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How to remove the Evernote icon from the menubar (macOS)


Pucicu

Idea

Hello,

since last update, the elephant icon of Evernote is sitting in my menubar. I neither need nor use it there. But there is not option to remove it. Apps should come with such an option. Is there a way to remove it from the menubar or is it planned to include such option to the Evernote preferences?

Thanks

 

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I also need to be able to disable the Evernote Helper on Mac.

Here's why:

  1. I never use it
  2. The key command interferes with the Mac Finder command for "New Folder with Selection"
    • I usually leave Evernote open all the time because I use it so much, but now I have to remember to open and close it to avoid this conflict. What a pain!
  3. It uses system resources
  4. I believe strongly that I should have options
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Evernote showing itself again as one of the least customer-friendly applications out there.  This is a violation of Apple's own Menu Bar guidelines... (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/components/system-experiences/the-menu-bar/)

 

Quote

Let people — not your app — decide whether to enable your menu bar extra. Typically, people add a menu bar extra to the menu bar by changing a setting in an app’s settings window. To ensure discoverability, however, consider giving people the option of enabling the menu bar extra during setup.

Let us turn this off.  I can't believe this item is STILL open years later.

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This is so so so necessary. I can't believe that Evernote, that I pay premium service for for years, has such unintuitive, clutter-y choices in this latest update. PLEASE GIVE US THE ABILITY TO TURN OFF THE ELEPHANT ICON IN MENU BAR! I'm looking into Bartender but it's LUDICROUS to have to purchase a new application to switch off an icon of an app we pay premium membership to. The fact there is NO WAY TO SET PREFERENCES in this latest update is maddening. 

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Not that it matters to anyone but me, but I have removed Evernote from my devices and cancelled my Premium account. Various issues - from Spotlight searches not finding Evernote text to the company not allowing us to remove their applet from the Menu Bar, to the lack of Preferences, etc. - have caused me to do this. 

I am now using Apple Notes which is very reliable and more than sufficient for my daily needs, and DEVONthink for the heavier lifting, such as research. Others' mileage may vary, but I'm very well served with this new set-up.

I have enjoyed Evernote since 2008, really appreciate Ian Small's increased communication with the user base, and admire his vision for the future, but alas, the rollout of all these changes has left me without features I need and want for too long. I wish the company well. But it no longer works for me.

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43 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

You can’t solve the problem by asking every app to make its icons optional, and there are too many useful menubar tools to believe this strategy would ever work.

That's exactly what we can and Apple already does ask every developer to make their menu bar features optional in the app settings, as clmensch wrote. Evernote is not following apple's guidelines and we the users have every right to demand that they do.

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10 minutes ago, Pucicu said:

Is there a way to remove it from the menubar or is it planned to include such option to the Evernote preferences?

This is the Evernote Helper app
Can't say about future plans; it was an option in the Legacy version
The application can be quit using the Activity Monitor app

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Thanks! I have checked this but there are several "Evernote Helpers":

 4569 ??         0:04.35 Evernote
 4572 ??         0:00.96 Evernote Helper (GPU)
 4573 ??         0:00.38 Evernote Helper
 4575 ??         0:02.45 Evernote Helper (Renderer)
 4591 ??         0:04.32 Evernote Helper (Renderer)

Killing the simple "Evernote Helper" or the "Evernote Helper (GPU)" simply causes that these Helpers are restated automatically as a new process. Killing the "Renderer Helper" crashes the complete Evernote app. Moreover does it remove the icon from the menubar. 😒

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Settings / preferences will be added later to the app - whoever knows when.

To manage my menu bar I use Bartender; there are several other menu bar managers available.

With BigSur part of what is now in the menu bar can be moved to the new control center.

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The BigSur control center is pretty locked up. The functions allowed in are currently device functions or some of Apples own apps, like the music player.

Widgets can be placed in the notification center, below the date&time field.

Currently The EN v10 app on MacOS has practically no settings. If you want to have control over the helper function, install legacy.

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Hi Rogbar,

thanks for your comment. Have you been able to migrate your notes smoothly? This is the biggest hurdle to migrate to another tool, I guess. I had already tested "Boostnote" and if Evernote will not improve, will migrate to this tool (in combination with a cloud service, because I need it synced with another device).

Best wishes

PS: I good feedback from Evernote support. They claim that some missing features would be included in the future. But then, this is new version is not even a beta version, it is an alpha version, isn't it? Quite bold to introduce such a premature update then.

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Migrating was not particularly hard. I exported each Evernote folder to an .enex file, and then imported them into Notes. One caveat: if you rely more on Tags than Folders, be aware that your Evernote tags will not transfer over to Notes. 

I didn't use Tags very much, so it wasn't a problem for me. If it is for you, you could probably write a script to add a tag-string into each note that belongs to a particular tag ... or maybe even export notes grouped by tag instead of folder.

In any event, it was relatively painless, and I'm very happy in Apple Notes.

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Same issue, I do not need or want this in my menu bar, all other 3rd party apps have an option to remove it but this latest release of Evernote has taken away most all preferences. It's a continuation of the constant issues/bugs/unaddressed concerns of users that pay for this app.

Thanks for your insight @rogbar, I've been trying to figure out away to move on from Evernote for quite some time now. Very interesting.

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I've been a paying customer for many years, and always have been looking forward to new usability features, but it seems to be moving backwards.
Hey Evernote, one more stupid change like this and I am migrating away.
Bring back proper references now or lose one more customer.

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feel free to migrate to another much better solution. I gave up evernote and use something different since a few weeks.

evernote has become unusable. not only because of the missing preferences but also of strange new editing concept which is reducing the efficient work.

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+1000

Please Evernote give us an option to remove the elephant from the menu. This is the elephant in the room for your users.

The macOS desktop app has really been slipping lately. Weird design changes, bugs galore... now this icon business. Looking for another note solution, if I'm being honest.

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Not one I would know about.

Depending on the MacOS version there are ways to reduce the menu bar items. In BigSur some can be switched off or moved to the new control center by MacOS settings.

For all versions there are menu bar managers like Bartender that will take care of what shows and what is moved to a hidden second level.

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Agreed - v10 is still very short of settings. The prior client had the option - but it meant the „EN Helper“ was then switched off completely.

App icons can’t hide by themselves. It is by the OS, or with more control by a menu bar app. Bartender is a paid software, others may come for free.

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Evernote, please fix your app. No one needs evernote to be in the menu bar, it's superfluous. Not to mention unhelpful.

I'm a developer, and this is a super small programming problem, and it's causing a load of inconvenience. The fact that they have ignored this issue this long tells me they don't care about customers, they care about market share.

I will be transitioning to another software if this is not fixed in 30 days.

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On 5/6/2021 at 4:38 PM, Evernote Fix Your Stuff said:

Evernote, please fix your app. No one needs evernote to be in the menu bar, it's superfluous. Not to mention unhelpful.

I'm a developer, and this is a super small programming problem, and it's causing a load of inconvenience. The fact that they have ignored this issue this long tells me they don't care about customers, they care about market share.

I will be transitioning to another software if this is not fixed in 30 days.

Cannot agree more with you. I have been an Evernote user since 2013... and quite frankly the poorly designed UI/UX and lack of true innovation is upsetting.  Not to mention the overall clunkiness of the app lately. The EvernoteHelper and Menu bar issue are pretty much where I decide I'm going to start exploring other solutions.

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I switched the older Legacy version, which is a superior product!   Now I don't have that stupid elephant in my top menu status bar. I can also have multiple notes open in tabs....in their latest version of the software I could not figure out how to have tabs again and spent about an hour trying to find an answer online, then gave up.

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This is fine for the users who want to use it. For a lot of users, including me, the unnecessary Evernote icon in the bar is just annoying. It would be desirable that you can disable this in the settings under macOS. 

In other words, it is an indictment of Evernote that such a basic feature is still not available.

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1 hour ago, add101020 said:

the unnecessary Evernote icon in the bar is just annoying

Personally, I can't get too upset about an icon   
Memory usage is a bigger concern

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The helper may be useless for you, others like it and use it. It is the fastest way to grab a screenshot, for example.

Since there are many icons, it makes sense to install a menu bar manager. There are free ones, I use Bartender 4 which costs a fee.

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Once the client is started, it places the icon in the menu bar.

Personally I use the Bartender utility which allows to organize the menu bar into layers. Not needed on the big screen, but useful when just working on the MacBook Screen.

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On 11/13/2020 at 11:21 PM, rogbar said:

I agree. I don't want Evernote Helper, and I don't want the Evernote icon in my menu bar. We need the option in Preferences to remove this.

I also don't want the HELPER in the Menubar - same as "rogbar" - I do not use it and it sucks a lot of system resources !!

 

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Although it is called "helper" as well, it is most likely not what is consuming system resources.

Helper is a generic term describing any type of assisting process of the app in the activity monitor. This does not help to identify the process. It might be the little icon in the menu bar, but I doubt it.

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41 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Although it is called "helper" as well, it is most likely not what is consuming system resources.

Helper is a generic term describing any type of assisting process of the app in the activity monitor. This does not help to identify the process. It might be the little icon in the menu bar, but I doubt it.

does it tell or help me know ?

 

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What is a preference ?

It is a single bit, that may be flipped to a 1 or stay as a 0 (OK, more complex cases are possible).

Each setting will only work if checked while the program is executing. Each one means a clause like „if settings xyz is set to 0, fork into subroutine A, if not use subroutine B“. If you have 20 settings, there are 20 requests to check how they are set, and the program execution will fork again and again. Since there may be combinations of settings that are not valid, you need to secure against program abortion in addition, catching failure modes by more code.

Now I have a little homework for you: Go check the forum for posts claiming for slow app, sluggish client, delayed action and the like - keeping in mind all this happens already with very little settings. Lean back and imaging the app going through a lot of additional (!) lines of code just to check for preferences, and taking the right corridors to meet them.

What was your question ? Oh, yes, why are there only very little settings …

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@PinkElephant thx for your detailed explanation - but it is not helpful to solve the problem with the icon in the menu bar (and reducing system resources)  :mellow:

In EN v7.x there where this SETTING-options available (also some other very useful default functions, which still are not available in the current version ... after more than 14 months :blush:) ... so UPDATES includes the old functionalities + some new things ... "usually" ;)

  

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EN rarely comments on anything in the forum.

If you want a statement, issue a support ticket.

About the factual side: Many users like and use the menu bar icon - at least I do. A quick screenshot of a selection, for example. Or a note in a tiny window while having other things on the screen. The helper is part of the app, delivered with it. I give the option they completely remove it 0%.

What about a preference ? Take a look at the app preferences as they are, few as they are. Answer to yourself if this „hide my helper icon“ will be among the next settings …

Workaround: Get a menu bar manager app - any Mac user should run one. I use Bartender to keep my menu bar tidy, which costs a fee, others come for free. Problem solved, and not only for this tiny little icon, it arranges and hides any menu bar item.

Or in other words: There is no problem to solve, unless you make one out of it.

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Evernote should not remove the icon, but offer their paying customers the option to decide for themselves whether they want this or find it annoying. And that would solve the problem.

Using third-party solutions like Bartender is of course an option, but then it's more of a stopgap.

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The opinions about what EN should are as diverging as use cases and personal preferences. I won‘t discuss it here, because it is about opinions, not facts, and everybody has his own set of opinions (which I value).

My observation is only that a) EN has released v10 cutting away nearly all settings options that existed in legacy b) has up to now not shown any tendency to add settings and c) will probably not do it for this specific issue anyhow, because it is Mac only, and they try to keep the Mac and Windows clients very close.

My conclusion is it is very unlikely they will make a setting for exactly what is requested here. That is my personal assumption, no inside knowledge. From this I move to the hint that it is better to find a solution that works fast (menu bar managers are here & now, free or paid), instead of pushing for something that will probably not happen.

Or in other words: If you hit a wall, move a step back, look around, and take the door.

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It is there once you start the app. That’s basically all you need to know.

1) There is no setting to switch it off.

2) If you want to hide it, get a menu bar manager. This is a good idea anyhow. I use Bartender to organize my menu bar.

3) The forum is user2user. If you want to notify EN, send feedback from a client.

4) And now something revolutionary: If it is always there anyhow, start to use the helper ….

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I also would like to echo what many users have said: we need the option to remove the menu bar icon. I have discovered that I never have used it after all these years, but more than that, besides the additional clutter of all the other items up there (all the other items I do want), I find I keep getting mixed up with another menu bar icon that also is an elephant (MAMP, a web development server stack), and that one I do need.

I have no doubt some people like it, but menu bar items should always be optional.

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On 6/29/2022 at 6:38 PM, PinkElephant said:

2) If you want to hide it, get a menu bar manager. This is a good idea anyhow. I use Bartender to organize my menu bar.

I used to use Bartender and it worked fantastic - so I concur here (but it stopped working after many years with the upgrade to Big Sur and it was another $16 USD to upgrade to version 4 -- and I don't really need it anymore -- but I definitely got my money's worth out of it while I was using it).

I also never use the Evernote icon in the menu bar and might possibly toggle it off if there was an option for it. But if it really bothered me so much, then I would definitely start using Bartender again.

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Personally I don’t use Bartender to hide the EN icon. I use it to hide nearly all icons on a second level. I like the idea to have things available when I need them.

The EN helper comes handy from time to time - as do the other icons. But in general mode I have only 2 icons, which is the bartender and the control center.

For anybody who wants to ban an icon completely: Bartender is good for that as well.

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Hey @PinkElephant... I know you want to be helpful, and are perhaps personally annoyed at the collective insistence... 

... but this forum is called "Product Feedback/Feature Requests", so it doesn't seem too crazy from our part to give feedback and ask for features. Also, it's the official forum and one would expect the developers to read it now and again, even if they don't directly respond to requests through this medium.

I feel that our feedback has merit if nothing else because we're a lot of people annoyed by this particular decision. None of the alternatives you suggest work for me, for reasons I don't want to go into.

You responding to each of us explaining why our complaint is misplaced, even if you have the best intentions, interferes with our use of this feedback space that the developer has provided. Some of us have some faith that at some point we'll be heard and until then at least for me it would be better to be ignored than actively dismissed.

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The forum is user2user. Opinions are diverse, as are use cases and users.

As long as we are within the forum Code of Conduct, any opinion can be posted here. I doubt any single opinion voiced here has any significant impact.

We can only speculate about what conclusions EN staff draws from our discussion - if any …

The direct communication with EN staff happens through the feedback function (which is channeled directly to EN PM, not answered) and support tickets / chat, which will be answered.

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You better believe ….

(If you would manage your menu bar instead of complaining, you would have no problem.) Find a nicer sounding wording if this is bugging you.

In case you want to communicate with EN about it, issue a support ticket.

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40 minutes ago, loynis.armitage said:

This has still not been fixed after these years, wow. Gonna try out the legacy version instead.

Have you ever used the legacy version before? I wonder how you'll like it if you've only ever used Version 10 of legacy Evernote.

Also -- beware of this if you are running Ventura: 

Edited by Boot17
meant to type "Evernote" in one place instead of "legacy"
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6 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

I used the legacy version on Mac before they made the horrible new one. It was a couple of years ago and man I had forgotten how good it was! Just installed legacy and everything is so much better. No elephant in my task bar, I can open many instances of the app, I can edit HTML in clipped notes without breaking the formatting etc. For real, legacy evernote is just like things are supposed to be! I'll never use the new versions again.

 

Thanks for the warning btw, I haven't switched to Ventura yet luckily, but I'll be ware when I do!

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7 minutes ago, loynis.armitage said:

and everything is so much better.

Some things were better for me in legacy vs v10. I like the multiple tabs and that you can open a whole new instance of Evernote in a new window (not just the note). It is also definitely snappier. (And a few other things too.) Overall though, I still prefer v10. To each their own!

Good luck with it for as long as you can use it. It's end-of-life. Perhaps Evernote will implement a preference in v10 to not show the menu bar icon before legacy dies though. They've added quite a few user preferences in v10 this last year. One can hope.

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2 hours ago, ciara_belle said:

.. it limits the space and what icons show.. i dont need or want it -- but cannot remove it and its taking space for menu items i want there. 

It is wrong you can’t do anything about it.

Get yourself a menu bar manager (I use Bartender, that costs a dime), and decide which icons should always show, which on demand on a second level (popup menu strip below the notch) and which to avoid.

You can’t solve the problem by asking every app to make its icons optional, and there are too many useful menubar tools to believe this strategy would ever work.

Solve it for all icons at once.

P.S. MacOS allows for many OS-generated icons to switch them into the control center, or hide them at all - that‘s another useful trick to reduce the number of menu bar icons.

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On 12/4/2021 at 11:57 AM, PinkElephant said:

The helper may be useless for you, others like it and use it. It is the fastest way to grab a screenshot, for example.

Since there are many icons, it makes sense to install a menu bar manager. There are free ones, I use Bartender 4 which costs a fee.

The helper may be useful for you, but clearly many peeps agree (self included) that it is not. Hence the need for an "option" to disable the feature and installing another piece of software for the sole purpose of removing the Evernote helper is a ridiculous suggestion.

Evernote?? Looks like this has been dragging on for a while. 

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On 2/4/2023 at 12:07 PM, PinkElephant said:

It is wrong you can’t do anything about it.

Get yourself a menu bar manager (I use Bartender, that costs a dime), and decide which icons should always show, which on demand on a second level (popup menu strip below the notch) and which to avoid.

You can’t solve the problem by asking every app to make its icons optional, and there are too many useful menubar tools to believe this strategy would ever work.

Solve it for all icons at once.

P.S. MacOS allows for many OS-generated icons to switch them into the control center, or hide them at all - that‘s another useful trick to reduce the number of menu bar icons.

Yes, when apps are compliant with the OS they run on, then it should be this easy. Either app preferences or system preferences. An "option" to disable/remove. Why are you defending this negligence. The ability existed in a previous version so, bring it back.

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Has nothing to do with iOS (you picked the right subforum, so we think we understand what you mean).

Immediate solution: Use a menu bar manager, like Bartender (Purchase) or HiddenBar (Free).

Or wait and hope that something will happen on this (I doubt it will, but miracles happen).

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Just upgraded to the most current version of Evernote that my Mac can support due to the older versions no longer syncing as of a month ago. I also want to remove the Evernote icon in the menu bar. It's annoying and gets in the way of other things. I don't understand why any software would not give their users the option of customization. It's clearly been a feature request for a while and was not an issue with previous versions. It's one of a few UI changes that make the app more difficult to use now compared to previous versions.

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You are late to the party - you missed the opening by 3 years.

You can contact support about it and try to explain why it’s working like that since 2020, but NOW needs to be changed. Note that this tread has pulled 1 upvote per month on average, hardly a stampede.

Else follow the advise already posted in this thread.

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You can choose which items to show in the menu bar. To rearrange status menus, press and hold the Command key while you drag an icon. To quickly remove a status menu, press and hold the Command key while you drag the icon out of the menu bar.

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18 hours ago, an3navarro said:

You can choose which items to show in the menu bar. To rearrange status menus, press and hold the Command key while you drag an icon. To quickly remove a status menu, press and hold the Command key while you drag the icon out of the menu bar.

but your "COMMAND + DRAG OUT THE EN-ICON" does not work with the EVERNOTE-icon !

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As already posted the only solution is to use a menu bar manager for MacOS, and move the EN icon to a hidden segment.

Personally I find the EN helper useful - to jot down a fast note, or the occasional screenshot. It supports my use of EN to collect and organize all kind of information.

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