How to sort by size?

[eugenes 28]

If I'm not mistaken, the old Evernote allowed a sort by size on the notes. The new one can only sort by Title and Dates. So has this functionality been removed? How can I find out which are my largest notes among the 4000 or so I have?

Thanks.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Currently ?

Download and install legacy. This works and can be used side by side with the v10 client. There are as this issue a few features that are still working better in legacy than in v10. It is getting less and less, but some still persist.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote
 

However there is no „real“ reason to specifically find large notes. The plan limits are about the monthly upload, not about the amount of data stored. There is no downside in having large notes in your account.

[Mike P 2,637]

9 hours ago, esotirescu said:

If I'm not mistaken, the old Evernote allowed a sort by size on the notes. The new one can only sort by Title and Dates. So has this functionality been removed? How can I find out which are my largest notes among the 4000 or so I have?

Thanks.

Many of the sort options that were in legacy have been removed. Hopefully they will return at some stage, I'm looking forward to being able to click the header of any field available in the list views to sort by that field. Sadly, as far as I am aware, there is no advanced search syntax for size so you can't for example search for notes >2MB.

 

[eugenes 28]

18 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Currently ?

Download and install legacy. This works and can be used side by side with the v10 client. There are as this issue a few features that are still working better in legacy than in v10. It is getting less and less, but some still persist.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote
 

However there is no „real“ reason to specifically find large notes. The plan limits are about the monthly upload, not about the amount of data stored. There is no downside in having large notes in your account.

thanks for the reply. the reason i need this is not due to plan limits (i have premium) but to disk limits. currently i don't see a way to install the evernote db on a different drive, so i want to prune it of large notes that i don't need any more.

question: if i installed legacy, would it use the same database as the latest version, or would it create its own database?

[eugenes 28]

8 hours ago, Mike P said:

Many of the sort options that were in legacy have been removed. Hopefully they will return at some stage, I'm looking forward to being able to click the header of any field available in the list views to sort by that field. Sadly, as far as I am aware, there is no advanced search syntax for size so you can't for example search for notes >2MB.

 

thanks for the reply, appreciate it. i waited a long time before upgrading, but it seems i missed this feature when i did my research, otherwise i would not have upgraded. i will probably go back to legacy as @PinkElephant suggested.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

1 hour ago, esotirescu said:

thanks for the reply. the reason i need this is not due to plan limits (i have premium) but to disk limits. currently i don't see a way to install the evernote db on a different drive, so i want to prune it of large notes that i don't need any more.

question: if i installed legacy, would it use the same database as the latest version, or would it create its own database?

Two answers:

1) Each version creates its own database. You duplicate the memory needed when installing both clients.

It could be one solution to install legacy, and use the web client for v10 features. It comes close in features to the installed client, and needs no local database.

2) You can install the databases on an external drive as well on Windows: With legacy I think (I am on a Mac) during the installation process. For v10 you need to use symbolic links - there are descriptions how to do it in the forum.

The external target can be an USB-Stick, a turning USB disk (good for a backup ad well, large ones come still relatively cheap) or for speed an external SSD.

[fatehshakir 1]

On 4/2/2022 at 1:29 AM, esotirescu said:

f I'm not mistaken, the old Evernote allowed a sort by size on the notes. The new one can only sort by Title and Dates. So has this functionality been removed? How can I find out which are my largest notes among the 4000 or so I have?

Thanks.

Same Question

[PinkElephant 8,091]

If you read the thread you find all the answers.

We are just other users - and it is not our job to serve existing information nicely re-packaged on a silver plate. Just use your eyes and brain, and the „same question“ is already answered.

[Vesa Vuorinen 10]

I would love to see Evernote implement this functionality! The ability to sort notes by whatever criteria I choose should be implemented in a program that is basically a sophisticated database. I see many use cases and needs related to sorting the list view of all my notes by Size or Tags. It's limiting and frustrating to have to operate only by title and dates.

My current use case for sorting by size relates to troubleshooting Evernote performance issues when loading notes.  

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Every index on a database carries its own weight. It needs to be build and maintained, this makes it eat into performance.

Since we don’t pay for storage, only for upload I don’t see a sense in sorting by size. There is no need to purge large notes, just to keep below a limit that doesn’t exist. And a fundamental change of the database to see after a current issue is counterproductive - better keep the devs on fixing the problem.

Beside this my experience in the last weeks tells that some larger notes open quite fast, whereas some smaller ones (specially those with a small attachment) take much longer. I still have not found a pattern, but I am pretty sure that size is not among the criteria.

[agsteele 2,944]

We know that AI Search is on the agenda. I would imagine that it will be possible to make a request to find notes and also sort by criteria you can describe.

I am certain that there will be no changes in the current search and sorting options in the meantime.

[eugenes 28]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

Since we don’t pay for storage, only for upload I don’t see a sense in sorting by size. There is no need to purge large notes, just to keep below a limit that doesn’t exist. And a fundamental change of the database to see after a current issue is counterproductive - better keep the devs on fixing the problem.

 there is sense in sorting  by size if your disk space is limited and you want to prune large notes. and if legacy evernote could do it, i don't see why the new improved one can't.

[agsteele 2,944]

I don't think it is a question of whether such a sort order could not be done but it hasn't and is not on anyone's immediate horizon.

Now would be a great time to advocate for this. If Evernote was to get sufficient interest including it in the AI Search work could be achieved.

So, as well as speaking up here, be sure that your idea is submitted via a support ticket to add weight with the developers.

[sershe 1]

I'd bet this idea is never going to be implemented. If you think about it - why would it need to be removed? It would typically be harder from the development perspective to treat the table fields differently - it would be easier in most circumstances to treat them all the same, i.e. sortable. 

The proximate reason Evernote 10 treats them differently is obvious if you open a large notebook, scroll back and forth to load all the notes, and the proceed to quickly scroll back and forth again. You'll see that, while (other than the usual Electron lag) note titles and dates are immediately available, there's an additional short gap when the note sizes for the notes being scrolled into view are blank. Evernote cannot sort by size because it doesn't have the sizes for all the notes in the UI control - they are loaded dynamically!

Since to implement such a dynamic field system you'd need to make effort, it's clearly not accidental. I suspect the actual root cause simply has to do with limitations of Electron and/or their developers ("is Electron dumb, or are Electron developers?" "yes") - the more data the control has, the more laggy and slow it probably becomes. Since sorting by size is a rarely used feature, and the control is already slow compared to legacy, they are unlikely to add such a feature. To be clear, a competent developer could also implement a feature that sorts the notes outside of the control and then populates in within a few hours, at most. But, I bet this dynamic loading and other hacks (plus Electron itself) already make their codebase an ungodly mess (I've seen a few "clever" web app codebases in my time), and I don't expect there's a competent developer left there anyway. So, again, given how few users need it, it's unlikely to get implemented.

 

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Nothing in v10 was removed - they started with an empty sheet. Not a snippet of code was carried over.

Everything that’s there was added, and what’s not there wasn’t added. It’s that simple.

If you miss something, ask support. When there are enough requests with support, it will maybe place it on the backlog.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,950]

15 hours ago, sershe said:

The proximate reason Evernote 10 treats them differently is obvious if you open a large notebook, scroll back and forth to load all the notes, and the proceed to quickly scroll back and forth again. You'll see that, while (other than the usual Electron lag) note titles and dates are immediately available, there's an additional short gap when the note sizes for the notes being scrolled into view are blank. Evernote cannot sort by size because it doesn't have the sizes for all the notes in the UI control - they are loaded dynamically!

I don't have your technical knowledge, but I can't seem to reproduce what you're seeing in the Evernote Windows app. When I add a size column to the Top List view, the sizes are there immediately (barring the "Electron lag"). What view are you using?

[sershe 1]

I can repro it on Windows and web. I guess we have different standards for immediately? You can clearly see for a split second when scrolling quickly, and note titles already being there, the empty size column that then gets populated. I checked web edition just now and it's still the case.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,950]

20 minutes ago, sershe said:

I can repro it on Windows and web. I guess we have different standards for immediately? You can clearly see for a split second when scrolling quickly, and note titles already being there, the empty size column that then gets populated. I checked web edition just now and it's still the case.

All I can say is it's literally instant for me on both the Web client and the Windows app (both v. 10.71.2, the latest). I feel like I should apologize for being lucky; or maybe my brain has slowed down to where it doesn't notice the delay.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Those columns you can use for sorting will scroll without any noticeable lag. Those that only show will have a slight delay when scrolling. When scrolling down, the gap will be at the bottom of the page, when scrolling up in the upper part.

Little wonder - the sortable ones are in an index database that allows very fast access. The non sortable ones need to be read from the main database. The focus of app development has been on speed now for quite a while. Extending the indexed fields would make them show faster, and sorting possible by more fields. but in general it would slow down the app as well.

This is probably the main reason why sorting is only possible for a few fields.