(Archived) Restore from Time Machine?

[simdude 0]

I'm having a problem doing a restore from Time Machine. I had deleted a lot of notes in Evernote a while ago and have not added any content since. I want to get all my notes back in so I went to Time Machine and restored the Evernote folder. When I launched the Mac client all was well. Now, as soon as it tries to sync, it doesn't see the files on the server and starts to delete them from my Mac client.

Is there any way to force the server to update to what is on my local client?

Mark

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm not Mac, but I think the process is the same.

Easiest option is...(probably), use the web client & see if the erroneously deleted notes are in the trash. If so, just let the restored database sync, including the deletions. Then restore the deleted notes from the trash. I think that should work but can't be sure.

Next best option is to realize the EN servers are the "source of all truths." In the past, you deleted some notes & sync'd. Now, you've restored from an old backup, so that's why EN is deleting those same notes. It's as if you had two computers that had the same 10 notes. On one computer you delete six notes & then two months later, you fire up the other computer & sync, so it's deleting those same six notes in order to keep things in sync.

What you need to do is make sure you do NOT have an internet connection. Restore your Mac database from Time Machine. Then, create a local/non-sync'd notebook & move all the notes you erroneously deleted, into the local notebook. Sync. Then you can move the notes from the local notebook to where they should reside & sync again.

There may be an easier/better way to do this, but off the top of my head, these are the two methods I would try.

[simdude 0]

Thanks BurgersNFries. I was actually just thinking of that process. I hoped there might be an easier way because I didn't remember for sure which of my notebooks I had each so I will probably make a bunch of temporary local notebooks, move everything over, then move back.

[engberg 89]

Yes, there isn't really an easier way to do this. The other option is to Export the relevant notes to an Evernote archive (*.enex) file, so that you can Import them again after resynchronizing. But this is about the same as just using a Local notebook.

[jfwarrior 6]

Yes, there isn't really an easier way to do this. The other option is to Export the relevant notes to an Evernote archive (*.enex) file, so that you can Import them again after resynchronizing. But this is about the same as just using a Local notebook.

But tags and folder configurations are not saved though when exported into an Evernote archive... :?

[engberg 89]

Tags can be saved on the Exported note, but the Notebooks are not.

[simdude 0]

I ended up using the local notebooks trick. To summarize for others:

1. Open Evernote on the mac and turn OFF synchronization.

2. Close Evernote

3. In the Finder, navigate to the Evernote folder in your Application Support folder in the Library of your home account.

4. Use Time Machine to restore this folder to a point in time your data exists. Keep in mind, if you created notes since this point in time, you will be losing those.

5. Re-open Evernote. Your notes should all be there now you wanted.

6. For each folder, make a local version. So if you have folders A, B, C, make A-local, B-local, C-local. Move all the data from A to A-local etc.

7. Turn back on synchronization and resync everything.

8. Move your local data back to the synced folders.

Keep in mind this is a bit of a hack. It's much more difficult if you want to restore some data but not lose the latest. And doing a full sync this way will eat up a lot of data transfer if you have lots of notes. With about 600 notes I used about 2/5 of my monthly premium total.

What would be great is if Evernote worked with Time Machine like Mail. You can open a Mail window and time machine lets you restore individual messages. I think this would be much more difficult with Evernote's syncing but it would still be pretty cool.