Note Info: Edit Date Updated

[ciskowitz 4]

Evernote used to be able to edit the Date Updated in the Note Info, but a few years ago you removed this critically important feature!

Please put it back! We need to be able to edit the Date Updated field in the Note Info screen.  My default sorting of notes is by Date Updated.  I often go back to very old notes and change something minor like the notebook it is in or a tag, but I do not want the Date Updated to be changed!  Now this very old note is clogging up my usually refined list of the latest notes that I'm working on. 

We need to be able to edit the Date Updated field in the Note Info screen. 

[Mike P 2,629]

17 minutes ago, ciskowitz said:

Evernote used to be able to edit the Date Updated in the Note Info, but a few years ago you removed this critically important feature!

I agree that it would be logical to allow changing the date updated in the same way that you can change the date created. The ability to change the date created was not in earlier versions of V10 so I think it is entirely possible that EN might reintroduce the ability to edit date updated sometime in the future. I now pretty much use date created all the time and use tags to identify notes I am currenlty working on (e.g. $current)

There is a hack to change the updated date but you may well decide it is too much effort! You need to export the note as an .enex file and then open it with a text editor and manually change the date. Then import. 

Which gives the update date before the created date which is obviously nonsense! (note that the times have been adjusted from UTC to British Summer Time and are the same as the original note)

[Mike P 2,629]

3 minutes ago, Mike P said:

You need to export the note as an .enex file

I have no idea why EN believes I exported this note on 26 August 2022 (current date 26 July 2022). Looking back at other exports it always gets it wrong! Perhaps they are adding one month instead of 1 hour to account for summer time?

[Boot17 1,443]

I also appreciated being able to change the update date and time pre v10. I wonder why they have made it non editable, perhaps that field has now become more internal meta-data and it could mess with synchronization or some other internal workings or something like that.

One other work-around to change the update date and time manually (at least for now) is to use the Legacy version. I used to keep Legacy running on the same machine as v10 for just this very purpose but it kind of became too much of a hassle so I've mostly come to terms with not being able to manually edit it (although I'd still love to be able to do it).

[agsteele 2,942]

1 hour ago, ciskowitz said:

We need to be able to edit the Date Updated field in the Note Info screen. 

I'm not sure who 'We' are... It isn't me or, probably, many other users. In any case these forums are user to user so you would be better raising this using a support ticket to ensure you get attention from Evernote.

[surreydave 2]

I tried Mikes workaround. When I re-imported it back, Evernote decided to create a new notebook for it to go in. I had no choice in that. At that point the updated date/time was as I had corrected it to. When I moved it back to the correct notebook, the updated date/time had changed to the current date/time. ☹️

[PinkElephant 8,081]

When importing from an ENEX file, EN will always create a new notebook, and load all notes from the ENEX into it. This is how the import function works. Since the notes are created newly, they run under the current date, and have no note history attached.

[Mike P 2,629]

On 8/21/2022 at 8:59 AM, surreydave said:

I tried Mikes workaround. When I re-imported it back, Evernote decided to create a new notebook for it to go in. I had no choice in that. At that point the updated date/time was as I had corrected it to. When I moved it back to the correct notebook, the updated date/time had changed to the current date/time. ☹️

As has been noted elsewhere there is more than one way of importing. If you double click the enex file on your computer it will import it into the default notebook and not create a new notebook. However, this doesn't alter the fact that moving a note to a different notebook changes the update date. You could, of course, change the default notebook before double clicking on the modified enex file, but this is now looking more like a walk to the end of the road via the summit of Everest than a sensible workaround. I think you will need to wait for EN to reintroduce the feature (if they ever do - remember that they didn't do it when they reintroduced the ability to change the creation date) or find an alternative workflow.

[PinkElephant 8,081]

Sorry, just tested it again on my Mac to be sure:

Exported a notebook to an ENEX file. It showed on my desktop. I named it "mynewnotebook"

When I double clicked it, it started to import. A new notebook was automatically created, named "(Imported) mynewnotebook"

In one aspect I have to correct myself: It showed the original created date, and a last updated that corresponds to the original note. But note history is gone.

[Mike P 2,629]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

When I double clicked it, it started to import. A new notebook was automatically created, named "(Imported) mynewnotebook"

Must be a difference between mac and windows then. Double clicking an enex file on my computer definitely puts it into the default notebook. No new notebooks are created.

[PinkElephant 8,081]

Nothing new that the Mac is doing it that little bit more clever …. 🤣

[surreydave 2]

Thanks for that Mike. Yes, my first unsuccesful attempt was by using the import function in the File menu. Thanks for letting me know about double clicking instead. That worked although I had to change default notebook first. And yes, I hope the ability to edit dates is re-introduced.

Ideally I wouldn't have to edit dates. Legacy Evernote does not change the update date if I add a reminder to an existing note, move to a different notebook and possibly (I can't remember) add or amend tags.