Request: Hide private notes...

[neilsneils 0]

I have been using Evernote for a little over a year and I am very satisfied. In the meantime, the programme has become part of my daily workflow. 
 
What bothers me absolutely:
I want to hide my private notes. So that they are not visible under "all notes" or when I search for certain notes during a presentation. 
Unfortunately, this does not work!
What can I do and will there be an update at some point?
Encryption doesn't work because I can only hide plain text with it. Unfortunately, I cannot hide images, attachments, etc.

Can I hope that such a function will be built in? Who has a tip?
Thank you very much!

[gazumped 11,666]

On 9/24/2021 at 7:03 AM, neilsneils said:

I want to hide my private notes. So that they are not visible under "all notes" or when I search for certain notes during a presentation. 

Hi.  If you wish to keep your work and personal notes apart,  you could simply create a separate account for your presentation that either contains only that presentation (or presentations in general) and while a presentation is running on a separate screen,  you could open your 'other' account containing research / personal notes and general information on a screen to which only you have access.  By sharing a notebook from the presentation account to the personal account you'll be able to update presentations and 'send' yourself additional notes if necessary.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

Depending on the devices you use for the presentation, there may be an option to freeze the presentation window while you search for something on your computer.

This will prevent anybody to see any content apart from what you want to show.

[neilsneils 0]

Thank you for the answer.

Working with two accounts is a option, but also less flexible and intuitive. 
Why is there no possibility to hide a notebook or individual notes? I'm thinking, for example, of images / scans of tax documents. 
These are often displayed in a search because they contain the words you are looking for. 
This is unfortunate and should definitely be considered. 

Thanks for the good support!
 

[neilsneils 0]

Thank you for the answer.

Working with two accounts is an option, but also less flexible and intuitive. 
Why is there no possibility to hide a notebook or individual notes? I'm thinking, for example, of images / scans of tax documents. 
These are often displayed in a search because they contain the words you are looking for. 
This is unfortunate and should definitely be considered. 

Thanks for the good support!
 

[neilsneils 0]

Addendum
With search filters, I could probably exclude certain folders. Right?
However, the problem remains that currently edited notes that I want to keep private are displayed in the note list next to the notebooks list. I would like to prevent this. Is this possible?
 

[Mike P 2,642]

18 minutes ago, neilsneils said:

Addendum
With search filters, I could probably exclude certain folders. Right?
However, the problem remains that currently edited notes that I want to keep private are displayed in the note list next to the notebooks list. I would like to prevent this. Is this possible?
 

"Notes" in the sidebar used to be called "All notes" which was far more descriptive. Notes dispalys all notes and there is nothing you can do about that. It can't be removed from the sidebar. You could change to sorting by created date rather then edited date and then manually change the created date of sensitive documents to a long way in the past (or future) so that they always appear at the bottom of the list. 

You could also tag notes with a "private" tag or put them in a notebook named private. You can exclude these from a search using

-tag:private

OR

-notebook:private

You could save that as a search, add it to shortcuts and always remember to use that rather than notes.

[Mike P 2,642]

Another thought. Things like scans of tax documents could be saved as pdfs and attached to the note. Choose the "view as attachment" option rathen than one of the inline options.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

There is a long standing feature request about the encryption feature. Currently it only works on text, without any format etc.

My favorite solution would be an encrypted notebook.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

In the current environment to protect attachments the simplest way is to use the encryption tools available for the file type. PDF for example can be password protected. It just makes them less util, no OCR, no search. But safe …

“Security by Obscurity“ is not a valid concept any longer, I would no go down this trail. It is like the squirrels: The trick is not to hide the nuts in autumn, the trick is to find them again in winter.

[Mike P 2,642]

41 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

“Security by Obscurity“ is not a valid concept any longer, I would no go down this trail.

I agree but it does depend on the reason for his concern. His use case seems to be very much about other people seeing his screen during a presentation rather than serious concerns about somebody hacking his account and accessing data.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

Simple answer (mentioned already above): 2 accounts. The information can all be in one of them.

The second one is empty, and receives shared notebooks with the „public“ information.

Thus when using the account, you only work on the main account. Whenever you add or change something in one of the shared notebooks, the „presentation“ account updates automatically.

The rest is private.

[Trogind 1]

I too need the private mode as well and I think a lot of other users do. And non of the above suggestions seems to fulfil the need.

I use Evernote both for work and private matters and have done so for years, for now in my personal Evernote Professional account.

I would like to be able to flag notebooks with inheritance to notes as private, so by turning on a private mode these notebooks and their notes won't appear in lists, searches etc. This enables me to search, navigate and take notes, show my screen, do presentations etc. without sharing any private information on say, potential new jobs, insurance matters on a damaged car or just trivial grocery lists.

The feasible alternative is not to open another Evernote account or to jump through any of the hoops mentioned above, but unfortunately to migrate to and keep any work related notes in another service eg., OneNote as a part of my employers Microsoft 365 subscription.

[gazumped 11,666]

8 hours ago, Trogind said:

by turning on a private mode these notebooks and their notes won't appear

Hi.  I agree the sort of admin possibilities you describe are awesome - but the reality is that Evernote does not do this.  (Actually you could achieve a lot of it using Evernote Teams but that's a whole other level of additional admin.)  Realistically,  if you can't manage without these features,  then you need to flip to OneNote or another app that does.  If you can manage without,  then Evernote may,  at some stage,  get around to adding some additional layers of security.  Maybe.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

EN treats all notes as private (exceptions see below).

You decide yourself if you share some, you show your account to others because you want to etc. There is no more presentation mode, one reason less to show your account around.

If you need to show notes to others frequently, get a second account, or in case of working in a defined group of people switch to a Teams account. Teams is the EN solution for using EN in an organization, sharing all sort of information based on the defined work areas (Spaces). With Teams every user gets his own Personal account for private use, not managed through the Teams admin.

Splitting accounts between private and professional use is how your problem is solved within EN. Personally I don’t see any reason to create yet another „solution“ just because you do not like what you get. You may ask for it, but I strongly doubt you will ever see your wish implemented. It would mean redesigning server and client side to control which part is showing when - answer this probability to yourself.

If you insist, then this is for you the killer criteria for using EN at all. It is that simple, sometimes …

[donkeyfur 2]

I also think that attributing notes as private would be very helpful. It would be great if this attribution prevented them from *automatically* appearing in searches or appearing in the sidebar Notes listing. If implemented as a simple attribute to any note, they could even be placed within any notebook. This would be really helpful and would add a helpful level of sophistication to EN. Searches could be enhanced to allow inclusion or exclusion (default) of this attribute. Very simple, elegant and consistent with the EN design.

Having private notes show up in a listing is sometimes difficult in a work environment where others are able to see your screen. Trying to develop work-arounds to something simple like this is also problematic, particularly to searching and using this type of content. I think the suggestion that EN treats all notes as private is intentionally misleading. That's not the kind of privacy we're talking about. The idea of a second account is counter to the DNA of EN which is largely to be a coordinating, curating force in your life, across work and personal spheres.

This is a good idea and would provide a range of benefits to EN users.

[eric99 980]

In the latest release EN 10.38.1,  you can set the search context to a specific stack of multiple notebooks now! This way, you can easily exclude private notes from your search result.

(please note if you want to clear your search string without removing the stack filter, just search for '*' )

 

[dbvirago 502]

On 5/27/2022 at 4:58 AM, eric99 said:

In the latest release EN 10.38.1,  you can set the search context to a specific stack of multiple notebooks now! This way, you can easily exclude private notes from your search result.

(please note if you want to clear your search string without removing the stack filter, just search for '*' )

 

I updated yesterday then heard about this feature, but couldn't find it. I double-checked that I had 10.38.1 and it still wasn't there. I went to another machine that just updated this morning and it's not there either. 

So, I went to the website and download and installed and now I have Located in as a filter. This is something that was seamless in v6 and another thing I have missed.

 

Makes me not trust the automated update system. 

[agsteele 2,950]

I think the auto update releases take around two weeks and 10.38 was only released this week. If you happen to be in one of the occasional beta releases (as I am) then no audio updates until you go back to general release.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

On my Mac (direct download EN 10.38) the function is located in the filter feature, in the second option. It used to be only for notebooks, but now the stacks appear at the beginning of the list. The notebooks that are inside of a stack are nested inside of it, so you can expand and reduce the view between stacks and notebooks.

In fact it is easier to select a stack than a notebook.

[Xcritu 0]

Or if anything a safe mode would be nice.... like how Steam handles it.

When in safemode you only see games you selected to be part of the safemode view.

When you put in your password to unlock safemode then you have access to all games.

 

If they could make a safemode Evernote, that only shows notes we have designated as "public".

And then when we toggle the safemode off to then show the notes designated as "private".

[Thomas Gammelby 0]

Yes this feature would be a nice addition, so you can chose to keep work and personal information separate. 

Whether you call it secure, secret, hidden private or ...

The idea is to hide information that you do not want others to see when browsing or searching your notes, including images and so on. Also if someone is to gain access to your notes it would provide an extra level of security with not having everything readily available. 🤗 don't see the difficulties in implementing it. You can just define a view where private things are NOT included. 

If (privateMode)

{

   Display.TagPrivate();

}

[neilsneils 0]

It is the beginning of 2024. Are there any plans and/or measures to hide "private" notes?
Some options and wishes have been mentioned by users. 
For me, the lack of an option to hide notes completely is still Evernote's biggest weakness. Unfortunately...

[AKARJLUK 13]

Maybe I am missing something you can encrypt notes......

[PinkElephant 8,114]

Your account by definition is private. It’s all yours, so everything is private.

If you want to share part of your notes, use the sharing of notebooks and notes. Only these are accessible for the recipient of the share.

Setups for multiple users need to use a Teams account. There access is controlled by defining spaces and allocating users to them.