Manually re-arrange notebook/notes/tasks

[jacquesrenatus 13]

I should be able to sort notes in a notebook manually, and Evernote should remember each notebook's manual sort order if I later select an alphabetic sort and then want to go back to viewing my manual sort order. (New notes added after my manual sort could be added to either the top or the bottom of the lists in the manual sort view.) I'm using Evernote 2.0 on OS X.

[Manya70 13]

The ability to have the manual sorting of notes in particular has been requested over several threads in the last 8 years and does not seem to be high on the agenda for Evernote for some reason. All competitor products, OneNote, Google Keep, Simple Note all have the ability to do this.  

I agree,  I have seen people post good enhancement requests but get questioned why they would need this or be given several work arounds. In general, I think its just the community trying to contribute and help a fellow user. In fact, with regards to this manual sorting, I was given a work around of using number prefix like 10, 20, 30 etc and sort by title. I do use reminders but find it messy and too much thinking to use as a sort method. ie. having to pick random date/times that match the order you are thinking about then getting reminders pop up, that are not real reminders just put there to help you sort. Also the deal breaker for me is that on the Android app, you can't sort by Reminders so you can't get a consistent view on Windows and Android.

Its so frustrating for me that manually sorting is not possible in Evernote and I would goto another service if it wasn't for the fact that Evernote is so much better than all the others.. 

 

 

  

[Thiago Nakamura 6]

Em 23/02/2017 at 10:49, Vitali Benz disse:

Also a very big +1 for manual sort. Please consider doing this!

Currently I'm using the alphabetical approach like this one, but that's a pain in the a** if you have to reorder notes or just slightly change order related things...

So pleeeeeaaaaseee would ya???

 

 

Having to sort my notebooks "alphabetically" without having an option to drag and drop them where I want them to stay, really, really bothers me..

Specially when I have a considerable number of notebooks using numbers or other workarounds and I want to include a new one in a specific position. 

I have to redo all my  notebook sorting just to have this single one in the place I want.

Many other apps (Onenote, Todoist, Notion, etc.) have this feature but EN doesn't. 

I really don't know why Evernote's culture always forces users to think in workarounds for simple features that in other apps are already there by default. 😫

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

+1 for manual sort order!

Seems like a very natural basic build block thing to do with lots of applications - scrum board, gtd, writing a term paper, helping to decide which patern I like best - this something I have been itching for for a while. The idea that you can already do this by tagging or changing the title to affect sort just seems silly to me. 50 notes and I want to change the order of 1 note in the middle?

I don't think you need a field to show the priority, just let me drag them around and remember what order they are in the next time I open evernote. If I move a note to a new notebook, just drop it to the bottom.

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

I didn't even know this thread existed. I have been wanting the same thing, but I haven't been able to express it very clearly, and here we are with a simple solution: a manual sort order. Yes. This is what I want.

I do a lot of writing, amongst other things, and I would appreciate the ability to arrange and re-arrange notes freely. Once you have more than a handful of notes, the renaming process to change the sort (using sort by title) or re-dating process (using sort by created date) becomes quite laborious, and on some platforms (the iOS), the re-dating option isn't available.

My current workaround is to create a note full of note links. Then, it is a relatively simple matter to cut/paste in order to change the order. This works well enough, but it isn't quite the same, because you are jumping from note to note instead of seeing them all lined up conveniently in the center pane. We cannot make note links on mobile platforms yet, so this is only an option if you are using desktops.

It isn't a deal-breaker or anything, but the ability to manually determine the search order could potentially affect a lot of users. Complaints about the inability to pin notes to the top, GTD folks, writers, users preparing a kind of "slide show" of notes with photographs, and people sharing notebooks (multiple users with multiple naming conventions make things a bit messy).

[CalS 5,280]

Maybe for notebooks and stacks, not so sure for notes.  Manually sorting more than 10 of anything makes little sense to me if we want to enter the realm of ridiculous.

[schols 4]

Yeah this thread is a bit funny in the sense that some people are arguing against a feature that wouldn't get in their way, one very vocal person here going so far as to repeatedly say our work method must be wrong. How can you be so sure?

Argue how hard it is to implement, argue that not enough people need it, sure — but please don't insult our work methods. Nothing wrong with getting one's thoughts in relative order.

I continue to use Evernote happily as a memory vault. It is very good at that, with its webclipping and embedding of all sorts of media. The pictogram of an elephant is appropriate.

For things where manual sorting is a must, I now use https://Notion.so and https://workflowy.com. I would have liked to do everything in Evernote, but the TOC workaround is not workable for me. So if you stumble upon this thread and realise that manual sorting in Evernote just isn't going to happen, have a look at those alternatives and see if you can use them parallel to Evernote.

[david987 1]

We PLEASE absolutely need this. This is the only reason why I'm still (mostly) a relatively unhappy Onenote user. Would love to move over to Evernote but this prevents me, really. 

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, schols said:

... please don't insult our work methods ... For things where manual sorting is a must ...

No comments on work methods    
but if "manual sorting is a must" Evernote is the wrong product for you - it's smart to look at a different product

In the meantime, a request has been posted.  
To indicate support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion    

Posting these Boohoo posts just creates static   
and suggesting there's minimal work to implement this is an insult

[LanGun44 1]

100% it would be nice to sort the notebooks in the order I want them. It shouldn’t always be that most recently edited gets pushed to the left. This seems like an easy feature to implement, I wonder if its harder than it sounds for the developers? 

[jbenson2 2,147]

Interesting suggestion - Have you tried sorting by selecting the topic at the top of each column? Can you offer an example of what you want to sort? There are several work-around solutions that might address your need.

[jefito 5,589]

We've had this suggestion before, back a couple of months ago. Basically means having a separate field (or index) that tracks manual order, which changes when you move notes around, possibly cascading into other notes (e.g. I have notes in order 1, 2 and 3, I move 3 above 2 and so must change both 2 and 3's sort order index -- swaps them in this case). Also gets a little messy and possible confusing if I am viewing a filtered list (via notebook or tag or saved search), and start moving things around: how does it affect other notes not currently being viewed?

~Jeff

[jacquesrenatus 13]

Jeff,

Basically means having a separate field (or index) that tracks manual order,

Not necessarily. The simplest solution (practically zero storage overhead) is to attach a map/dictionary to each user's account called "Sorted Notebooks": a dictionary where each key is the Globally Unique ID of a Notebook and each value is a comma delimited string of sorted Note GUIDs. When I opt to sort a Notebook manually, the string of Note GUIDs is re-hydrated into a linked list of Note GUIDs. (Inserting into a linked list only ever requires updating two list items.) This linked list determines the order of the Notes, and Notes added after the last manual sort can be added to the end of the linked list.

Also gets a little messy and possible confusing if I am viewing a filtered list (via notebook or tag or saved search), and start moving things around: how does it affect other notes not currently being viewed?

Great point. If, in a Search, Saved Search, or Tag view, the user started dragging a note to re-order it, they'd get either of the following prompts:

"This list is currently being sorted by search or tag criteria. Please select a Notebook to re-order its contents."

or

"This list is currently being sorted by search or tag criteria. If you want to manually re-sort this particular set of notes, click *here* to create a new 'Scrapbook' based on this list. Otherwise, select a Notebook to re-order its contents.

(A Scrapbook, which would really be just a list of note GUIDs, would be very handy if you cared to implement it. E.g. If I, as a Dungeon Master, had a Notebook of Drow NPCs and a Notebook of Dwarf NPCs, I could select notes from each Notebook to make a Scrapbook called "possible encounters for the Underground Campaign"-- I wouldn't want to clutter up my tag namespace with such an arbitrary tag.)

And, of course, Evernote coders could create a dictionary called "Sorted Tags" which would work just like "Sorted Notebooks" described above.

[jacquesrenatus 13]

jbenson2,

My use case happens to be GTD, where each Notebook is a "project" and each Note is a "next action". Another use case might be a writer or journalist needing to manually organize a story. Numbering the title of each Note in a notebook might work, and then using fractions (e.g. 1.25) when I need to squeeze a Note in between whole numbers, but I think Evernote can make this happen.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

My use case happens to be GTD,

Please search on GTD - some people have been able to tweak EN to work with the GTD philosophy.

but I think Evernote can make this happen.

They probably can. I don't know. But they probably won't.

[jbenson2 2,147]

My use case happens to be GTD, where each Notebook is a "project" and each Note is a "next action". Another use case might be a writer or journalist needing to manually organize a story. Numbering the title of each Note in a notebook might work, and then using fractions (e.g. 1.25) when I need to squeeze a Note in between whole numbers, but I think Evernote can make this happen.

There are a lot of folks who would like to see GTD in Evernote. Even Phil Libin, the Evernote CEO, said on 4/05/2010: All notes will get a “due date” field in the next couple of versions. You can then use all sorts of third-party reminder and calendar apps with it.

We've had a couple versions released since then, so I am hoping the due date field will be just around the corner (with the caveat that priorities do change).

It is my experience that there are many ways to skin a cat with Evernote. (sorry for the poor choice of words PETA). I use the create date to track my GTD items in the future. But once the Due Date becomes available, watch out. There will be a flurry of new ways to work your GTD items.

I could envision the new "Due Date" field being helpful for a journalist who wants to add chapters to his story and keep them in order. Another fellow in this forum was looking for a way to sort his Biblical notes based on the books of the bible. Kind of puts a different meaning to the End of Days. Using the Due Date as a sort method is not perfect, but it could be a nice step forward. And the "Due Date" field will allow for integration with third party reminder apps.

[jacquesrenatus 13]

I don't see this as a GTD feature request-- If I know that a notebook is sorted just the way I like it, I can scroll to the middle or the end of the notebook to find the note I need without having to remember the title of the note. It seems technically fairly do-able; if I'm wrong, let me know.

I'm sure I can make Evernote work as my GTD system as-is. I don't even particularly want a 'due date' field for notes at this time, because if you're doing GTD right (which I rarely am) you're looking at your lists often enough that you have a sense of when things are due, and you're looking at an actual calender (which is only for things with hard deadlines) as well.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Sorry if I misunderstood you. Your first sentence started out with "My use case happens to be GTD", so I expanded on it. I also mentioned the variety of uses that a due date will offer and why so many people are asking for it. One of them could be the ability to manually sort notes in a sequence that is important to the user. To sort notebooks into a user-specific sequence, just use a prefix in front of the notebook's name. The drawback is you don't get the ability to easily re-sort the notebooks in a different fashion.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

My use case happens to be GTD,

I don't see this as a GTD feature request--

???

It seems technically fairly do-able; if I'm wrong, let me know.

The only people who can address that are those who work at EN. But as has been pointed out a few times, now, this doesn't seem to be anything EN is interested in adding. But if they were, it would be a good long while, so it's best to learn to use the tools already in EN.

[jacquesrenatus 13]

BnF, just so other readers of this thread aren't confused;

I wrote that "My use case happens to be GTD..." in response to jbenson2's request for an example of how a manual sort might be used. I did not mention GTD in my original feature request because I see this feature as something anyone might use constantly once they clicked on a note and realized they could drag it up or down within a notebook.

[jefito 5,589]

A prior discussion here: http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=19924&p=83399.

~Jeff

[jacquesrenatus 13]

It sounds like Evernote is definitely going to implement links between notes, which might serve as a workaround toward this feature, especially if Evernote uses

 what I refer to a note as 

syntax.

A modest proposal: every note is also a notebook!

I was going to suggest that you turn the notebook/note paradigm into a tree paradigm (where each note also has a notebook attribute) but I believe that allowing users to order notes in a notebook manually will be logically equivalent, at least for most purposes. Also, keeping the tree paradigm acyclic might be a challenge. Having said that, a graph of notes might be interesting...

[sci-burns 0]

+1 for manual sort order!

Seems like a very natural basic build block thing to do with lots of applications - scrum board, gtd, writing a term paper, helping to decide which patern I like best - this something I have been itching for for a while. The idea that you can already do this by tagging or changing the title to affect sort just seems silly to me. 50 notes and I want to change the order of 1 note in the middle?

I don't think you need a field to show the priority, just let me drag them around and remember what order they are in the next time I open evernote. If I move a note to a new notebook, just drop it to the bottom.

[Carton 0]

Yes, yes, and yes. 

Give us manual sort.

It is so important for organizing your notes, particularly if you have a big folder.

Seems such a simple thing. Why can you do it, Evernote?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Yes, yes, and yes. 

Give us manual sort.

It is so important for organizing your notes, particularly if you have a big folder.

Seems such a simple thing. Why can you do it, Evernote?

but I think Evernote can make this happen.

They probably can. I don't know. But they probably won't.

[Davis 0]

Manual sort! Please!

 

Evernote is simply useless to me as a writer without manual sort. The traditional method of index cards is tried and true. Until Evernote can mimic that basic, basic functionality, I'm not interested. I downloaded in hope, but alas, I can't use EN until it lets me sort notes manually. 

 

Maybe there is another product out there that does? I'm going to go looking.

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Manual sort! Please!

 

Evernote is simply useless to me as a writer without manual sort. The traditional method of index cards is tried and true. Until Evernote can mimic that basic, basic functionality, I'm not interested. I downloaded in hope, but alas, I can't use EN until it lets me sort notes manually. 

 

Maybe there is another product out there that does? I'm going to go looking.

Hi. Welcome to the forums. There is no manual sort in Evernote. OneNote is a product that has it. Some possible workarounds with Evernote include using the Shortcuts area (on Mac) for manual sorting. Alternatively, you could create an "index" note with links to all of the notes for your writing, and move those note links around within the index note.

Outside of Evernote, Scrivener is an excellent piece of software designed for writers. It uses the index card metaphor. I quite like it. This means that Evernote becomes my place for research and Scrivener is used for writing.

[presta 0]

I too have felt the need of manual sorting in various occasions, this will be quite handy if introduced. Its quite easy to remember the order we have listed something rather than trying to fit our needs as in the system.

[cygnoir 4]

+1 for manual sorting of notes within notebooks. Thank you.

[manum 1]

I'm not very optimistic since it has been requested for almost 4 years...

But still : +1 for manual sorting  (on mac client)

[PrecariousPhoto 4]

+ 1 billion for manual sort



My current solution...

Manual sort of Notebooks and notes and nesting Notebooks (even just a couple of levels) would make EN the go to for all my personal and professional projects rather than just some of them.

[manum 1]

Manual sort of Notebooks and notes and nesting Notebooks (even just a couple of levels) would make EN the go to for all my personal and professional projects rather than just some of them.

 

Hello PrecariousPhoto,

nested notebooks are already available (at least, on mac client).

we can make "piles" with notebooks to organize them together. Just one level available though.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hello PrecariousPhoto,

nested notebooks are already available (at least, on mac client).

we can make "piles" with notebooks to organize them together. Just one level available though.

Evernote does not have nested notebooks. Stacks (the Evernote term) can *group* notebooks. But stacks cannot contain notes or other stacks.

[manum 1]

 

Hello PrecariousPhoto,

nested notebooks are already available (at least, on mac client)

we can make "piles" with notebooks to organize them together. Just one level available though.

Evernote does not have nested notebooks. Stacks (the Evernote term) can *group* notebooks. But stacks cannot contain notes or other stacks.

 

 

Sorry, I may have not understood PrecariousPhoto's request properly (I'm french).

"Nested notebooks" and "stacks" looked pretty much the same to me. It's a new level to organize your work by grouping your notebooks (as you group your notes in notebooks).

But now, reading your post BurgersNFries, I get the difference

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Sorry, I may have not understood PrecariousPhoto's request properly (I'm french).

"Nested notebooks" and "stacks" looked pretty much the same to me. It's a new level to organize your work by grouping your notebooks (as you group your notes in notebooks).

But now, reading your post BurgersNFries, I get the difference

No problem. ;-)

[PrecariousPhoto 4]

Stacking is great in some situations. It's a nice tool to have and I do use it.

 

But nested notebooks (just two levels even) and !!! manual sort !!! would bring a much more productive and efficient workflow to EN for some of its users.

[kih305 4]

On 12/12/2014 at 10:14 AM, PrecariousPhoto said:

Stacking is great in some situations. It's a nice tool to have and I do use it.

 

But nested notebooks (just two levels even) and !!! manual sort !!! would bring a much more productive and efficient workflow to EN for some of its users.

I keep trying to like evernote but my mind works best when there's a consistent order. Numbering is really annoying and it's not at all useable. e.g. i have both nested notebooks and tags and have to number everything to keep the order i need. That would be semi ok but when adding a new note and i try to type a tag in for it i get no suggestions as i type. It doesn't recognise it as an established tag as my tag has numbers in front of it to be able to order them in the nest. e.g. i want to add the tag "film" but i now have to remember that it's called "2.1. film". And forget about it on the iphone. That 2-column list of tags is laughable. 

It's essentially a fatal flaw for me and i'm sure many power users. And why i continue to keep cycling between onenote and evernote. Evernote has great capture but onenote has end to end usability. 

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, kih305 said:

I keep trying to like evernote but my mind works best when there's a consistent order. Numbering is really annoying and it's not at all useable. e.g. i have both nested notebooks and tags and have to number everything to keep the order i need. That would be semi ok but when adding a new note and i try to type a tag in for it i get no suggestions as i type. It doesn't recognise it as an established tag as my tag has numbers in front of it to be able to order them in the nest. e.g. i want to add the tag "film" but i now have to remember that it's called "2.1. film". And forget about it on the iphone. That 2-column list of tags is laughable. 

It's essentially a fatal flaw for me and i'm sure many power users. And why i continue to keep cycling between onenote and evernote. Evernote has great capture but onenote has end to end usability. 

For me, consistent order means alpha - a random order seems like chaos even if assigned by me

Not sure why your tag naming uses 2.1.film instead of simply film   This would also confuse me
Can you explain why film can't be simply film

[kih305 4]

On 27/09/2016 at 10:21 PM, DTLow said:

For me, consistent order means alpha - a random order seems like chaos even if assigned by me

Not sure why your tag naming uses 2.1.film instead of simply film   This would also confuse me
Can you explain why film can't be simply film

Sure thing. So i think structurally. I process the information i gather, ideas i have and projects i'm doing by putting it in a certain place. My brain is more at ease knowing where it is. This structure is part of my planning - certain orders related to importance or sequence or just the order i thought of it all. So i need a manual base structure and then tagging on top of that for additional mashups. The way evernote is currently there is no way for me to work. There are major flaws with both the notebook and tag implementation.

Notebooks: If i try to use notebooks i only get two levels (and it's infuriating to try to quickly add a whole project with the kludgy way you have to do it).

Tags: If i try to use tags, then i have to number them all to maintain the order. The issue here is extra time, i have to remember the exact number of each tag to be able to add it to any note and when i try to find something from tags on ios it's a cluster fk (some weird two column alphabetical list - where's the hierarchy i worked so hard to create??).  

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2016-09-27 at 5:21 AM, DTLow said:

Not sure why your tag naming uses 2.1.film instead of simply film   This would also confuse me
Can you explain why film can't be simply film

 

46 minutes ago, kih305 said:

Tags: If i try to use tags, then i have to number them all to maintain the order. The issue here is extra time, i have to remember the exact number of each tag to be able to add it to any note and when i try to find something from tags on ios it's a cluster fk (some weird two column alphabetical list - where's the hierarchy i worked so hard to create??).  

You haven't explained why you're using 2.1.1film instead of simply film
I gather you want to maintain some sort of order other than alpha - but why?

Regardless, on my Mac, I could make use of the taglist in my sidebar to locate tags if I had a complicated hierarchy

[kih305 4]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

 

You haven't explained why you're using 2.1.1film instead of simply film
I gather you want to maintain some sort of order other than alpha - but why?

Regardless, on my Mac, I could make use of the taglist in my sidebar to locate tags if I had a complicated hierarchy

Yes you could make use of a taglist on your mac. But I'm sure, like me, most of us are on a mobile device at least half the time. 

Thought i explained why I want manual sort. "This structure is part of my planning - certain orders related to importance or sequence or just the order i thought of it all." This is very important for me to treat my note taking system as an extension of my brain. I review data/idea/research as groups of notes. So if i want to return to my notes on "film" i need it to be where i left it and ordered the same way for me to quickly pick up where i left off. 

[jameskachan 17]

2016 Evernote.

PLEASE — Provide manual sorting options for Notebooks (and Notes).

COME ON. This is as essential as it gets for a lot of users. PLEASE. MANUAL SORTING OPTIONS.

[jefito 5,589]

Moved to the Evernote Feature Requests subforum, where it can be upvoted by forum-goers...

[jameskachan 17]

5 minutes ago, jefito said:

Moved to the Evernote Feature Requests subforum, where it can be upvoted by forum-goers...

Jefito — Thanks, do you have a link for that?

[Vitali Benz 0]

Also a very big +1 for manual sort. Please consider doing this!

Currently I'm using the alphabetical approach like this one, but that's a pain in the a** if you have to reorder notes or just slightly change order related things...

So pleeeeeaaaaseee would ya???

On 5.12.2014 at 0:35 AM, PrecariousPhoto said:

+ 1 billion for manual sort



My current solution...

Manual sort of Notebooks and notes and nesting Notebooks (even just a couple of levels) would make EN the go to for all my personal and professional projects rather than just some of them.

 

 

[Alain L 0]

In addition to the current available options to sort by Title, Create date or Modify date (in ascending or decending order), I'd love to be able to manually sort for some note books. 

Now, my workaround is to put a number in  front of the note title and sort by title. But changes are tedious.

For specific notebooks, being able to select to sort manually and drag & drop the notes in the desired order would be a blessing.

 

[IKnowSomething 0]

Hi,

I've been having syncing issues with OneNote whilst using a VPN so I have decided to try an alternative note applicaiton and came across Evernote so I apologize for my silly question as I am new but.. how do I manually sort my A. Notebooks B. Notes/tasks within a single notebook?

I have attached an example, a screenshot of 3 notes within a single notebook titled "All Health Diary" - I can't seem to manually re-arrange (drag and drop) those 3 in the order I want except through using a predefined "sort by.." options which is not what I want!

Edited June 1, 2019 by IKnowSomething
Clarity

[jefito 5,589]

On 6/1/2019 at 12:18 PM, IKnowSomething said:

how do I manually sort my A. Notebooks B. Notes/tasks within a single notebook?

There is no way in Evernote, at least at this time. Ordering for notebooks is alphabetical. Ordering for notes can be  via a number of ways, including alphabetically, by title, created date, updated date, adn so on. Availability of note sorting options depends on the client you're using (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, web).

The one thing in Evernote that you can generally sort manually is reminders (which are a kind of a note typically displayed in their own special sublit).

[PinkElephant 8,075]

If you want to set up a sort of manual sorting, you can set a prefix before the real content.

Like Numbers before the notebook title („1_MyNotebook“ will show before „2_ANotebook“, whereas „MyNotebook“ will show behind „ANotebook“) , will then sort following the numbers. You may use symbols to have some notebooks stand out, like „@Inbox“ to have your Inbox notebook always on top of the list.

On notes, you can set up an elaborate system of creating titles for the notes, that will contain a lot of searchable information without searching the full notes (search can be restricted to for example just the titles).

If you want to group several notebooks together, another option is to use stacks for some logical groups. Like Business, Private, Finances, Family, Blogresearch, Travel, Hobbies etc. You can set the stack a notebook should belong to in the notebook settings.

Personally, I do not think that too much sorting will do you any good except complicating your data housekeeping. I personally rely on a) the excellent search function b) tagging and c) not too many notebooks. The more you fracture the information over notebooks, the more often you will have to search „all notebooks“. This will produce more blind hits than a search narrowed down to a single notebook.

Check out the Help&Support Pages of the EN Website. They have many articles about best practice and how-to-tips. One is an article about the advanced search syntax that you can use to discover any piece of information dug deep somewhere in your data base.

[BLCbbmp 0]

Please, even Premium members don´t have this basic and useful feature.

 

Using reminders and shortcuts as workaround is absolutely ridiculous. It´s pathetic consider this lame workaround in 2019.

With numerous notes and notebooks, in most of the cases the traditional sorting (name, date...) becomes useless (seriously, who in this earth needs an "origin app" or "origin URL" sort? "Reverse sort", are you kidding?).

People who say that one should use another app for priorize things should shut the F up.

 

[DTLow 5,736]

8 hours ago, brunolemos.ssa@gmail.com said:

Manual sorting for notes, notebooks and stacks

Implementation of "Manual" sorting is do-able    
(already implemented for Shortcuts and Reminders)

Evernote has to add a sequencing field to the records for notes, notebooks and stacks  
and modify the UI for each app 

Stacks will be more work; there's currently no stack record; it's a text field on the notebook record

I don't think this request has much user support; the vote count will indicate this.   
The majority of users are unwilling to pay for product development   
   
Stacks and Notebooks are currently sorted in alpha sequence   
A work-around is to prefix the name with a sequencing character/number   
    
>>priorize things

Are you using sort sequence to priorize?
For my tasks, I use Urgent and Important tags (Eisenhower Matrix)

[jefito 5,589]

11 hours ago, brunolemos.ssa@gmail.com said:

Using reminders and shortcuts as workaround is absolutely ridiculous. It´s pathetic consider this lame workaround in 2019.

Thank you for your opinion; we all have them. Mine is that reminders were purpose-built to support manual sorting if that's what you want. Hardly a workaround, lame or not. Evernote's reminders work very nicely for me, thanks very much. Shortcuts and saved searches are also really handy. Of course I don't use a lot of notebooks or stacks because they tend to just get in the way.

11 hours ago, brunolemos.ssa@gmail.com said:

With numerous notes and notebooks, in most of the cases the traditional sorting (name, date...) becomes useless (seriously, who in this earth needs an "origin app" or "origin URL" sort? "Reverse sort", are you kidding?).

Smart people use filtering to identify relevant notes, in preference to sorting: cut down your search space enough, and sorting hardly matters. And smart people understand why something called "reverse sort" might be useful (hint, "updated date" for one). Just because there are other attributes that you might use to search/sort on (e.g. "origin app", etc.) doesn't mean that you have to use them if they confuse you.

11 hours ago, brunolemos.ssa@gmail.com said:

People who say that one should use another app for priorize things should shut the F up.

Um, maybe you should take a step back and consider that one catches flies with honey, not with trash talk.

Oh, and you might also consider changing your public user name from your email address to something else, lest you become a spam target.

[BLCbbmp 0]

I would appreciate this post to be deleted.

I just want to apologyze about the harsh speak.

About everything  else, the same answers that I´ve seen before every time this type of request comes up, that I totally disagree. And answers always embeded with some sort of arrogance.

Maybe Manually sorting more than 10 notes makes little sense for 126561 notes, but WILL make sense for the 10,9,8 or even 3 first notes, USER will define what is best for self.

Em 25/11/2019 at 21:07, DTLow disse:

A work-around is to prefix the name with a sequencing character/number

Exaclty what I have been doing. Much better 00, 01, 999 naming than manual sorting for sure

 

I realized that this request will never happen. So, I give up.

 

[CalS 5,280]

2 hours ago, BLCbbmp said:

And answers always embeded with some sort of arrogance.

As do the questions....

On 11/25/2019 at 10:00 AM, BLCbbmp said:

Using reminders and shortcuts as workaround is absolutely ridiculous. It´s pathetic consider this lame workaround in 2019.

 

[jefito 5,589]

On 11/28/2019 at 4:58 PM, BLCbbmp said:

I just want to apologyze about the harsh speak.

Accepted, thank you.

On 11/28/2019 at 4:58 PM, BLCbbmp said:

About everything  else, the same answers that I´ve seen before every time this type of request comes up, that I totally disagree. And answers always embeded with some sort of arrogance.

This is a fair request, but don't discount the answers you hear -- they're typically from users who have long experience with using Evernote and who help out a lot of people on these forums, for free, on a daily basis. They know their Evernote stuff and their advice is generally worth paying attention to.

On 11/28/2019 at 4:58 PM, BLCbbmp said:

Maybe Manually sorting more than 10 notes makes little sense for 126561 notes, but WILL make sense for the 10,9,8 or even 3 first notes, USER will define what is best for self.

I think this is generally correct; you only want to manually sort -- via whatever means -- a small number of your note collection. But consider that using reminders to do essentially the same thing doesn't really cost a lot more effort, if any. You want to focus on a small number of notes, mark them as reminders -- they float to the top. You want to sort them manually, you can do that. When you're done with one, clear its reminder, and it's removed from the reminders list. That's how I use them, anyways. I think that if you give them a fair try, you might find that they are far from a "lame workaround".  I'd much rather use reminders than use the retitling workaround, which I see as awkward and inefficient.

YMMV, of course.

[mlnewyear 0]

Want to be able to select where to put notebooks in the organization scheme rather than have it sorted by the pre-determined options, which don't really allow for the most convenience. 

[Alxa 478]

Even when you use the workaround with the reminders you cannot sort the reminder notes manually. Tested this with EN Web and the brand new beta client. Manual sorting is no way supported. I cannot find any reason why not to add a sorting option "manual sort" for optimizing intuitive work flows.

My best example: collection of travel ideas, web clippings. Drag and drop idea notes to sort during planing process is much more intuitive. Renaming each note stops the workflow. 

[Alxa 478]

The reason why this should be implemented? Manual sorting simply corresponds to the human way of thinking. Sometimes you want to sort a specific notebook manually as you do with your paper cards and folders. Virtually all competitors have an understanding for this...

 Why not making Evernote more HUMAN and add such a simple but useful functionality.

[Manya70 13]

On 9/1/2020 at 8:30 AM, Alxa said:

I cannot find any reason why not to add a sorting option "manual sort" for optimizing intuitive work flows.

I agree 100%. I use reminders only for time specific tasks (or actual reminders). I have a "Now" notebook where I might have 5 to 10 notes. Some notes I want somewhere at the bottom some at the top of the list.  Especially useful when my workflow involves click and drag notes between notebooks (GTD David Allen style). I cant drag the note in the order I want, or pin it or make the title bold or different colour. I can create a tag with a colour and assign it to the note but there is a small line with that color above the note title but its not clear which note it belongs to.. At the moment, i use the number pre-fix method which works but it involves constant changing of numbers and I need to make sure the View and sort method is correct and its all so messy.

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, Alxa said:

The reason why this should be implemented?

Priorities?   
There are other requests with greater user support; this request only has 9 votes   
To indicate support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

For a work-around, maintain an index note using the copy links function   
We can manually sequence the links in the note

[Summerstorm 2]

On 6/3/2019 at 1:51 PM, PinkElephant said:

Personally, I do not think that too much sorting will do you any good except complicating your data housekeeping.

In my case, being able to manually rearrange notes would be super helpful.

I want to rent an apartment house so I'm looking at different rental sites. I want to create one note per house, with a couple images, link to the site, and some text. Then I want to sort those with the #1 candidate at the top.

Manual order is such a basic capability in any list or TODO software. I'm surprised Evernote still hasn't implemented it.

Prefixing items with numbers is a cumbersome hack when you want to add "1.5" between 1 and 2. You can start with 10, 20, 30, then add in-between, but it's still a horrible kludge, when better software exists (Podio, Google Keep).

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

Hi, and welcome to the forums. Manual ordering of a list within a note is always possible. Manual ordering of notes themselves is something that has often been requested, but is not yet implemented. I can see where retitling notes would be a pain. Another approach might be to create an index note. It requires a little setup, but then should be fairly easy.

1. Create a new note to be the index note, and create a numbered list in it.
2. Go to your current #1 house note, copy its link (you can use the Note menu), then go back to the index note and paste the link at #1 on the list.
3. Repeat with all the house notes, in order.
   1. In the index note, you can reorder the links as you need. If you need a 1.5 between 1 and 2 ... hmmm. I'd create a top-level "One" entry, then beneath it indent one level and add each of the "1.n" entries (which would get numbered 1, 2, etc.).

Hope that's some kind of help!

[DTLow 5,736]

On 10/1/2020 at 6:03 PM, Summerstorm said:

Manual order is such a basic capability in any list or TODO software. I'm surprised Evernote still hasn't implemented it.

I moved this discussion to the request forum, merged with similar requests, and added my vote 

Currently, the place for manual order is the Shortcuts section   
These can be Notes, Notebooks, Tags or Saved Searches   
More information at https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209004637-Create-shortcuts

Order is adjusted using drad-and-drop

[Flash G 38]

Until recently, we could manually sort reminders.  This let me move my todo items up and down based on priority.  This was critical to my workflow, but it seems to have disappeared in the new app :(.  Is there any realistic replacement way to do this?  Otherwise I hope Evernote will restore the functionality ASAP.  If they are going to call this new app an "upgrade", it should support all the basic features of the old one.

[schols 4]

Yes please! +1

If this comparatively simple feature would be added, it would make Evernote far more versatile.

Without manual sorting of notes, Evernote is not suitable to keep track of planning or things one must review regularly. When things cannot be put in a recognisable place, every note becomes as important as every other note, and it is confusing.

As it is now, Evernote is more suited to storing information for later search and retrieval. I will keep using it as such: an pile of information with a great search function.

[lulabyte 0]

I too would appreciate this feature. I may switch to UpNote instead since it allows manually organizing of notes.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

There are different ways to achieve this:

- Use tags (today / this week / waiting for etc.)

- Create a TOC note with links to the relevant notes. Mark it as shortcut note, add, arrange and erase links as you move ahead

- Add a task to the notes

It may all be not the same as what you imagine - but it works today.

[schols 4]

4 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

There are different ways to achieve this:

- Use tags (today / this week / waiting for etc.)

- Create a TOC note with links to the relevant notes. Mark it as shortcut note, add, arrange and erase links as you move ahead

- Add a task to the notes

It may all be not the same as what you imagine - but it works today.

Thanks for these tips, and yes this can be done, but it is all slow and error-prone. It's like using a word processor to do your accounting.

TOC note will do it, but every time you make a note, you need to remember you update the TOC note so you don't loose track of things.
Basically the TOC note will be replacing most of the Evernote user interface.

Tags and tasks will work for very limited few use cases only.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

You should not be moving notes around a lot anyhow.

If you do, you are running a very inefficient workflow.

It would be instead of sending emails (or messages) to carry envelops with the printed information around all the time.

[The Total Legend 1]

They need to add manual sorting to Evernote now, this is the most basic thing this editor should have.

I am using Evernote to outline a novel, but the chapters keep changing orders: some get deleted, some get added, and some get renamed — and all the tricks and hacks to keep things in a specific order have become a major impediment.

Funny enough, I got a somewhat insulting email from Evernote's marketing that encourages novel writers to use Evernote to "Keep Everything Organized" which is sadly ironic because it's nearly impossible to keep anything organized without manual sorting. And adding to the insult, they ask to create a Table of Contents page to hyperlink to other pages which still doesn't help.

Manual sorting is not difficult to develop and implement in a web app, and yet they advertised a reason to have it, but still offer another useless workaround.

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,075]

Ordering in the views (like per Notebook) is done based on the settings, title, dates, the like.

Just start the note title based on numbering your chapters, sort by title, and it will not reorder by itself. Or it is easy to restore the sequence.

The tip with the TOC was not bad either: Each line is a link to a note, and the links can be manually ordered, and will stay that way.

I think your writing career will take a deep dive if instead of doing what is possible you wait for EN to implement manual sorting. It means changing a lot, maybe more than it seems. I don’t see them implementing it in the foreseeable future.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:17 AM, The Total Legend said:

And adding to the insult, they ask to create a Table of Contents page to hyperlink to other pages which still doesn't help.

Not sure why this is an insult   
I think a Table-Of-Contents note is a good idea   
I see many books with a ToC   
  
I also see the use of Chapter Numbers.  It works well for sequence

[The Total Legend 1]

On 10/29/2021 at 5:21 PM, PinkElephant said:

Ordering in the views (like per Notebook) is done based on the settings, title, dates, the like.

Just start the note title based on numbering your chapters, sort by title, and it will not reorder by itself. Or it is easy to restore the sequence.

The tip with the TOC was not bad either: Each line is a link to a note, and the links can be manually ordered, and will stay that way.

I think your writing career will take a deep dive if instead of doing what is possible you wait for EN to implement manual sorting. It means changing a lot, maybe more than it seems. I don’t see them implementing it in the foreseeable future.

No, this is unacceptable. Titles change often and the result is the ordering changes. Now I have chapters like 01 Title, 02, Title, 02B Title, 02C Title, etc, because I have to rename a dozen or more chapters to keep them in order each time I add or move some around.

Creating an index page doesn't help either as it also needs to be managed each time. Going back to another page just to link to another page is really inefficient. The Cards provide an actual Title and a Summary of the text in the chapter which is most useful. They included this Card view which brings it really close to apps like Scrivener, which does allow manual sorting of these Cards, but Evernote fails at this one basic thing.

They advertise it to write novels which I have been doing, but creating index files to manage them is extremely 1990s. I want to outline a novel, not a web page.

Adding in the ability to manually sort is simple, with an option to turn if off or on as just another sorting option. I do this all the time in apps I develop with far more complex UIs. I can't believe that an app designed for note taking, advertised for writing novels, can't implement the one thing that actually gives it true custom organization other than "rename the titles" and hope it renders in the order it is asked.

I looked into the app's code, it's just basic HTML with JS that like it's compiled from React or Vue or some other framework. It should be easy for them to implement, especially if they're using state management.

On 10/29/2021 at 5:39 PM, DTLow said:

Not sure why this is an insult   
I think a Table-Of-Contents note is a good idea   
I see many books with a ToC   
  
I also see the use of Chapter Numbers.  It works well for sequence

It's an insult to me because they're advertising an extremely old and inefficient method of indexing HTML web pages (ala 1990s) as a legitimate method of custom organization because they won't offer a real solution that has been asked for, for about a decade. Any mid-tier developer and above can get it done in an hour or two.

They already have the UI implemented, drag and drop is already implemented, they just need to add the ability to perform state management of an array of cards based on the position of where the card is dragged. Very simple.

I would code it myself if they let me.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

Use an app that is made for extensive writing, if you have extensive writing at hand.

EN advertises itself for note taking and research, not for actually writing long text. Take a look at authoring tools like Ulysses or Scrivener, or any solid word processor.

Even if you think EN should create a note app tailored to your personal wishes - I can assure you they won’t. It is take it as it is or leave it.

[chappyrock 0]

On 11/25/2019 at 6:47 PM, CalS said:

Maybe for notebooks and stacks, not so sure for notes.  Manually sorting more than 10 of anything makes little sense to me if we want to enter the realm of ridiculous.

It's very common for curriculum designers or writers to want to sort dozens of notes in a specific order. I certainly do. Currently, I find I spend a lot of time inside a notebook looking for a specific idea I wrote on a note. But I can't find the note because the order of my notes keeps changing based on when a particular note was opened up. I can remember where notes are a lot more easily based on where it was the last time I accessed it. This is very frustrating to me. It's difficult to comprehend Evernote doesn't offer this as a selectable feature. 

[PinkElephant 8,075]

Relying on the ordering of notes as an information element is a bad idea, to tell it bluntly.

The only robust way to do it is by title: Create a titeling system that can be sorted, apply it and sort by title.

But there may be a better solution: Select the notes you want to „order“. Copy the links to these notes into a new note, creating a table-of-content TOC note. You can now set up an order as you like, which will be preserved even if the notes position in the notebook changes.

In the TOC you have full control about the sequence. To access a note, open the TOC note and click on the item / link. To change the order, drag & drop links up and down in the TOC.

[Flash G 38]

Ordering the notes manually would be extremely valuable if it worked.  There used to be a backdoor manual note sorting method where you could make each note a "reminder" and manually sort those.  And it was an important part of my workflow, but Evernote failed to maintain the feature in their new app.  People shouldn't call organizational methods a "bad idea" just because they don't personally need them.  It's obviously an important and highly desired feature for many of us--as evidenced by this thread! I now use a method similar to what @PinkElephant suggested (creating an index note with a long list of links to other notes), but it would be easier and better if I could just sort all the notes in a notebook manually.

[RJLUK 307]

On 12/2/2021 at 11:03 PM, PinkElephant said:

Relying on the ordering of notes as an information element is a bad idea, to tell it bluntly.

The only robust way to do it is by title: Create a titeling system that can be sorted, apply it and sort by title.

But there may be a better solution: Select the notes you want to „order“. Copy the links to these notes into a new note, creating a table-of-content TOC note. You can now set up an order as you like, which will be preserved even if the notes position in the notebook changes.

In the TOC you have full control about the sequence. To access a note, open the TOC note and click on the item / link. To change the order, drag & drop links up and down in the TOC.

Why?

This feature was first requested almost 11 YEARS ago.

[agsteele 2,942]

Perhaps that is the clue... If there has been no response in that time then perhaps it has been decided that there isn't sufficient need, it is too difficult to do, or it is on the list of plans but way down the priority.

In 11 years there have been a number of changes not least the completely new application software. v10 has so many things on the agenda suggestions like this will likely take sometime.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

IMHO it is a technical reason: To show a  sequence a database usually is indexed. The index is calculated in advance, and only read to establish the readout. This is the way it works lightning fast.

The alternative is to have a field (not indexed) and read it. Much slower, plus high load when executing.

Any (!) additional index means extending the database for all users. Plus it puts a permanent load on the server, for all accounts, since all indexes need to permanently be updated.

In addition server software and all clients need to get this ability, by adding and maintaining code.

I don’t think EN will do this just because a few users want to establish a manual sort order.

The communication strategy since long on old requests seems to be „Never say never“. We shouldn’t expect any statement here neither.

[The Total Legend 1]

On 11/2/2021 at 4:22 AM, PinkElephant said:

Use an app that is made for extensive writing, if you have extensive writing at hand.

EN advertises itself for note taking and research, not for actually writing long text. Take a look at authoring tools like Ulysses or Scrivener, or any solid word processor.

Even if you think EN should create a note app tailored to your personal wishes - I can assure you they won’t. It is take it as it is or leave it.

I don't need extensive writing, I just need to be able to have the option to sort manually as I take notes. It's what I am using Evernote for: note taking, outlining, world building. I write my actual novel in Scrivener, but Scrivener has poor UI/UX for outlining; Evernote has it beat in UI/UX except for the one thing that matters the most — manual sorting.

What I see in this thread is a lot of posts AGAINST adding an optional and very useful feature — which would take an hour or so to implement with no backend overhead — that you can totally ignore if you don't want to use it. What is the point of going against advancement here?

It's a feature that has been asked for for over a decade, beyond my own personal wishes. It's not difficult.

[agsteele 2,942]

It is certainly easy enough to describe but I doubt the assertions that it will 'take an hour', is the 'thing that matters most', and that 'it's not difficult'.

If it mattered most, it would have been done. 

I hope you find the means to persuade the developers to add the option you want. As you say, those that don't need it don't have to use it. But the option is evidently not high on the list of priorities. I suspect that the focus is on fixing glitches and restoring previous functions that are still missing.

[Павел Фоменко 0]

Поддерживаю запрос. Графический интерфейс давно полон возможностью ручной сортировки. Вкладки, taskbar, рабочий стол, закладки, строки текста, плейлисты. Мы раскладываем вещи в полках так, как захотим, и лишь иногда создаём строгое правило их сортировки. Почему в 2022 ведущая note taking app до сих пор не удовлетворяет эту естественную потребность нашего мозга?

[RJLUK 307]

On 12/10/2021 at 5:23 AM, The Total Legend said:

I don't need extensive writing, I just need to be able to have the option to sort manually as I take notes. It's what I am using Evernote for: note taking, outlining, world building. I write my actual novel in Scrivener, but Scrivener has poor UI/UX for outlining; Evernote has it beat in UI/UX except for the one thing that matters the most — manual sorting.

What I see in this thread is a lot of posts AGAINST adding an optional and very useful feature — which would take an hour or so to implement with no backend overhead — that you can totally ignore if you don't want to use it. What is the point of going against advancement here?

It's a feature that has been asked for for over a decade, beyond my own personal wishes. It's not difficult.

Possibly a simple solution=

Insert a Single column table.

A row for each section/chapter concept.

You can drag the rows up and down = manually sort

Select all and paste into text editor = job done.

[KentHealy 0]

HUGE +1 for manual sorting of notes within notebooks. Thank you.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

HUGE hint that this optimist scenario will not happen.

It would probably require an additional index on the database, and that is nothing you add lightly, because it influences performance. And it is not easy, because you need to integrate it into every view where the manual sort should be recognized.

A HUGE effort for little gain (36 votes since 2011).

[Flash G 38]

Sorting entries in a database is not some huge technical challenge.  It's what databases are for.  Evernote already had a feature like this (where you could manually place the entries in the reminder tab) and it was quite valuable, at least to me.  But it is one of many features of the old client that has not yet migrated to the new app.

People also told us for years and years that we should shut up about requesting a Linux client because Evernote was never going to make one.  They said there weren't enough Linux users and that the technical challenge would be insurmountable and that if Evernote was going to do it they already would have. But we didn't shut up and then one fine day we woke up to good news.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

Anybody can request everything.

Nobody in my opinion should wait for it ….

[Alejo77 0]

Is there any reason why I cant manually arrange notes in my notebooks or am I doing it wrong? Its a HUGE miss if they don't allow for that. Like pin notes to the notebook and those stay on top in the order that you pin them or you could move them around when they are pinned while the rest of the notes use the default sorting. 

[Bob Stevens 0]

Trying Evernote for the first time because OneNote is unable to 'Find / Replace' text. Evernote can't manually sort notes which is the first thing I tried to do. Reading this thread, there seems to be a lot of discussion where people are asked to justify their reasoning for wanting this feature. To that I would say that every child is born differently and that we don't always need to understand the reason why, only that there is a need / desire for someone to work in a way that suits them.. Numbering the title is a poor workaround at best, I tried creating tags and then sorting by tags but that didn't work either. Colour me disappointed. 

[ibrahimrajabli 0]

very good idea. please do it. just one more db columb name order. i think it is not difficult

[coolmark 0]

As a new user, this missing feature will likely result in my dropping the product when up for renewal.

[SKA88 0]

Another definite +1 for manual sort!!!!

I rely heavily on this feature, which is one reason I've confused to use the Classic version of EN.  This version is no longer supported as of 11/1/23 however.  I'm very disappointed that a feature like this would be removed in newer version.

EN - Can you please add back the ability to manually sort notes in notebooks?  Thank you!!

[mladost13 0]

Important Feature, for example, if Im making a summary of a book organized in separate pdf files per chapter but the chapter 2 of 4 is corrupted, as there is no manual reorder in the application I should stop until I manage to obtain the chapter in a valid state, so wasted time, I cannot continue because my notes will be Ch 1, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 2...Imagine that  for a task of 30 chapters.

[ILikeGreenElephants 0]

Bumping this thread!

 

It's 2024 and I had a lengthy discussion with my friend who originally put me onto Evernote. While Evernote does many things really well the sorting order could use improvements. It doesn't matter so much for personal use but work related stuff I would like to be able to order the notes by more than just the title. For my friend it was actually a deal breaker and he switched to one note because this feature doesn't exist.