of Evernote. Would have been so easy to include GUIDs in the enex spec.

Tiny open source project Joplin includes unique identifiers in their export format, so their note links are preserved. But somehow EN with its army of devs couldn't manage to do this.

AlbertR · December 25, 2020

I tried to discuss this (use GUIDs in ENEX) with EN a long time ago when we started to use Business and tried to merge single accounts. From our point of view (as being developers of a "Multiuser" application that has to handle local changes in global amounts of data) maintaining GUID is the only way to solve syncing problems.

If You take a look on EN-10 data formats, all tables are organized as TKey/TValue pairs containing GUID to data translations, this is and was true for EN all the time. So why did they refuse to add GUID to ENEX files? It should be possible to add GUID - even if older EN versions (before Legacy 😉) might not be able to ready such enhances ENEX files.

eric99 · December 25, 2020

1 hour ago, AlbertR said:

I tried to discuss this (use GUIDs in ENEX) with EN a long time ago when we started to use Business and tried to merge single accounts. From our point of view (as being developers of a "Multiuser" application that has to handle local changes in global amounts of data) maintaining GUID is the only way to solve syncing problems.

If You take a look on EN-10 data formats, all tables are organized as TKey/TValue pairs containing GUID to data translations, this is and was true for EN all the time. So why did they refuse to add GUID to ENEX files? It should be possible to add GUID - even if older EN versions (before Legacy 😉) might not be able to ready such enhances ENEX files.

As I already mentioned in another discussion, HTML export does preserve the internal app links by providing regular hyperlinks URL's from one note to the other in the HTML backup folder. You can navigate from one note to another without the need for GUID's. Your complete note graph remains intact in HTML which is different from ENEX where you loose that info.

So, HTML is a more complete and consistent export format than ENEX and in addition, it's a standard format readable in any Web Browser, preventing EN lock-in.

For all these reasons, it's extremely important that HTML export will come back in V10

DTLow · December 25, 2020

3 hours ago, eric99 said:

HTML export does preserve the internal app links by providing regular hyperlinks URL's from one note to the other in the HTML backup folder. You can navigate from one note to another without the need for GUID's. Your complete note graph remains intact in HTML which is different from ENEX where you loose that info.

Both html and enex preserve the note links (evernote:///view/.../GUID/GUID)
This jumps to the Evernote app - not within the backup folder

The jump (link) is preserved but the target (GUID) is lost

My solution is to append the GUID to the note contents
I can jump around the HTML backup folder by using a text search instead of link

edit: My experience is with the Mac platform. Windows may differ

eric99 · December 25, 2020

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Both html and enex preserve the note links (evernote:///view/.../GUID/GUID)
This jumps to the Evernote app - not within the backup folder

The jump (link) is preserved but the target (GUID) is lost

My solution is to append the GUID to the note contents
I can jump around the HTML backup folder by using a text search instead of link

No, the HTML link has nothing to do with GUI's, it is not "evernote:///view/.../GUID/GUID"

This is a typical link in HTML to another note: "file:///D:/EvernoteBackups/abcd.html"

Do they have a different implementation for Mac than Windows ?!?

tavor · December 25, 2020

52 minutes ago, eric99 said:

No, the HTML link has nothing to do with GUI's, it is not "evernote:///view/.../GUID/GUID"

This is a typical link in HTML to another note: "file:///D:/EvernoteBackups/abcd.html"

<a href="abcd.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" rev="en_rl_none">abcd</a>

Do they have a different implementation for Mac than Windows ?!?

Just checked this in Windows, and you are correct. Thanks for posting this! That certainly makes life a lot easier when trying to recreate note links after importing enex files into EN (or another note app).

The GUIDs should still be in enex, but having this alternative linked path to the target note is better than nothing.

DTLow · December 25, 2020

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

Do they have a different implementation for Mac than Windows ?!?

That's a good point; my experience is with Macs
I edited my post to include this note

It will be interesting to see how Version 10 handles this when html export is implemented

eric99 · December 25, 2020

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

That's a good point; my experience is with Macs
I edited my post to include this note

It will be interesting to see how Version 10 handles this when html export is implemented

I hope they choose the windows implementation. Why was such a potentially generic piece of code written twice ?

By the way, instead of using GUIDs, they solved duplicate note titles by appending a number to the title: "abcd.html" and "abcd[1].html" . This way, duplicated titles are possible without sacrificing meaningful note names

dcon · December 25, 2020

15 hours ago, tavor said:

This is a failure on the part of Evernote. Would have been so easy to include GUIDs in the enex spec.

Except for one very important fact. When you import an enex back into Evernote, it is created as a new note. So that old GUID is basically useless. Ok, you could keep a complete history of every GUID a note has had. But now when you import that, do you want to link to the old (possibly existing note)? Or to the note that's in the enex that you're going to import in a couple minutes? Clairvoyance is hard!

And, no, importing a note back in with the same idea would be a very bad idea. What happens if that old note exists? What happens if you're offline and that note does not exist locally but does exist on the server?

As you can see, it's not a simple issue.

(BTW: Note GUIDs are assigned by the server - never by the local app - even when you're offline.)

tavor · December 25, 2020

26 minutes ago, dcon said:

Except for one very important fact. When you import an enex back into Evernote, it is created as a new note. So that old GUID is basically useless. Ok, you could keep a complete history of every GUID a note has had. But now when you import that, do you want to link to the old (possibly existing note)? Or to the note that's in the enex that you're going to import in a couple minutes? Clairvoyance is hard!

And, no, importing a note back in with the same idea would be a very bad idea. What happens if that old note exists? What happens if you're offline and that note does not exist locally but does exist on the server?

As you can see, it's not a simple issue.

(BTW: Note GUIDs are assigned by the server - never by the local app - even when you're offline.)

And yet Joplin with a tiny fraction of EN's budget and development resources, preserves note links in its export format. 🤔

eric99 · December 26, 2020

On 12/25/2020 at 6:40 PM, dcon said:

Except for one very important fact. When you import an enex back into Evernote, it is created as a new note. So that old GUID is basically useless. Ok, you could keep a complete history of every GUID a note has had. But now when you import that, do you want to link to the old (possibly existing note)? Or to the note that's in the enex that you're going to import in a couple minutes? Clairvoyance is hard!

And, no, importing a note back in with the same idea would be a very bad idea. What happens if that old note exists? What happens if you're offline and that note does not exist locally but does exist on the server?

As you can see, it's not a simple issue.

(BTW: Note GUIDs are assigned by the server - never by the local app - even when you're offline.)

I understand that the GUID is basically useless in these cases where you do partial imports in an existing database (although this might be solved by checking the modification dates and providing confirmation dialogs).

However, when importing the complete database from scratch, the GUID is perfectly useful to reconstruct the complete note graph.

'Clairvoyance' is not that difficult if a two pass importer is implemented or something like that.

dcon · December 28, 2020

On 12/26/2020 at 10:39 AM, eric99 said:

However, when importing the complete database from scratch, the GUID is perfectly useful to reconstruct the complete note graph.

'Clairvoyance' is not that difficult if a two pass importer is implemented or something like that.

Well, yeah, if you completely rewrite export/import then anything can be done!

Even just adding the note's GUID to the export is not sufficient - because the current export has no notebook information. If you modified the import procedure to allow selecting multiple enexs and assigning each to a notebook on import, then you could reconstruct the graph. That's not an insignificant task. (Yes, I've worked on that code in the past - v6, never worked on v10 before I left)

AlbertR · December 29, 2020

On 12/25/2020 at 6:40 PM, dcon said:

... When you import an enex back into Evernote, it is created as a new note. So that old GUID is basically useless. ...
And, no, importing a note back in with the same idea would be a very bad idea. ...
(BTW: Note GUIDs are assigned by the server - never by the local app - even when you're offline.)

GUIDs are designed to be unique even if they're created indepentely on different machines. Creating them only on server site might have been a design fail.

If a note jumps into life, it should get a GUID. Syncing a note identified by its GUID means "take the last change" - in a first try. Next step to get a more reliable result is "Compare change dates with last sync date. If both note versions differ from sync dates put the older one to 'conflicts' and take the new one as actual." A user who meets too many conflicts will think over his/her workflow...

If a note is identified by a GUID from birth to dead, it would be a really good idea to import it back from an ENEX with exactly this GUID (and its assigned "changed" and "last synced" date). Every link to this note would keep intact (if links are based on destination GUIDs also). Users might export notes, delete them from their workspaces, re-import them later or move them to other workspaces, ... - all without loosing any reference to the correct note.

20 hours ago, dcon said:

Even just adding the note's GUID to the export is not sufficient - because the current export has no notebook information. If you modified the import procedure to allow selecting multiple enexs and assigning each to a notebook on import, then you could reconstruct the graph.

Forgetting notebook information in ENEX might be another design fail (which can be solved of course by an ENEX-2 in future 😉)

A notebook could be identified by a GUID. A note-to-notebook assignment means simply adding the notebook GUID to a note (like adding tag-GUIDs to a note). Notebook properties like its name, parent notebook, ownership (in business spaces) and so on are apart from that - and should be included to ENEX as well.

By doing so, one ENEX might contain a complete user's EN account content with notebook information - no need to select multiple ENEXs with specific destination notebooks on import.

If You (or current EN developers) are in doubt whether a user really plans to merge ENEX content to current notebooks, offer two commands: "Merge ENEX" means "use current notebooks (and tags) " whereas "Import ENEX" means "create new notebooks (and tags)".

It's only an idea - it your (all) turn now to to spin it further...

Pumpkinzero · January 8, 2021

When I post a blog, the link says >> rev="en_rl_none" <<

what does it mean?

Deepak Gupta · May 7, 2021

Hi,

Simplenote and Microsoft OneNote are my next options when I'm not using Evernote.

Cheers!

PinkElephant · May 7, 2021

How good we do know this now …

Cheers !

TonyLim · June 2, 2021

I have been trying to adapt to v10. I still feel it slows me down. I just move to Mac. But the Evernote that works well for my workflow is Evernote Windows 6.25.1. So, now I run Evernote Windows in Parallel on my M1 MacBook Air.

Has anyone successfully or in the midst of moving your contents out of Evernote to another product/software?

DTLow · June 2, 2021

5 hours ago, TonyLim said:

Has anyone successfully or in the midst of moving your contents out of Evernote to another product/software?

I've been successful in moving content out of Evernote
using the Evernote Legacy product on a Mac,
and the export feature (html format)
Separate files are created for each note, and the content can be accessed using any browser app

Less successful with this method is access to metadata

TonyLim · June 3, 2021

Does that export out the attachments? And where have you move them too? I mean another app to manage the content.

DTLow · June 3, 2021

44 minutes ago, TonyLim said:

Does that export out the attachments?

Yes, the export includes attachments

>>I mean another app to manage the content.

I'm still using the Evernote Legacy product
There are many apps/services to manage content
Some of them support a direct load from Evernote

eric99 · September 11, 2021

On 12/29/2020 at 3:34 PM, AlbertR said:

<sorry for jumping in once more - we might open an new thread for this 😉>

GUIDs are designed to be unique even if they're created indepentely on different machines. Creating them only on server site might have been a design fail.

If a note jumps into life, it should get a GUID. Syncing a note identified by its GUID means "take the last change" - in a first try. Next step to get a more reliable result is "Compare change dates with last sync date. If both note versions differ from sync dates put the older one to 'conflicts' and take the new one as actual." A user who meets too many conflicts will think over his/her workflow...

If a note is identified by a GUID from birth to dead, it would be a really good idea to import it back from an ENEX with exactly this GUID (and its assigned "changed" and "last synced" date). Every link to this note would keep intact (if links are based on destination GUIDs also). Users might export notes, delete them from their workspaces, re-import them later or move them to other workspaces, ... - all without loosing any reference to the correct note.

Forgetting notebook information in ENEX might be another design fail (which can be solved of course by an ENEX-2 in future 😉)

A notebook could be identified by a GUID. A note-to-notebook assignment means simply adding the notebook GUID to a note (like adding tag-GUIDs to a note). Notebook properties like its name, parent notebook, ownership (in business spaces) and so on are apart from that - and should be included to ENEX as well.

By doing so, one ENEX might contain a complete user's EN account content with notebook information - no need to select multiple ENEXs with specific destination notebooks on import.

If You (or current EN developers) are in doubt whether a user really plans to merge ENEX content to current notebooks, offer two commands: "Merge ENEX" means "use current notebooks (and tags) " whereas "Import ENEX" means "create new notebooks (and tags)".

It's only an idea - it your (all) turn now to to spin it further...

I just found this interesting script to solve the GUID problem when importing ENEX files into Joplin:

https://github.com/msbentley/everlink . This technique may be used for other targets as well.

gazumped · September 11, 2021

Side issue, but just for general information -

Can't remember whether I mentioned this in one of the earlier pages, but I can get page linking and internal page anchors to work in shared pages using Postach.io. It turns an Evernote notebook into a blog, with its own page linking structure in an HTML 'wrapper' as a separate website.

Postach.io will accept and interpret HTML codes including page anchors, so once you have a blog 'site' you can assign any one of the notebook pages as a notional Index Page and grab the link locations from the published pages.

Obviously won't help in exporting the sire to another service, but if all you're looking for is 'proper' linking...

Looking For An Evernote Alternative .. Probably found the closest option

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