When using the free account, how am I protected from data loss?

[isthisme 11]

I have a free Evernote account that I use on my desktop, and very rarely from my phone.

If I was to wake up one day with half my notes missing due:

a) an Evernote bug causing data loss

b) someone using my computer to delete my notebooks intentionally, and also from trash

Would Evernote's Support help me recover my notes then? Or am I on my own?

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, isthisme said:

half my notes missing ...

I can recover data from my personal backups

>>Would Evernote's Support help me recover my notes then? Or am I on my own?

Evernote Support ensures the data is backed up, and will address internal errors     
Lost data might be recoverable using the Note History backup

[PinkElephant 8,115]

Getting support is a feature of the paid accounts.

So to get personal support, you would have to go Premium - if you want for only 1 month ... which is the equivalent of a cup of starbucks to get help. Sounds fair to me.

First to avoid any such situation, EN runs on servers they rent from Google (probably among the best protected in the world), storing multiple copies of each account. You can help yourself by making your account safe: Use a unique, strong password, enable 2FA to harden it further, only access it from safe devices through safe connections. If on an open WiFi, switch on your VPN before login in. Etc ...

Most of the features that would help in a situation with data loss are already running, even on a Basic account. Very helpful is note history, that allows to roll back in time to older versions of the editing of a note. This can help a lot, but only when the note still exists. It needs to be in the trash "notebook" at least. History is running in the background for all, but the access is only for paid accounts. If you are on Premium, you can use it yourself, without going through support. It is not only good to recover lost data, it sometimes helps simply to go back one or two steps when your editing went off the track.

If there is a maleficent access to your account, you can loose data. Support may or may not be able to recover these - if deleted permanently notes may be gone for good. If you run a desktop client, it holds a full copy of your data in a local database. This you can backup with a standard backup tool, and recover from that copy. Again, this is easier for Premium users, because the desktop client is counted as a "device", leaving just one more left while on Basic.

Conclusion: EN does a lot to protect your data, even on a free account. But you get full use and support only when you contribute. I think this is a fair deal, especially because security is running in the background even for those accounts that do not contribute.

[CalS 5,280]

On 7/20/2020 at 11:45 AM, isthisme said:

I have a free Evernote account that I use on my desktop, and very rarely from my phone.

If I was to wake up one day with half my notes missing due:

a) an Evernote bug causing data loss

b) someone using my computer to delete my notebooks intentionally, and also from trash

Would Evernote's Support help me recover my notes then? Or am I on my own?

Simple terms, once something is deleted it is gone forever unless you have your own backups.

[ackattak 0]

On 7/20/2020 at 6:55 PM, PinkElephant said:

So to get personal support, you would have to go Premium - if you want for only 1 month ... which is the equivalent of a cup of starbucks to get help. Sounds fair to me.

I'm a free user and I just lost hours of work due to some kind of glitch. I'm gutted. Everything was there last night...I revised some of my writing this morning....then suddenly this afternoon all work I did yesterday/today vanished and EN is telling me I hadn't accessed the note I was working on since Sunday.

If I was to sign up as a premium user right now and contact support about getting my data back....would they be able to retrieve it // or would the "note history" options work for me considering I was a free user before? 

Thanks

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

Hi, @ackattak (nice screen name), and welcome to the forums. Note history is kept for all users, but can only be accessed with a Premium or Business account. So yes, signing up for Premium even for just a month would let you see the note history, and would give you access to support to raise the issue with them. What Evernote client were you using (Web, Windows desktop, Mac, etc.)?

[ackattak 0]

Dave, thanks for the info! This is promising. I was using the Evernote Preview (was selected to give it a trial) app for Mac OS at the time, but I also use EN on iOS. This sync/saving issue impacted notes across all my devices/platforms, unfortunately.

 

Cheers,

-A

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

I hope you're able to get some help. I'm in the Windows world, and don't have any insight into what may have gone wrong for you.