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Hello EN community,

Following my Is this a farewell post, I will be exploring some migration options switching from Evernote. Please share if you have any other suggestions/explorations.

My first move was to download the legacy Evernote application and export all notebooks 1 by 1 to .enex files. The reason why I did that was most import functions I found out there would need to do so.

 

1. OneNote

I don't like OneNote. The only reason why I tried migrating to is because I am already paying for a Microsoft business account. The Evernote to OneNote tool did not work, so migrating to OneNote does not seem like an option. More info can be found in this forum post.

The verdict  

  • (-)Rent a VM because the migration tool does not work on Mac
  • (-)Lost 3h trying to make the migration tool to work
  • (-)Not sure what happens with Tags

 

2. Synology Note Station 

Note: you need a Synology NAS for this option

If you are an old EN client, when you see Synology Note Station you ask yourself.. wtf ? It's a 100% copy of the old-good Evernote we all love and my favorite part: You own your data 

Unfortunately, you would need:

  • Either hire someone or learn yourself to securely set up your NAS for external access
  • Energy/Internet backup if you need 100% uptime
  • Setup Hyper Backup to include Note Station as all notes are saved under the Note Station app.

Thankfully, I already had those set up, so I just needed to click a button. The import from Evernote function, takes you to the allow app EN page and then it start doing the magic. Works great, all notes (migrated only a couple of notebooks, not the whole thing) were migrated successfully. Tags work exactly as you would expect, it also supports tag grouping, which is awesome because I am using this functionality a lot.

The verdict   

  • (+)Free of charge (included with Synology NAS OS DSM)
  • (+)You own your data
  • (+)UI + functionality identical with old Evernote
  • (+)Functionality to lock/encrypt your notes with encryption password
  • (+)One click migration
  • (-) Outdated
  • (-) Web clipper only works for Google Chrome
  • (-) You need to know how to or hire someone that can securely set up your own cloud

 

3. Notion

Currently, I am still playing around with it and I am not sure I like it. There is too much complexity going around for what I am looking for. There are cool advanced functionalities, like custom tags / properties, creating a database-like table, easily adding a Kanban board (just like Trello). Amazing code blocks, support also choosing what kind of code it is (js, html, swift e.g.), which I found awesome !

The migration process is very easy, click Import > Evernote... and the migration starts. They also offer a $5 coupon to migrate from Evernote !

Viewing my migrated notes is AMAZING ! An Excel-like table filtering is in place which transforms your notes into a database ! Most of my notes where payment/document records and organization was done mainly by using tags, which results to a magnificent table view of notes, filtering with tags etc. 

The very bad: Up to now, no attachments have been migrated to notion. Unfortunately, that is a deal-breaker for me, however I will raise a ticket to support just to make sure.

The verdict  

  • (+)Very advanced features converting your notes into a database
  • (+)Custom properties replace tags in a so much better way.
  • (+)One click migration, at the moment without attachments
  • (+)Webclippers, apps available for every platform
  • (-) Migration did not migrate all notes
  • (-) Migration did not include attachments

 

3. DevonThink

A fellow EN user from the community reached me after creating the Is this a farewell post. He created a great document describing the migration process and his experience moving to DevonThink. I will not be covering DevonThink at the moment since he has provided a far more extensive post on that. Here is the resource.

Currently, I just need to say that I don't like the UI, but it seems like a solid replacement

The verdict   

  • (+)Supports tags
  • (+)Import from Evernote functionality
  • (+)DevonThinkPro comes with a scanner capability and stamping
  • (+)They offer a self-hosting version, which I like a lot because you own your data

4. Bear

What a beautiful app ! But that's it. No notebooks functionality, no tasks, but everything else is there. For me the no notebooks thing is really not important as I used 2 Notebooks (Inbox; Archive) excluding the shared ones. I am doing all categorization with tags, which works great with Bear. This means however, that you can export all your notes in 1 take and import to Bear without splitting them to notebooks. The import functionality of bear is great, it took less than 3 minutes to import a 850mb notebook.

After importing notes in bear, I started reorganizing my tags and found out that bear supports a tag indentation which is amazing because that is exactly how I organized all my note library.

The verdict   

  • (+)Supports tags with indentation
  • (+)Clean UI
  • (+)Fast import
  • (+)The whole note is a markdown document
  • (-) Too clean UI
  • (-) Only available in Apple ecosystem

For me, Bear is not right. It is too minimal and offers very limited functionality. However, I feel that's a very nice option for most users and offers a native import functionality

I will be sharing more in the future, especially for Notion when migration is complete. Cheers for now everyone

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Thanks for investing a lot of time and effort into your overview. Well done !

Just a word about „owning“ your data: What you own in the cases described above is the data carrier. In a time when ransomware is on a rampage it is NOT trivial to make your own network secure - especially when you need external access.

Anybody moving in this direction should be aware of this - otherwise you can end up with still owning your data carrier, but none of the content.

Cloud based services have an advantage in this respect.

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18 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Just a word about „owning“ your data: What you own in the cases described above is the data carrier. In a time when ransomware is on a rampage it is NOT trivial to make your own network secure - especially when you need external access.

Yes, that's definitely I did not highlight enough.

Owning your data comes at a price: One would need a lot of IT work (or rely on another professional's expertise), $ initial investment, continuous maintenance and backup strategies to eliminate risks including ransomware. I will be editing the post too

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If you are looking Mac only one I’ve used that is excellent is notebooks 10 or notebooks for iPad as its sometimes called. It uses html as a base and syncs through Dropbox currently (iCloud coming). I’ve used it for years and it’s always been well maintained by the app maker. It’s not cheap but it’s a one off payment for the app. They do have a windows app but freely admit it’s uncared for as there’s no demand for it. I’m yet to find a good html notes editor (that’s for notes and not websites) for windows. 

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It is quite interesting that there is quite a selection within of the Apple ecosystem: DEVONthink is MacOS & iOS only, as is your Notebooks hint and - often forgotten - Apple‘s own Notes. It will get a boost with MacOS 12 / iOS 15, which will then support tags. When you look at note apps that focus on handwriting, there are a bunch more, all taking profit from the excellent iPad & Pencil combo.

As long as this is the ecosystem you use anyhow, there are some solid choices. Sorry for Windows and Android users, IMHO no such obvious options for these platforms.

As they say, competition is good for the business - and for us users anyhow.

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There are plenty of choices beyond the handful mentioned here but without import from Evernote. However, the biggest issue with all of them is cross-platform capability. I hope Evernote is not going the way Airtable where all notes are web-only with no notes stored locally.

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7 hours ago, Stathis said:

options

You didn't mention scriptability; imho a must have option
afaik  Scripting is only supported by Evernote Legacy and Devonthink

I'm ok with non multi-plaform platform support (I'm Apple only)   
but am concerned about missing web access

Also, make sure you're not moving to a platform with the data locked in   

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Update #1

Some notes after using Note Station and Bear

Note Station

  • Migration takes a long time. After 8h only 800 out of the 4700 notes are migrated, so it is going to take a while
  • Supports searching in attachments, no OCR however

Bear

  • If you like markdown, Bear is an amazing app to compose
  • Migration process wasn't that hard. I imported all notebooks one by one, when importing Bear automatically adds #Evernote tag to notes imported. Then, I just renamed the Evernote tag to Notebook/My Notebook (yes it supports nested tags. To create a tag with spaces you need to enclose it between hashtags #)
  • Search does not search in attachments, but boy it is fast
  • Synchronization is done through iCloud
  • It costs 1,49€/month

Both apps support nested tags, which I personally find very useful, since I was using nested tag approach already

Overall I like both options, they are pretty close to EN excluding of course the search OCR superpower. Bear is aesthetically pleasing when drafting a note, not that great viewing at it since it includes the markdown characters. iPad app is also nice in contrast to Synology Note Station that does not exist. 


Update #2

  • Both Synology and Bear support note encryption. Bear however doesn’t when note includes attachments
  • Bear is amazing if you need to write html using markdown. Really amazing
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Good point @DTLow

Scriptability is not possible in new EN but there are a lot of APIs. Note Station has a web interface, but Bear doesn't. I noticed Bear has an API token in settings, I will be exploring their APIs, including easy connectivity/automation with other platforms and report back

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Hi. Thank you for the post. I am sure it will give everyone food for thought as the contemplate joining, staying, leaving, or using the Evernote app in tandem with others.

I think you own your data on every platform, and if you have backups (as you should), you also have control of your data if there is an issue (hacking, data loss, etc.). Perhaps the biggest difference I see among the apps is that you have different degrees of privacy / security. With Evernote, the company can access it without your consent, and they can give it to the US government without your consent. Although it is rare (they issue transparency reports about FISA compliance), it still happens. And, of course, there is always the potential for unauthorized access through "hackers" (someone who obtains your password through leaks in other apps, etc.). With DEVONthink, AppleNotes, and other options, if you encrypt the data and sync through iCloud or Dropbox, you are facing the same situation (they also have to comply with FISA requests), BUT the critical difference is that everything is encrypted, so it seems unlikely (based on my reading of what people with actual knowledge of security have written) that anyone other than state-level entities will be able to read your data. I think it is worth emphasizing that the workflow you choose needs to be consistent with the requirements you have for privacy and security. A grocery list may not warrant encryption, but health, financial, and other personal data related to you, a relative, or a client might be devastating if it somehow leaked, so you would want to pick something encrypted. Or, in some cases, you may not want to put it on anyone else's server at all.

Evernote is a great app, but it should be noted that the recent updated version has removed the offline-only option while not adding further encryption options. In the meantime, competitors (Apple Notes, DEVONthink, etc.) have continued to introduce more and more robust encryption options as well as offline-only options. As you probably guessed, I am not pleased with the decisions they have made in this regard, but in the end, this is what we have, and it's up to users to adjust their use of the app accordingly if they want to avoid issues.  

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Just a word of caution about backups of your "own" devices: The newer versions of ransomware go deliberately after the backups first. The backups get encrypted before they touch the running system.

The only ways to protect local backups is to detach the backup device physically (every time, which requires a lot of discipline) or to use a pull process (no login data to the backup on the main device, which requires quite some IT-knowhow). An alternative are cloud based backup services.

Not that easy to stay safe these days.

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Yes. Good point about the backups. I recommend multiple ones, whenever possible. I have a TimeMachine at home and in the office. I don't think this will be foolproof, but it should avoid my main concern (some kind of problem at one location that affects my data), so perhaps it will protect against ransomware as well. And, of course, much of my data is in the cloud in various locations, including Evernote. The most important thing to remember might be that as long as any of us are connected to the Internet, we are vulnerable to some degree, and we need to think about spreading out our risk. As you said, it isn't easy to stay safe these days.

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3 hours ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

Evernote is a great app, but it should be noted that the recent updated version has removed the offline-only option while not adding further encryption options

Great comment. Encryption is important especially when storing sensitive data that might also be under compliance schemes. And your comment is also correct, while 3rd party might get your data, if it is encrypted, it will take a very long time to unencrypt, based on their hardware and your encryption password complexity. Of course everything is hackable, but the logic here is if you make it very expensive to hack and you don’t store CIA data, then no hacker (or government) will have (or allocate) the interest and resources to get your data. 
 

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

The only ways to protect local backups is to detach the backup device physically (every time, which requires a lot of discipline) or to use a pull process (no login data to the backup on the main device, which requires quite some IT-knowhow)

That’s the only bulletproof way. There are also other ways using “cold” backup buckets using only uploading/downloading. What this essentially means is -if the configuration is appropriate- the worst case scenario, if your data is attacked by ransomware, is to lose all data since prior backup. Last caution here is you need to supervise your data, so if that occurs you recover it before they all become the latest encrypted version. What if Evernote gets ransomware? I know a situation -that did not get public- of a respectable service that got ransomware attack and lost data of nearly 10% of their user base. And the thing is it happened exactly as you describe, the backups were encrypted also ! Very unlikely for a tech giant, but not 0%. And EN is not a tech giant, is it ? Since before v10 I relied 100% on Evernote, meaning if that happened I ‘d be literally screwed. Ironic considering I am aware of all those concepts and the importance of my data !
 

2 hours ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

I have a TimeMachine at home and in the office. I don't think this will be foolproof, but it should avoid my main concern

If your time machine is always mounted, then ransomware can encrypt it no problem. If you want to be really safe, you should follow @PinkElephant recommendation unmounting or even better unplugging your time machine drive. 
 

However, getting ransomware on a macOS client that does not have external access is very unlikely, especially if you stick on using apps notarized by Apple, which in latest versions is complex not to. 

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Time Machine can only „push“ a backup. This means the Mac has access to the drive where the backup is stored. To make it safe one needs to create another backup of the drive or device (for example a NAS), in the manner described. This backup should be setup as „Pull“, or on a detached drive.

A restore would then mean first restore the TM backup from this 2nd level backup, and then the Mac from the restored TM backup.

Looks like a lot of effort and investment - and you are right as long as nothing happens … like the fire fighters have a lot of fancy equipment and sit around all day long as well (… as some people think). You will regret every dime not spend when the roof is on fire.

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On 7/4/2021 at 2:29 PM, DTLow said:

You didn't mention scriptability; imho a must have option
afaik  Scripting is only supported by Evernote Legacy and Devonthink

I'm ok with non multi-plaform platform support (I'm Apple only)   
but am concerned about missing web access

Also, make sure you're not moving to a platform with the data locked in   

I totally support your requirements, however, for most of us locked in the older versions the requirements you listed would be well and beyond our concerns, when the biggest issue is simply not being able to efficiently save and search notes and nothing but text notes with attachments, so pure basic stuff. I have been with Evernote since 2008, longer than many "dinosaurs" here and this is the furthest that Evernote drifted from it's mantra ... being a quick note taking + reference tool. And because of how Evernote has gone into so many different things (sorry to say, but including scriptability) is what perhaps may have also conbtributed somewhat to the demise of Evernote because they lost focus and were running too thin to be able to support users. Since you are looking just for one platform, you may have more choices with modular appliance at home or in the cloud.

One solution I am watching is https://scrapbox.io/product.  (Does scripting). The moment they release client apps, they could be a serious candidate.  The product looks good, so even if they release a hybrid web-apps for different platforms (like Airtable) that run well enough I would be delighted.

I updated my iOS version of Evernote yesterday. It stinks....  The previous version worked acceptably (well or bad, depends on the perspective) but I was able to do things.   The update from yesterday doesn't open any notebook over 10 mb size. The message just says "Note Unavailable" ...   This was an issue a couple of months ago, they fixed it.. Now it's back again. I bet they swapped source code and the previous updates didn't make it in this version. 

If I was able to install old version of Evernote I wouldn't be even here on this forum and would have just installed old version and all good. 

Since Apple policy doesn't allow going back, Evernote could release old version of Evernote for iOS users, for the time being, call it Evernote Classic. Yes, I am not expecting any support, just make it run on current iOS version, that's it.  I guarantee you, if there was Evernote Classic, it would have 4-5 stars rating on the App store. Hands down...

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5 hours ago, itoldusoandso said:

I guarantee you, if there was Evernote Classic, it would have 4-5 stars rating on the App store. Hands down...

Agreed. 

The think is since Phil left, the EN ecosystem is deteriorating. The new CEO will never have the passion a co-founder has, and his main concern is making money.

The problem here is CEO without passion will have very tough time discovering new revenue streams and this is probably why EN experienced severe downsizing and lost some of the best of their stuff. If not possible finding new revenue, then downsizing and decreasing product cost is the way to go. 

I really hope those c-level guys did a risk analysis on how much revenue they are willing to lose because of those changes. I bet they see a 10 year paid subscription and they consider renewal a sure thing. This kind of assumptions are the ones that bankrupt companies.

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8 minutes ago, Stathis said:

The think is since Phil left, the EN ecosystem is deteriorating. The new CEO will never have the passion a co-founder has, and his main concern is making money.

I think that's BS   
It's true "Phil" was less concerned about costs and making money; the money was supplied by investors   
That money is no longer available; the new CEOs may have the same passions but the economics require different strategies for Evernote to progress

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58 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I think that's BS   
It's true "Phil" was less concerned about costs and making money; the money was supplied by investors   
That money is no longer available; the new CEOs may have the same passions but the economics require different strategies for Evernote to progress

Agreed, it’s amazing how ungracious people are online where suddenly everyone wears big boy pants and is uber bold. I have never got the vibe from Ian it’s about money, he appears to have a clear vision for the product and it’s moving in that direction. Whether we like that vision and its reality is a separate matter lol. 

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36 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

ungracious people are online

You think it is ungracious of me to be mad for a service I am paying 10 years now (8 of which happily), for the extreme total of 1,5GB data just to find out 1 day that I get a lagish, buggy, slow app ? 
 

Or maybe ungracious of me that I don’t want to be a prisoner to a product that doesn’t work, just because I got 1,5GB data uploaded ?
 

Maybe yes, maybe not. Maybe the new EN works great in the US or wherever EN has servers and I am experiencing those issues because of my location. 
 

Maybe clipping is not a great deal to you, whereas I got clipping success and nothing was imported. 
 

Maybe you never bought EN moleskine notebooks and ending them in 1 version update is not a great deal to you. 
 

Maybe you should not be judging frustrated people online, just because your use case scenario is different ?

If it was just me, I would not have gotten several pms with more suggestions and info, would I ?

Anyhow, I respect and value everyone’s opinion and having wasted a crazy amount of time I think it is high time I withdrew from the discussion. The weird thing about EN is that migrating from it, gave me a nostalgic feeling, like breaking up with a young love kinda of thing. 
 

Anyhow, over and out, don’t hesitate to contact me in a pm if you want to

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18 minutes ago, Stathis said:

You think it is ungracious of me to be mad for a service I am paying 10 years now (8 of which happily), for the extreme total of 1,5GB data just to find out 1 day that I get a lagish, buggy, slow app ? 
 

Or maybe ungracious of me that I don’t want to be a prisoner to a product that doesn’t work, just because I got 1,5GB data uploaded ?
 

Maybe yes, maybe not. Maybe the new EN works great in the US or wherever EN has servers and I am experiencing those issues because of my location. 
 

Maybe clipping is not a great deal to you, whereas I got clipping success and nothing was imported. 
 

Maybe you never bought EN moleskine notebooks and ending them in 1 version update is not a great deal to you. 
 

Maybe you should not be judging frustrated people online, just because your use case scenario is different ?

If it was just me, I would not have gotten several pms with more suggestions and info, would I ?

Anyhow, I respect and value everyone’s opinion and having wasted a crazy amount of time I think it is high time I withdrew from the discussion. The weird thing about EN is that migrating from it, gave me a nostalgic feeling, like breaking up with a young love kinda of thing. 
 

Anyhow, over and out, don’t hesitate to contact me in a pm if you want to

I don’t think it’s ungracious to be frustrated, to be disappointed, to look at other options - as you are and we are all learning from your process - so thank you for that :)

I think though we need to be cautious in our frustrations, when we start placing onto people an agenda we cannot truly know and condemn them for that we are doing something I think is a little unfair. Apologies if my words came across harsh, they were meant more as tongue in cheek, I perhaps spend too much time on Twitter where the default is character attacks. 
 

I don’t know Ian, for all I know you could be right, but I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if I chose to move on. 

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@WilliamL Apology accepted.

I understand I am being harsh and unreasonable condemning Ian, it is because of the nostalgic, emotional feeling I got moving from EN. Truth be told, I work professionally in -let's say- technology and never would I thought an app would give such a hard time (emotionally) leaving. I believe it's the socks.

I don't believe it is entirely unfair though (condemning Ian), maybe a discussion for another time.

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42 minutes ago, Stathis said:

@WilliamL Apology accepted.

I understand I am being harsh and unreasonable condemning Ian, it is because of the nostalgic, emotional feeling I got moving from EN. Truth be told, I work professionally in -let's say- technology and never would I thought an app would give such a hard time (emotionally) leaving. I believe it's the socks.

I don't believe it is entirely unfair though (condemning Ian), maybe a discussion for another time.

I get where your coming from. I’m really hoping EN10 improves, the iOS apps are not fun at all just now. My issue is I’ve found nothing that comes close to EN, other than the app I pmed you about. 

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Lolz at the idea that Libin was some deeply caring awesome custodian of this app.

He blew millions of dollars for very very little return. Part of the reason that Evernote is currently in the state it is in is because he focused and spent badly.

Whether you like the direction or not, right now there is clear direction and a purpose that may end up being an app that millions of people end up paying for.

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If Evernote was a new app and they just dropped in store, everyone would be accepting the challenges by thinking ..well they are new, so let's give them some time and everybody (user-turned-custodians and good-wishing promoter) would be talking in friendly manner to one another.  Interesting how perspective can change things.

Today I was going to take a picture with the iOS app.  The pictures are blurry.  The in-app Evernote camera app doesn't use focus.  I had to first take picture with the Camera app and then attach the image.

Simple things like these do not work. They are adding features like Tasklist that people (who have perhaps long time ago left Evernote) were asking in the past.  I do admit task management is very useful.  But with such a think focus, I am just hopeful things go to normal within the next year or so. I don't give Evernote more than 2 years of the life with current state of things.

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On 7/6/2021 at 4:02 AM, Stathis said:

I believe it's the socks.

Holy cow. $85 Evernote socks? They don't even have elephants on them. This was a Phil thing? What was he thinking??

 

As for alternatives, I have posted in these forums my experience with using Joplin. It's got a very nice, simple web clipper. Markdown is a nice format to use - I particularly like the intelligent "[toc]" tag to create a quick table of contents. 

Pros: It feels simpler than Evernote, but you can add inline images, inline PDFs, and inline audio files. So I'm not sure it's actually less featured. And if your server goes down, you still have access to the last-saved local notes.

Potential cons: There is no web portal. You also need to be able to reliably self-host Joplin. Sync is very reliable, but easy to ***** up, if that makes sense. The desktop application is Electron, and while it's fast and responsive, sometimes it takes forever to start up, at least for me.

 

Edit: I didn't asterisk out that word up there and it wasn't foul language. Wow. 

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It is quite obvious EN lost its focus for quite some time. The socks were just a symptom of putting branding over development.

Now focus is back, there are some basic settings for the new app family underlying the whole rollout. Among them being truly cloud based, offer a similar experience no matter which platform and making the difference between Basic and subscription plans clearer.

One must not love it, a strong strategy never pleases every opinion. If you are not willing to cut some weed, don’t go into the garden.

What is still lacking is a superior execution. I think we will see more of today’s releases, mainly performance and bugfixing. I can live with that, comfortably !

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I just upgraded from version 7 to version 6 for a truly Evernote experience and never been (subjectively) happier about this Evernote upgrade.  Here are the champions of version 6.11. If they are here we want to thank them for all their efforts with this pinnacle of achievement at Evernote and if they are no longer among us, we wish them to live in peace in the Evernote hall of Fame.

We love you all....

Version 6.11 Built with love by:
Marcus Aiu, Ruben Bakker, Anuradha Balasubramanian, Steve Breen, Clint Burford, Gabe Campodonico, Benjamin Chan, Eric Cheng, Kseniia Cherniavska, Phil Constantinou, Zeesha Currimbhoy, Lester DeKay, Deepali Dixit, Justin Gareau, Philip George, Santiago Gil, Stewart Gillen, Mike Greiner, Jack Hirsch, Thomas Holloway, Dirk Holtwick, Daniel Honzik, Ievgen Sorokopud, Jason Jones, John M. P. Knox, Christian Kohlschütter, Igor Korin, Vitalii Kramar, Keith Lang, Phil Libin, Tong Liu, Joe Lopez, Zdzisław Losvik, Daniel Lu, Josh Mangum, Andrew McGeachie, David Missmann, Taido Lantz Nakajima, Daniel Nicolae, Takuya Otani, Daniel Parker, Kati Pesonen, Martin Pilkington, Chris Ploeg, Carlos Rocafort IV, Ken Ryall, Matt Sarnoff, Mike Schmiderer, Ievgen Sorokopud, Andrei Thorp, Matthew Tonkin, Melissa Tsang, Charles Vass, Jer Villanueva, Brandon Volbright, Vineet Wadhwa, Mel Walker, Adam Walz, Isaac Wankerl, Josef W. Wankerl, Alec Winograd, Alex Young, and Ziru Zhu.

 

 

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8 hours ago, itoldusoandso said:

If Evernote was a new app

fwiw   The v10 product is a "new" product from Evernote; a work in-progress   
    
For the legacy product, see https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

>>I just upgraded from version 7 to version 6

???   
I last upgraded to version 7.14.1 on my Mac; the latest Legacy version

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Find v6 is faster than v7 when moving around. I had both for a while and v6 wins handsdown in speed. It's just interface design though, as I understand v6 and v7 is basically similar code.

v6 has some bugs that v7 doesn't have but I am more than happy to live with it.

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Thanks to all the people who are compiling lists of Evernote replacements.

Evernote was such a huge part of my life that stopping cold turkey isn't an option — but I am finding that instead of looking for a ONE SIZE FITS ALL replacement, I am having better luck finding individual apps to handle specific things I used to do in Evernote.

It may end up costing me more money per year to utilize multiple apps for what I used to do in Evernote — but I have already made progress ditching this piece of trash.

"Workflowy" — https://workflowy.com/

I have replaced ALL of my Evernote checklists with this app pretty gracefully.

Evernote has always been, and continues to be the ABSOLUTE WORST TEXT EDITOR I HAVE EVER USED IN MY LIFE.

I cannot sit here and list how many reasons it's absolutely TERRIBLE but even for simple things like EDITING A CHECKLIST Evernote has become more of a burden than a solution. I spend more time ***** around with all of the stupid horrible bugs in this garbage text editor of theirs than I do MAKING A LIST and CROSSING THINGS OFF of said list.

And when you consider that Evernote is an app primarily built to HELP YOU TAKE NOTES — combined with it being the absolute worst text editor in the history of text editing — and I have used everything from NOTEPAD and everything else you can imagine. Nothing makes me cringe than the dumb garbage Evernote will do to your TEXT in your notes.

Evernote was a big improvement from Google Spreadsheets for various reaons, including being able to NEST checklists with indents and bullets — albeit so long as Evernote's deplorable text editor would allow you to do so. This was helpful for several of my packing lists where I want to create a "bag within a bag within a box" approach — where each bag within a bag is a nested set of bullets / checkboxes.

Workflowy supports this kind of nesting right out of the box and so far it has been SUPER easy to maintain and re-use my packing checklists when I am doing a re-pack or inventory of boxes with hundreds of items, and "boxes within bags within boxes within boxes" situations. SMOOTH AS SILK and has yet to give me a problem I could not find a solution for (mostly because I am new to the software).

So I will no longer be using Evernote for any kind of packing or checklist ever again.

I will no longer be using Evernote for "impromptu slide shows" either. I just jumped back to Keynote and keeping my files synchronized in a cloud drive at this point.

I am a UX Designer for a living — and I get asked the question all the time "What is the worst software you've ever used?" 

And my answer to this question every single time has been "Evernote."

It's time to DITCH this piece of trash and let this company die.

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13 minutes ago, DrunkenCyclist said:

ONE SIZE FITS ALL replacement, I am having better luck finding individual apps to handle specific things

I want all my data stored in a single digital filing cabinet (one size fits all)
This requires a service that can store files of any format     
Evernote's base format for notes is enml (basically html); other file formats are stored as note attachments

An integrated editor is needed,     
but I use external editors as required; example Apple Pages for word processing, Apple Numbers for spreadsheet   
Evernote includes an integrated editor for basic notes

Integrated scripting is needed    
I use Applescript with the Evernote Legacy product to add customized workflows to the UI  

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  • 9 months later...

Is anyone aware of a good alternative that works on Windows PC as well as iOS devices? This has been one of the strengths of Evernote. However, the way Evernote has performed since the big changes has left me very frustrated...

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The windows ecosystem is about ten times as large as the Mac ecosystem, so i imagine there are good note-taking programs available, just don't ask me what they are. I've been a Linux user for twenty years now. On Linux one major note taking program is Joplin. 

Also there is a very large number of note taking apps for Android. In general Android development is a lot easier than iOS development so lots more people and companies write apps for Android. 

As for apps that run on windows and iOS, i can imagine apple being against this. Certainly they place stones in the way of anyone writing cross-platform apps (much like Microsoft does) by having things like secret APIs that only they are allowed to use. As an open-source advocate i find these power games absolutely ridiculous, but so is the modern world 😕

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On 5/1/2022 at 11:22 PM, AndrewDG said:

Is anyone aware of a good alternative that works on Windows PC as well as iOS devices? This has been one of the strengths of Evernote. However, the way Evernote has performed since the big changes has left me very frustrated...

The closest alternative which is cross platform Windows and iOS is Nimbus Notes. Notably, they've just recently introduced a task feature into the programme in the same vein as Evernote, although implementation is somewhat different and at present not as intuitive / flexible. 

I dabble with NImbus, but keep reverting back to Evernote. Somehow it just seems that bit more polished and intuitive. Since Evernote V10 had a notable speed increase a few iterations back, I just haven't had any stumbling blocks to cause me to move elsewhere. Notably Nimbus iOS app is not as quick when you have several thousand notes at play. ( I imported a sizable batch of my Evernote docs last year). 

 

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Always willing to lend a hand to a brother in need of ditching Evernote.

The way I approached it was that instead of finding ONE app to replace what Evernote did for me, I decided to use multiple apps.

Each app I use now does a better job at whatever aspect of Evernote I was using.

I'll start with the most direct replacement(s) and then move away from there.

Overall Note Taker - Notion.so
I like Notion overall, it is a fairly smooth transition from Evernote.
Editing text can be a pain and wonky but it has super powerful database features and other features that are great.
Not so great with offline notes so that could be a deal breaker for some.
I am using the database to catalog my photography collection of thousands of images, and keep all of the meta data organized.

Overall Note Taker at Work - NoteJoy
Not as powerful as Evernote and I am only using it for my work related notes because the company has blocked Evernote and Notion
It's OK but it's more of a note taking app than a full-feature set like Evernote.
They have an overall size limit for your "total library" and with the number of screenshots I take for notes it could blow through that limit in a year or two.

Whiteboarding / Sketching out ideas / Image and screenshot annotations - Miro
Miro is pretty dope as a whiteboard app.
My only complaints so far is that it lacks nested grouping for complicated charts and it could improve features that seasoned designers are accustomed to,

Preentations - Keynote / Miro / Other design tools
I liked Evernote's slide-show aspect but since I ditched the product I just have ways of presenting using Keynote (Apple's PowerPoint equivalent), Miro, and other design tools

Organization  and task lists - Trello
I just use a free Trello account to keep "Kanban" boards for things I need to keep track of. I don't really need any of the paid features here.

Nested Packing lists - Workflowy
I have very detailed packing lists for traveling and going on long-term adventures.
I switched to using Workflowy for that because it supports the concept of infinitely nested checklists
The navigation and the way you organize these lists is spot-on and the android interface is very slick and productive to use when packing
This app can be used for lots of things, packing lists are what I am using it for.
Think of packing a bag of stuff within another bag, within another bag, within a box, that's in a compartment, of a specific vehicle.
You can track your packing lists to that degree and it is super powerful when building both permanent lists and lists specific for a trip.
Super powerful app, way beyond anything I've seen in any other "to-do" list app.

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On 5/1/2022 at 4:22 PM, AndrewDG said:

Is anyone aware of a good alternative that works on Windows PC as well as iOS devices?

Another one you could check out is UpNote. (https://getupnote.com/) It runs on Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS/iPadOS. I like it a lot, but I still like Evernote better -- depends on what features you like and what is important to you I think. UpNote has a several editor features (backlinks, '[[' in place linking, table of contents, linking to headers in the same document) that I wished existed in Evernote, but there are still more things about Evernote that I like better that keep me here.

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Also, there are a ton of note apps that work on both Windows and iOS and sync in between. Generally when an app is only in the Apple ecosystem, it's because it was developed by Apple (as the case of the Apple Notes app) or the developer is Apple ecosystem only as in the case of Bear or Craft.

Evernote, UpNote, OneNote (Microsoft), Nimbus Notes, Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, NoteJoy (and the list goes on)... these are all apps that run on both Windows and iOS (as well as other platforms).

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@DrunkenCyclist Thanks for sharing - you really posted detailed information which allows others to think about which tools to employ.

From your post I have counted 6 apps (give and take 1) as a bundle to replace EN. Personally I prefer to simplify my life and stick with EN as a combined solution.

Especially spreading information over several apps without an overview is a show stopper for me. I accept that in the details specialized apps will do a better job. But the results are stuck here and there, not available in one place.

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17 hours ago, DrunkenCyclist said:

Organization  and task lists - Trello

imho I don't want a separate application for organization and task lists
I use a single datastore for all my notes; including task notes and lists   
(for example, you mentioned Notion; I use Devonthink)  

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Yeah, to each their own, but like DTLow and PinkElephant, I want everything in one place. I also need it to be cross-platform because I'm on Windows and iOS. I had issues when I last tried Joplin, but I would try it again as it seemed to be closest to the feature set I want (you can choose to set up encryption, you can choose your sync platform, and if you use their cloud service you can publish notes and collaborate on notebooks).

Edit to add: Joplin is more fiddly to set up and not as polished. I love that it uses the system PDF viewer in-app (for me, Adobe Reader on Windows and Preview on iOS) rather than Evernote's custom one; loading attachments is super snappy on iOS. I like that Markdown is the foundation but the editor implementation is wonky. Official emoji support for notebooks is cool, but I miss Stacks. The app is free-to-use and doesn't hide note geodata or boolean search behind a paid tier (really weird decisions on E's part, IMO). Joplin Cloud Pro is $60/year. As is, I'm not quite feeling the urge to switch.

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