Simple instructions for making a backup copy please!

[Michael Bradley 1]

After a disaster with OneNote I started  over with Evernote. Now after updating to the latest  version (Evernote Web) on my Win 10 machine the program seems to be performing well and I've been adding lots of content but I am feeling very uneasy about the security of my data. Unfortunately reading advice on the forum has only served to create more uncertainty. 

The menus offer no option to "Sync", so when a note has the message "All changes Saved" where is it saved, and has it been synced to your Cloud server? Despite what Forum messages suggest, the "Note Info" has no reference to "Synced" or "Not Synced ". When I look in the default EverNote/Database folder the .exb file hasn't been updated since the date I installed the new version and the file size doesn't change despite adding content and images to my Notebooks. Finally, is it possible to make a copy of all Notebooks in one large .enex file or must that be done one Notebook at a time?

Thanks

Michael

 

 

[Alxa 477]

With EN 10 you have no chance to check, if any information is synced or not. "All changes saved" definitely does not correspond to syncing in any way. This was proved within this forum and imho does only mean the changes have been written to a cache (hopefully). Only way to check is to open web interface.

I would strongly suggest doing regular full backups with Evernote Legacy until they implement a backup/export option in EN 10.

For a full backup in Evernote Legacy reinstall it from Evernote support page and make sure it has completed a full sync. Legacy and EN 10 can be installed side by side on your machine. Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook. That's how I do it on a regular basis since EN once lost several precious media files from my journals (yes, dead hardlinks to my attachments on their server end) and the support never could bring it back nor could explain how missing files could occur on professional cloud service. Enjoy peace of mind with your backups 🙂

[s2sailor 2,161]

On 12/27/2020 at 1:52 PM, Michael Bradley said:

When I look in the default EverNote/Database folder the .exb file hasn't been updated since the date I installed the new version and the file size doesn't change despite adding content and images to my Notebooks

They changed the data structure in v10.  A .exb file is no longer used.  That is why you are not seeing it updated.

For backups, it is best to use the Legacy version.  With v10 you can, in theory, backup per notebook with an ENEX file, but I have not tested it.  That will be a pain if you have many notebooks.  

[DTLow 5,736]

On 12/27/2020 at 10:52 AM, Michael Bradley said:

one large .enex file

Not a good idea   
1. Import may have a problem with large .enex files   
2. Notebook information is dropped with the export

[Michael Bradley 1]

4 hours ago, s2sailor said:

They changed the data structure in v10.  A .exb file is no longer used.  That is why you are not seeing it updated.

I took the advice received here, thank you all. The Legacy version is running now and I have better understanding of the system. Also it's nice to have the old speed back again! I did notice though that the .exb files are now showing update dates as todays, but the file size hasn't changed, even though lots of new data has been added. Does this mean that the Legacy version isn't using these file either?

Michael

[s2sailor 2,161]

45 minutes ago, Michael Bradley said:

Does this mean that the Legacy version isn't using these file either?

The legacy version does use .exb.  Maybe you have multiple versions for some reason. One of the options in Evernote will point you to where the data is located.  You might check that to see if you are looking at the correct file.

[agsteele 2,933]

In Evernote you are able to export each notebook to an enex file.  This is the preferred method of exporting since it retains the notebook with its associated notes.

Contrary to the experience of others I am comfortable that Evernote 10 does sync reliably BUT it does require a working Internet connection to maintain a complete set of data and this does cause sync issues and, indeed, access if you find yourself without Internet (failure, travel, forgot to pay the bill ).

It is a failing a a large number of European/North American cloud based services that presume ubiquitous Internet access. I travel to Sub-Saharan Africa regularly (well I did until this past year). I don't, yet, have confidence that my work in EN v10 will update reliably when I am travelling. For that reason the legacy version will be my preferred interface when travelling if I ever get to do that again. 😷

[Michael Bradley 1]

On 12/28/2020 at 7:47 PM, s2sailor said:

The legacy version does use .exb.  Maybe you have multiple versions for some reason. One of the options in Evernote will point you to where the data is located.  You might check that to see if you are looking at the correct file.

I am looking at the folder that EN is using and the files dates are being updated when I use the program. I am still puzzled about the .exb files though. In my instalation the .exb.snippets and exb.context files do change in size as I add content to EN, but the large .exb file never changes in size. What does it actually contain?

Thanks

Michael

[PinkElephant 8,046]

You don’t need to understand what is in there to make use of it.

If already on v10 (without local notebooks), the whole data is stored on the EN server in the cloud, which is the master copy. In fact it is stored in multiple copies in different data centers, so even if one of them is down for maintenance, you hardly ever notice. No need for a backup here. If you made a wrong edit with a note, just open the note, select note history (Premium feature) and go back in time. Hint: This does not work when the note itself was completely deleted.

If you want to run a local backup, make sure „keep a local copy“ is selected in v10 settings. On legacy, this happens automatically.

Then take a backup program of your liking, and simply have it run a backup, either just of the EN folders, or simply a full backup. The EN data will be in the backup.

To export content, for example to another application, use the export to ENEX file feature.

[Michael Bradley 1]

13 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

already on v10 (without local notebooks), the whole data is stored on the EN server in the cloud

Thanks for the message PinkElephant. So is the Legacy version working the same way as v10? I switched to the Legacy version several days ago and the observations about the .exb file size not changing that I reported apply to that version. I read on this forum of .exb files exceeding 100s of MB, but mine never seems to increase?

Michael

[agsteele 2,933]

On 12/31/2020 at 4:27 PM, PinkElephant said:

If you want to run a local backup, make sure „keep a local copy“ is selected in v10 settings. On legacy, this happens automatically.

@PinkElephant Now I'm a bit confused... I don't have any option in v10 on the Windows desktop to 'keep a local copy' (not any settings in v10). Perhaps some confusion between versions.  There is an option to make a notebook 'available offline' in the Android version of EN10 - perhaps in the iOS too - but not in the desktop applications.

[agsteele 2,933]

11 hours ago, Michael Bradley said:

So is the Legacy version working the same way as v10? I switched to the Legacy version several days ago and the observations about the .exb file size not changing that I reported apply to that version. I read on this forum of .exb files exceeding 100s of MB, but mine never seems to increase?

The .exb file only relates to older, legacy version of Evernote. The legacy version and the new release function entirely differently to one another which is one of the reasons why making a local backup really isn't functional in the sense that there is no directory to backup and have a guaranteed, complete backup of your notes.  In EN10 you can export indiviudal notebooks as .enex files which works OK unless you have lots of notebooks and are happy to do it all manually.

If you need a physical backup then do that with the legacy version. As @PinkElephant noted, the v10 backup is the cloud.

[s2sailor 2,161]

1 hour ago, agsteele said:

@PinkElephant Now I'm a bit confused... I don't have any option in v10 on the Windows desktop to 'keep a local copy' (not any settings in v10). Perhaps some confusion between versions.

On the Mac desktop there is a Save Data at Log Out option.  I think he may be referring to that.  I haven't loaded v10 on my Windows system, and am not sure if this option exists there.  I haven't done any testing to know if this is usable as a backup option or not, or if it is only caching to help performance.

[agsteele 2,933]

15 hours ago, s2sailor said:

On the Mac desktop there is a Save Data at Log Out option. 

Got it... I'd become focused on the specific backup question and the option to 'keep a local copy' as being a local copy of everything 😣. The 'Save Data at Logout' exists in Windows too but I don't think that provides a robust backup option.  I THINK that this ensures that notes worked on recently are saved on the local drive rather than saving all the notes in my collection.  If I want to go back to a note I created ten years ago, and never refer to, whilst disconnected from the Internet then I believe I need to have opened it before I disconnect for, say, travel then it will be available later.  To be fair I haven't tested this with any rigour.

[PinkElephant 8,046]

At the moment legacy will keep a complete copy on the local drive.

No experience with v10, with regard of completeness and attachments. In the release notes there is a hint that other export formats than ENEX will be added in the future.

Some apps (like DEVONthink) export the EN data base into their own, using an API instead of the EN export tool. But this is not meant for Backup. The master data base of DEVONthink is all local, with a „cloud“ option.

[s2sailor 2,161]

1 hour ago, QFieldBoden said:

My big problem is finding a comparable service to move to AND finding a service that it is technically easy to move to. Please let us know when you have answers to those issues, I'd love to know the way out.

I think you will find there is no perfect replacement out there.  It all depends on what is important to you.  They all have tradeoffs.  There are plenty of threads here to browse through to see how others chose, including using the legacy version while waiting to see if v10 develops into something that will meet our needs in the future.

[EP2008 17]

2 hours ago, QFieldBoden said:

I'm in a very similar position though I have about half the number of notes. My big problem is finding a comparable service to move to AND finding a service that it is technically easy to move to. Please let us know when you have answers to those issues, I'd love to know the way out.

Unfortunately, it seems like I'll have to be inconvenienced no matter how I go because evernote doesn't allow for exporting in a non-proprietary way (i.e. export all to PDF or HTML) and I don't want to really import my notes into another service to be locked into something else. 

At this point, if I can export all my notes, or even extract the files from the notes into a local folder, I'll sort out the mess. I'm just so fed up right now that I'll be happy getting my data out in some reasonable way.

[s2sailor 2,161]

1 hour ago, EP2008 said:

evernote doesn't allow for exporting in a non-proprietary way (i.e. export all to PDF or HTML) and I don't want to really import my notes into another service to be locked into something else.

Evernote legacy allows exporting in both enex and html format. You are not locked in. Most competitor products have an importer that uses the enex format. That format may provide the best import experience.

[MB11 15]

On 12/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, Alxa said:

With EN 10 you have no chance to check, if any information is synced or not. "All changes saved" definitely does not correspond to syncing in any way. This was proved within this forum and imho does only mean the changes have been written to a cache (hopefully). Only way to check is to open web interface.

I would strongly suggest doing regular full backups with Evernote Legacy until they implement a backup/export option in EN 10.

For a full backup in Evernote Legacy reinstall it from Evernote support page and make sure it has completed a full sync. Legacy and EN 10 can be installed side by side on your machine. Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook. That's how I do it on a regular basis since EN once lost several precious media files from my journals (yes, dead hardlinks to my attachments on their server end) and the support never could bring it back nor could explain how missing files could occur on professional cloud service. Enjoy peace of mind with your backups 🙂

Thank you SO MUCH! I can't believe I've used Evernote for so long yet was unaware of this way to backup. 

Is it a good idea to keep the completed backup folder in Google Drive or One Drive, or do you suggest an alternate location? I have one on my laptop but would like extra protection. 

Thank you again!

[Alxa 477]

20 minutes ago, MB11 said:

Thank you SO MUCH! I can't believe I've used Evernote for so long yet was unaware of this way to backup. 

Is it a good idea to keep the completed backup folder in Google Drive or One Drive, or do you suggest an alternate location? I have one on my laptop but would like extra protection. 

Thank you again!

Glad I could help. I am looking forward to EN 10 getting real backup options as well.

Having a regular backup on cloud storage is better than nothing and very convenient I would definitely recommend this as step 1. But for good data security you should always have at least one copy that is locally separated from your other devices in case of disaster or theft to/in your home. So please consider to have a copy physically by yourself which is not connected to the internet. So in case of identity theft or hacking your accounts your data cannot be compromised. This way you would have:
1. Evernote Account online and local copys held by your EN client(s)
2. a regular full backup (potentially some time versioning would be good) on cloud storage you do manually
3. at least one full backup on an offline medium (maybe 2 external hard drives you swap regularly and store in another building after copying the export to it) you do manually.

That's the scenario for my data backup. 

[MB11 15]

1 minute ago, Alxa said:

Glad I could help. I am looking forward to EN 10 getting real backup options as well.

Having a regular backup on cloud storage is better than nothing and very convenient I would definitely recommend this as step 1. But for good data security you should always have at least one copy that is locally separated from your other devices in case of disaster or theft to/in your home. So please consider to have a copy physically by yourself which is not connected to the internet. So in case of identity theft or hacking your accounts your data cannot be compromised. This way you would have:
1. Evernote Account online and local copys held by your EN client(s)
2. a regular full backup (potentially some time versioning would be good) on cloud storage you do manually
3. at least one full backup on an offline medium (maybe 2 external hard drives you swap regularly and store in another building after copying the export to it) you do manually.

That's the scenario for my data backup. 

I was thinking using an external HDD and you confirmed it. Thanks again!

[DTLow 5,736]

I have a simple question for those with data backups   
Do you know have a plan for recovery
      If Evernote goes dark?    
      If you have missing data?

[agsteele 2,933]

7 hours ago, DTLow said:

I have a simple question for those with data backups   
Do you know have a plan for recovery
      If Evernote goes dark?    
      If you loose notes?

The only certain backup option at the present is for a regular export of the whole database using the legacy program. That will provide the .enex file with everything that could be imported into an alternative service.  But my personal view is that that will only be really useful if the Evernote service suddenly ceased business overnight. If Evernote is continuing then it has better backup options than I can provide.  I could export to .enex in v10 but this requires a notebook by notebook process and is too much hassle to make it a reliable backup.  I don't believe that there is any automated backup that will allow me to rescue my notes to an alternative service provider.  All I've explored seem to rely on .enex files rather than the .exb data that sits in the back-end of the legacy application.

I'm not concerned about losing notes since Evernote's system seems to offer me enough means of recovery. A planned closure would be mangeable but Evernote suddenly ceasing trading would be a significant issue without a current .enex of key notes.

[MB11 15]

On 12/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, Alxa said:

With EN 10 you have no chance to check, if any information is synced or not. "All changes saved" definitely does not correspond to syncing in any way. This was proved within this forum and imho does only mean the changes have been written to a cache (hopefully). Only way to check is to open web interface.

I would strongly suggest doing regular full backups with Evernote Legacy until they implement a backup/export option in EN 10.

For a full backup in Evernote Legacy reinstall it from Evernote support page and make sure it has completed a full sync. Legacy and EN 10 can be installed side by side on your machine. Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook. That's how I do it on a regular basis since EN once lost several precious media files from my journals (yes, dead hardlinks to my attachments on their server end) and the support never could bring it back nor could explain how missing files could occur on professional cloud service. Enjoy peace of mind with your backups 🙂

I used this method of backup this morning but I don't see an ENEX-file per notebook. I only see a handful on ENEX files, not one for each notebook. Sorry for my ignorance but any ideas what I am doing wrong? Thanks very much for any help.

[Alxa 477]

17 minutes ago, MB11 said:

I used this method of backup this morning but I don't see an ENEX-file per notebook. I only see a handful on ENEX files, not one for each notebook. Sorry for my ignorance but any ideas what I am doing wrong? Thanks very much for any help.

I checked this with my exports and it works as explained by me. With EN legacy doing the explained method I get one folder on my desktop that is named  "Evernote_username_date" and within this folder there are ENEX files, each for every notebook within my account. If you do not see all notebooks represented by enex-files maybe your legacy client is not fully synced...just an idea.

[s2sailor 2,161]

2 hours ago, Alxa said:

With EN legacy doing the explained method I get one folder on my desktop that is named  "Evernote_username_date" and within this folder there are ENEX files, each for every notebook within my account.

I haven't seen this either, can you provide specific steps?

In my experience, when viewing all notes, if you do a select all and then export, it will export all notes into one .enex file, but you lose the notebook information.  It does maintain tag information.  In order to maintain notebook information you need to export notebook by notebook.  If there is a way to export all notes in one step and maintain notebook structure, I would like to learn more.

I've always just performed a backup of the .exb file which contains everything.

[Alxa 477]

I explained the method here:

On 12/28/2020 at 9:42 PM, Alxa said:

With EN 10 you have no chance to check, if any information is synced or not. "All changes saved" definitely does not correspond to syncing in any way. This was proved within this forum and imho does only mean the changes have been written to a cache (hopefully). Only way to check is to open web interface.

I would strongly suggest doing regular full backups with Evernote Legacy until they implement a backup/export option in EN 10.

For a full backup in Evernote Legacy reinstall it from Evernote support page and make sure it has completed a full sync. Legacy and EN 10 can be installed side by side on your machine. Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook. That's how I do it on a regular basis since EN once lost several precious media files from my journals (yes, dead hardlinks to my attachments on their server end) and the support never could bring it back nor could explain how missing files could occur on professional cloud service. Enjoy peace of mind with your backups 🙂

 

[s2sailor 2,161]

1 hour ago, Alxa said:

Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook.

I missed that part, thanks.  

Well, I'll be ... I didn't let it complete since I have a lot of notes, but this does appear to work as advertised.  I've been on this forum a long time and find I still pick up tips.  It is probably documented somewhere, but I've never stumbled across it.  Hopefully v10 will provide something similar.  Thanks again! 

[EP2008 17]

23 hours ago, s2sailor said:

Evernote legacy

Respectfully, that's a workaround, not a built-in feature in the current version of Evernote. 

And while I certainly could use HTML, I found a much better solution (below).

23 hours ago, s2sailor said:

Most competitor products have an importer that uses the enex format. That format may provide the best import experience.

While true, the results are mixed (with limitations) and I don't want to lock myself into another service. 

On 1/2/2021 at 12:39 PM, QFieldBoden said:

Please let us know when you have answers to those issues, I'd love to know the way out.

FIY, I found a service called CloudHQ, which is designed to backup or sync online cloud services and email. 

Well, they support Evernote and I've been backing up my database to Google drive in perhaps the most ideal way I could wish for. 

You can select various formats, but I'm exporting all my notes in PDF  which means if it's a text note it turns into a PDF in organized folders (based on notebooks) and attachments get saved on their own. I could have exported to another format but PDF is more than fine as many of my notes don't need to be edited.  

Currently doing it with their free plan, but I'd pay for their monthly plan if it paywalls me. 

Once my database has been exported, I'll be able to open these files anywhere. I feel much more comfortable about this bow, but I wont be locking myself to any service in the future. This has been a learning experience for sure. 

[s2sailor 2,161]

7 minutes ago, EP2008 said:

Respectfully, that's a workaround, not a built-in feature in the current version of Evernote. 

And while I certainly could use HTML, I found a much better solution (below).

No worries.  I'm glad you found something that works for you.

[agsteele 2,933]

18 hours ago, EP2008 said:

Respectfully, that's a workaround, not a built-in feature in the current version of Evernote. 

What a good solution. Thanks for sharing although this, too, is a 'workaround, not a built-in feature in the current version of Evernote.'

[Alxa 477]

18 hours ago, EP2008 said:

Respectfully, that's a workaround, not a built-in feature in the current version of Evernote. 

 

Sure it is a workaround, but there actually is no way of doing a backup without using a workaround - as your solution is as well. Sadly EN has nothing to offer in terms of local backup with EN10. And if they do not add such functionality their claimed "your data is yours" and "you can leave at any time" will too become "legacy" when EN legacy is dropped. Not (yet?!) being locked in as with every other competing note app for me actually is the only reason to stick with EN these days....

[DTLow 5,736]

9 minutes ago, Alxa said:

Sadly EN has nothing to offer in terms of local backup with EN10

This is incorrect - data can be backed up with Evernote   
I'm using the Legacy product and run backups using the Evernote export feature (daily incremental and weekly full)   
The Version10 product also supports an export feature
- currently restricted to .enex format, with .html format pending
- currently restricted to per notebook, or 50 note limit; we expect/hope limit removal

[Alxa 477]

16 minutes ago, DTLow said:

This is incorrect - data can be backed up with Evernote   
I'm using the Legacy product and run backups using the Evernote export feature (daily incremental and weekly full)   
The Version10 product also supports an export feature
- currently restricted to .enex format, with .html format pending
- currently restricted to per notebook, or 50 note limit; we expect/hope limit removal

Yes, I only related to EN10. EN10 has a limited export feature, but doing export per notebook is no reasonable work flow. Reality shows that backups are only made, when they are easy and fast to do. Fortunately EN legacy still provides this - even full backups with separated notebook-enex files if you use the worklow I described. We should always keep in mind that legacy will sometime drop and seeing all the issues with basic functionality and only concentrating on shiny features, I can hardly imagine backing up/exporting will be on their top priorities 😞

 

[luvmyc6 46]

On 12/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, Alxa said:

Having synced you log off from your account, then seeing the log-in screen you press CTRL+SHIFT+E, select your account and voilà, EN Legacy will do a full export creating a folder on your desktop with an ENEX-file per notebook. 

@Alxa, you are a genius! Thanks so much for this hidden gem on how to trigger an automated export/backup of all Notebooks, by Notebook, using EN Legacy!!!! I am still running the original EN V6 (green icon) version on Windows (never did the "upgrade" to V10 so no need to install the Legacy (gray icon) version). I've been using EN for over 5 years and never new about this automated export/backup method.

I logged off EN and then used <CTRL+SHIFT+E> at the login screen, selected my account, and off it went and created the individual ENEX files for the 28 Notebooks I have - and it was completed in a couple minutes. WOW, so much easier and faster than the tedious manual export to ENEX by individual Notebook process I did the other day (which took about 30 minutes). What a timesaver and now I can easily and quickly create ENEX backups on demand. I also continue to do an export to HTML so I have a human-readable format backup available.

NOTE: Something to note for Notebooks that are in a Stack is that the Stack name is not included in the exported ENEX file name (e.g. "MISC/MyResearch" Notebook in EN = "MyResearch.enex" file in file folder). Not a big deal as I can easily recreate the Stack by manually creating a subfolder and moving the associated enex files to that subfolder. However, many not be something I want to have to do very often. Probably I'll just keep a text document that keeps the master list of Stacks and Notebooks.

[dcon 166]

On 12/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, DTLow said:

Import may have a problem with large .enex files   

Not 'may'. 'Will'. I forget the limit, but I believe import limits to somewhere between 1 and 2 GB. Because of how the parsing is done, everything has to be read into memory first.