Can you undo an import?

[Aggressively Sensitive 3]

Hi, I accidentally imported an .enex file, and I'm hoping there's an easy way I can undo that? The newly imported notes aren't considered recently created or updated, so there's no easy way to find them all at once for deletion. I imported about 70 notes into a notebook that already had 190.

[PinkElephant 8,773]

How did you import them, and into which client ?

[Aggressively Sensitive 3]

Windows 10. I accidentally clicked on an .enex file in a folder.

[agsteele 3,059]

I don't think that there is an option if you double clicked an ENEX. It will import into your default notebook. You'll have to manually remove the additional notes. 

[PinkElephant 8,773]

Interesting - on my Mac ENEX imports into a separate folder named "(Imported) Filename". I have not found an option in settings that would change this.

About the notes themselves: There is no identifier for imported notes, when the import was done through an ENEX file. The only difference is that imported notes will not have a note history. So if there are duplicate note titles, the only way to make sure the copy without note history is deleted is to check if there is a note history - one by one. Wait for a rainy Saturday ...

[agsteele 3,059]

On Windows, double clicking the ENEX imports to the default folder but using the File / Import menu goes to a new 'Imported' folder.

[PinkElephant 8,773]

On my Mac, a double click created the "Imported" notebook. There is no difference to the right click menu option.

[Aggressively Sensitive 3]

8 hours ago, agsteele said:

I don't think that there is an option if you double clicked an ENEX. It will import into your default notebook. You'll have to manually remove the additional notes. 

Dang, that sucks. You'd think they would at least have a confirmation window for importing by double clicking a file...

Thanks for the answers

[PinkElephant 8,773]

Only other users here, who share your feelings. This can happen to anybody.

You can communicate your frustration by the feedback function, or a support ticket.

[nick17 0]

this is so bad, when I was reading my old files, I double clicked on my enex file in windows to see what it is and it just mass import and mixed into my live notebook! Everything is so mixed up from a double click!

[gazumped 12,055]

12 hours ago, nick17 said:

this is so bad, when I was reading my old files, I double clicked on my enex file in windows to see what it is and it just mass import and mixed into my live notebook! Everything is so mixed up from a double click!

Sorry to hear that. The situation hasn't changed however,  there's no easy way to reverse the process.  If you look at 'all notes' and sort by name,  you should be able to see duplicates.  If the created or updated dates are different for the restored files you could maybe find them by name or by date - but you can only delete 100 files at one time,  so it may take some time to work through...

[eric99 1,077]

In order to prevent this, you may associate  .enex files to an harmless app (for instance notepad++)  instead of evernote

[PinkElephant 8,773]

Usually it won't import just like that, spreading stuff all over the place.

It will neatly import into a new notebook, called ENEXfileName(Imported) . You can simply delete that notebook from the notebook view. It may be you need to go to the trash and send everything into nirvana, to really get rid of it.

[Mike P 2,965]

41 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Usually it won't import just like that,

It depends how you do the import. In my expereince double clicking will always import into my inbox with no warning.

[bmcl26 573]

On 9/12/2022 at 9:47 AM, PinkElephant said:

Interesting - on my Mac ENEX imports into a separate folder named "(Imported) Filename". I have not found an option in settings that would change this.

About the notes themselves: There is no identifier for imported notes, when the import was done through an ENEX file. The only difference is that imported notes will not have a note history. So if there are duplicate note titles, the only way to make sure the copy without note history is deleted is to check if there is a note history - one by one. Wait for a rainy Saturday ...

My Windows Desktop App also has an (Imported) Notebook which I did not create and is empty as I have never imported anything.

[eric99 1,077]

42 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Usually it won't import just like that, spreading stuff all over the place.

I'm afraid it will definitely import like that when you double click the enex file and you didn't remove the file association with Evernote (as I proposed above)

[Mike P 2,965]

3 minutes ago, eric99 said:

I'm afraid it will definitely import like that when you double click the enex file and you didn't remove the file association with Evernote (as I proposed above)

Agreed. There is a long standing different behaviour between double clicking the enex file and using file 🢂 import ...

[PinkElephant 8,773]

Then there is a difference between the desktop clients for Windows and Mac in this respect.

When I double click an ENEX file on the Mac, I get this information (its in German, but I think you get the meaning), and all notes are in a neat new notebook.

[Mike P 2,965]

9 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Then there is a difference between the desktop clients for Windows and Mac in this respect.

Yes, I should have mentioned this was Windows behaviour. I'm so used to the Windows and Mac client be identical that I forget that there can be differences in areas where there is a definite interaction with the OS. Thanks for clarifying.

[eric99 1,077]

1 hour ago, Mike P said:

Yes, I should have mentioned this was Windows behaviour. I'm so used to the Windows and Mac client be identical that I forget that there can be differences in areas where there is a definite interaction with the OS. Thanks for clarifying.

hmm, unified code 😏