Why I'm leaving Evernote after 12 years

[Peter Grant 8]

Feedback is a gift so here is why I'm leaving after being a paid subscriber for a long time...

I just wanted an app that allowed me to take notes and customize itself to be as clean and possible. 

With all the fancy changes we've lost the ability to customise Evernote to suit our needs. It feels like the engineering team think they know how we should use it and are enforcing that on us. Case in point, we can no longer make the title the default when creating new notes. I often Evernote for quick tasks and sometimes the ONLY peice of text is in the title. Why make me click it each time?

I have also long wished for the ability to remove unwanted clutter as well but this has never been a feature to the extent I wanted it, and now you have even less control.

Basic things like not being able to paste in from SnagIt. This is a known bug but is a big deal. It did work, now it doesn't and it doesn't seem to be a prioity. 

Evernote, you had a good thing going, you tried to be too fancy and dictate to us how we should use your product. In the process you broke some key functionality. I've just cancelled my subscription and are going to use OneNote.

[PinkElephant 8,305]

If OneNote serves you better, you are taking the right move.

I tried it myself, and what happens may have been my Microsoft allergy: No love, not feeling good. So I dropped it from my list.

[Brian W 4]

OneNote is an atrocious pile of dog barf. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. There’sa reason Microsoft gives it away. 

[Peter Grant 8]

Does one note allow you to paste from snag it, a popular screen shot tool= yes

Does onenote allow you to default to the title for a new note = yes

I'm using it now and it does the job, less clicks. It's a shame as I did use evernote for years but they screwed it

[DTLow 5,738]

Apple user here

I'm still using the Evernote Legacy product but Devonthink is at the top of my alternatives list     
Note - it's Apple only

[Peter Grant 8]

Cool thanks. Will check it out

[slhberger 0]

I love Evernote, but now I can't even open the new version!

I am a paying customer, quickly getting disgruntled!!
 

[Beartooth 9]

Personally, I feel OneNote is a good alternative to Evernote.  Using it with the Microsoft 365 tools and OneDrive is not a bad option.

I have been using it since V10 came along.  I run it parallel to Evernote Legacy since the 1st of the year.  I have not installed V10 on my Windows PC and don’t intend to until I can see a consensus on the Forum that it is ready.  I am very appreciative of your input.

 I personally feel that EN will evolve for the better and I will be very happy to continue using it.  For now, using EN Legacy in conjunction with the iPhone app I am very satisfied.  I love the iPhone app.

[PinkElephant 8,305]

To start with iOS, it does what it does. It is better than anything before. My main topics would be a better support for the iPad, to be able to work on more than 1 note at a time and a return of the Apple Watch App.

The V10 app on the Mac does 90% of what I need, legacy is only used for a few last issues. With the constant releases I expect the last gaps to be filled until end of 2021.

But it depends of course on the use case.

Maybe you could get more specific …

[rootdr 8]

On 10/10/2021 at 3:20 AM, Peter Grant said:

Case in point, we can no longer make the title the default when creating new notes. I often Evernote for quick tasks and sometimes the ONLY peice of text is in the title. Why make me click it each time?

Indeed why?

You could make it an option in the preferences or at the very least a keyboard shortcut to change focus from note to title. This seems almost a trivial change to make!

Please make this change.

[Peter Grant 8]

The option to default to title is gone now. It used to be there. Yes I could make a shortcut but the point is I still need to trigger that shortcut! And snag it pastes don't work. They used to but support said it's a known bug. Not being able to paste a screen shot for be is a big blocker. If there was an easy way to fix this I would. Read the original post. One note default to the title and screenshots pastes work...winner 

[PinkElephant 8,305]

Drag & Drop between EN and many other apps returned to work with 10.23. Don’t know whether you already updated and tried.

[janndk 582]

On 10/10/2021 at 10:20 AM, Peter Grant said:

Feedback is a gift so here is why I'm leaving after being a paid subscriber for a long time...

I just wanted an app that allowed me to take notes and customize itself to be as clean and possible. 

With all the fancy changes we've lost the ability to customise Evernote to suit our needs. It feels like the engineering team think they know how we should use it and are enforcing that on us. Case in point, we can no longer make the title the default when creating new notes. I often Evernote for quick tasks and sometimes the ONLY peice of text is in the title. Why make me click it each time?

I have also long wished for the ability to remove unwanted clutter as well but this has never been a feature to the extent I wanted it, and now you have even less control.

Basic things like not being able to paste in from SnagIt. This is a known bug but is a big deal. It did work, now it doesn't and it doesn't seem to be a prioity. 

Evernote, you had a good thing going, you tried to be too fancy and dictate to us how we should use your product. In the process you broke some key functionality. I've just cancelled my subscription and are going to use OneNote.

I'm also giving up with Evernote and moving to OneNote. Actually I really like the way Evernote is going to (e.g. the new tasks function is great!) - but the problem is that the android app is simply too slow to be used. It's so pity 😪

Yes, I know: OneNote is *****. But at least I will be able to take notes with my mobile when I'm in a hurry. Creating a new photo note in Evernote takes up to 2 minutes.  In OneNote about 15 sec!

Cancelled my subscription today. However, the subscription expires in june next year, so maybe I check Evernote again some time later, to see if there has been any improvement.

[zinoff 2]

10 hours ago, janndk said:

Cancelled my subscription today. However, the subscription expires in june next year, so maybe I check Evernote again some time later, to see if there has been any improvement.

I’ve done exactly the same

[Paul Hobaica 1]

Can anyone tell me if the scan business card to contacts in iPhone  is working. I can’t believe they took this away.
Thanks. 

[PinkElephant 8,305]

Don’t double post.

I have answered your question in your 2nd post about the same issue.

P.S. If you found out about it today, you can’t be a real hardcore user. This feature was removed one year from now, when the new app launched. Or you are a vivid BC collector - sitting on the collection of a year and now finally want to get it scanned (just thinking - had this problem once myself, back then …).

Anyhow, you can scan, the feature was even IMHO greatly improved by the ability to combine it with Tasks („Call John for a follow up on the lead in a week from now“). BC are now actionable in EN, without any 3rd party app - how great is this ?!

[Brewerpaul 2]

I'm only using the freebie Evernote and have been fairly happy with it, but lately it's gotten too cluttered for my very simple note taking needs.

Lately I haven't been able to delete old notes, or pictures with in notes. This is on the Windows app, Windows network client and Android on two devices.

I'd like to experiment with OneNote but have run into a problem. The  one note Evernote to OneNote importer hasn't worked for me. I've tried exporting Evernote files to my PC and then using the importer to add them to OneNote, but that doesn't work either.

I can appreciate that Evernote doesn't want to encourage people to move from their platform, but in my opinion, notes that I've created should be viewed as my property and I should have access to them to move or delete as I see fit.

[s2sailor 2,345]

1 hour ago, Brewerpaul said:

I can appreciate that Evernote doesn't want to encourage people to move from their platform, but in my opinion, notes that I've created should be viewed as my property and I should have access to them to move or delete as I see fit.

The notes are your property and can be exported to html or pdf.  The problem is with the OneNote importer.  I run into a similar problem when I was investigating OneNote earlier.  Many competitors can import the native enex files, and as I recall, Devonthink just sucks in the EN database without going through an export/import process.  The burden is on the competitor to decide how they want to enable those leaving Evernote for their product.

[DTLow 5,738]

1 hour ago, Brewerpaul said:

I've tried exporting Evernote files to my PC

What problems are you having with exporting Evernote files?    
I've successfully exported using both the .enex and ,html options 

[Brewerpaul 2]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

What problems are you having with exporting Evernote files?    
I've successfully exported using both the .enex and ,html options 

I can export the.enex files but the OneNote importer doesn't find the. It's basically a crappy APP.

[agsteele 2,985]

8 minutes ago, Brewerpaul said:

I can export the.enex files but the OneNote importer doesn't find the. It's basically a crappy APP.

However, I'm not sure that can be a fault of Evernote. EN doesn't provide the import function - just the export from EN to .ENEX or .HTML. You could raise the issue with the developer of the OneNote importer you are trying to use. A quick search engine exploration reveals many issues that might arise importing into OneNote and ways to resolve them. You could try there.

[PinkElephant 8,305]

I completely agree that the importer to ON is complete *****. It is even worse than that, AFAIK it is abandoned by Microsoft.

The importers that exist today seem to be 3rd party, probably written in good faith, maybe to solve ones own import necessities. But they don’t look like a professional tool.

Non of this is EN‘s business - they offer solid export options, and by this they did their job.