Bulk Export/Backup of All Notes

[dhansel 1]

I use Evernote daily. I've been using it since the beginning. As such, I have a tremendous amount of data that is valuable to me stored across many notes.
I have no reason to believe that my data is safe and secure at Evernote, anymore than it is on any other cloud platform.

(I've had some serious disputes with Google, for example, about doc ownership that resulted in me being unable to retrieve docs that I was the owner of that someone else on a team deleted. This instilled some serious fear of cloud in me that I won't soon forget)

So, call me overtly cautious, but I need my Evernote data backed up in a way in which I have control.

So, how do you BULK dump all notes out in a way that can give me some redundancy? I didn't find this when searching the forum, and was surprised to not find any discussion of it either.

TIA,

D

[agsteele 2,952]

evernote-backup on GitHub or Backuppery.

Regularly discussed in other threads.

[dhansel 1]

Thanks, I discovered that I could export my 549 notes on a notebook level by right-clicking on the notebook and choosing export. This gives me options to export as HTML, which is fine by me. Thanks to @DTLow for showing me the way.

[haydendavid 0]

Hello,

I have a related issue. When I select the export button on a notebook, nothing happens. Does anyone know why?

Warm regards,

David

[PinkElephant 8,159]

No, works for me.

Sometimes logging out of the app, quitting it, restarting and logging in is enough to solve a problem.

And just to mention it: Your screenshot looks as if you have chosen "Export" on a single note, not a notebook export.

[KoZz 111]

On 6/15/2023 at 8:13 PM, dhansel said:

I use Evernote daily. I've been using it since the beginning. As such, I have a tremendous amount of data that is valuable to me stored across many notes.
I have no reason to believe that my data is safe and secure at Evernote, anymore than it is on any other cloud platform.

(I've had some serious disputes with Google, for example, about doc ownership that resulted in me being unable to retrieve docs that I was the owner of that someone else on a team deleted. This instilled some serious fear of cloud in me that I won't soon forget)

So, call me overtly cautious, but I need my Evernote data backed up in a way in which I have control.

So, how do you BULK dump all notes out in a way that can give me some redundancy? I didn't find this when searching the forum, and was surprised to not find any discussion of it either.

TIA,

D

Which version are you currently using? There used to be a method to effortlessly export and back up all your notebooks, generating ENEX files for each notebook that include all the associated notes. This comprehensive backup solution eliminates the need for any time-consuming efforts. Unfortunately, this feature has been discontinued in the most recent update, which is why I am still using Legacy as I routinely backup all my notebooks in BULK just in case.

 

[PinkElephant 8,159]

It is a myth that legacy could „effortlessly backup all your notebooks“. You could export „all notes“, and exactly what you claim is then missing: Any notebook information. You get the notes all on one big heap, notebook information missing.

The only way to preserve the notebook information is to export by notebooks, one after the other. This was possible in legacy, and it is possible in v10.

There are other ways to backup, by scripting or by an export through the API. You can use the professional service by Backuppery as well, but it cost a subscription.

https://www.backupery.com/products/backupery-for-evernote/ 

https://github.com/vzhd1701/evernote-backup 

[KoZz 111]

I am on legacy and I can export all notebooks in their entirety automatically which contains all notes in their respective notebooks and this process of backing up all notebooks one after the other is executed automatically until everything is backed up in separate ENEX files - So depending on how many notebook one has it'll create enex files for each and all of them.. 

So I'm confused why this would be deemed as a myth because I perform this task on a routine basis (every other month) and have been for years , as I too have concerns with my cloud data. Good practice to keep offline backups of the notebooks with their respective notes.

There have been times where I've had to restore a single note into a notebook and had I not had a backup of each notebook , it would have proven very difficult to find and restore.

I did recently upgrade to the latest version of Evernote as a test,  and I wasn't able to perform this task anymore as this functionality was removed.

I am willing to share the steps I take if anyone is interested or has doubts who may want to backup their Evernote notebooks completely and automatically who may be on legacy.

This is another reason why I chose to stick with Legacy.

Thanks for the URL's above , I'll check them out. 

[gazumped 11,695]

58 minutes ago, KoZz said:

I am willing to share the steps I take

Hi.  I'd be interested to take a look - I think the word that caused us to look twice was "effortless" since exporting notebook after notebook does take some time if you have lots of notes,  and/ or lots of notebooks.  Evernote did make this easier in legacy,  with a local copy of everthing easily available;  v10 also has a working copy of your notes locally,  but seems to require a notebook export to be full download from the server ... which takes longer.

For the moment there's no apparent ability to apply any external code to v10,  which exists inside of an Electron wrapper;  but external automation like AHK. Phrase Express and (many) others can influence it's actions,  and I've been playing with MS Power Automate which (as the name suggests) is a very comprehensive tool but has a bit of a learning curve.

I also keep backups of my notes - I think I used it once,  as you did,  for a lost note.  In my experience there are only very occasional failures - a missing attachment,  or a note completely gone - and I speak as a 15+ year active user with 62K notes and (currently) 429 notebooks.  Backing up (as a perceptive user here pointed out) is like wearing a seatbelt when you drive - it's a good way of dealing with completely unexpected situations.

Note History and 'undo' can get around a lot of editing mishaps,  but there are 'perfect storms' out there that can lead to a note completely diappearing - in which case a backup is the last best hope....

[KoZz 111]

The process I use to automate the backup process for all my notebooks and notes in Evernote, I simply follow these steps:

1. Click on "File" in the menu bar.
2. Select "Sign Out" to bring up the Evernote login splash screen.
3. Click anywhere on the splash screen to ensure it's highlighted.
4. Use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + E (This will open the "Account Notebooks Export" window, displaying your Evernote account name).
5. Click the "OK" button and let the process run..

It creates a folder on your desktop in accordance with your evernote account name and creates all the ENEX files inside it.

It used to say successfully finished export. However, it doesn't do this for me anymore but still will backup every single notebook until it finishes. I have around 125 notebooks so I just keep an eye in windows explorer. 

By following these steps, every single notebook will be backed up as ENEX files. 

I've been utilising this method as far as I can remember, as it efficiently and automatically backs up all notebooks and notes contained therein, ensuring the safety of your data.

When I upgraded to v10 and signed out and used the shortcut , nothing happened so I presumed this feature was removed. 

[agsteele 2,952]

I confess that I've never come across this method of exporting from the Legacy software. Something new to learn everyday.

As noted above there are methods of achieving the same thing in v10.

I use the GitHub application and it works seamlessly. In fact, once set up it requires less involvement than the Legacy process you describe.

[gazumped 11,695]

So I was today years old...  I am,  to coin a phrase,  completely flummoxed that I was totally unaware of that rather neat backup option... until I stopped using legacy!

The difference is,  I think,  that as I said - legacy saves an accessible copy of the database locally,  so this routine can step through the notebooks and extract the ENEX files in order.  V10 uses a different format even when notes are stored locally,  so this access might not be available.  You're directed into downloading notebooks as ENEX files which with my account took several days!

I will raise this with Evernote though - it's in their own interests to make backups easily available.  Many situations where content has been corrupted or lost would be simple to resolve if users could restore from their own original copies.  Support might get many fewer tickets!

 

[KoZz 111]

I absolutely agree..  Backing up locally should be easy for end users.

I rely heavily on the above process and had it not been available, I wouldn't have known what to do.

To be honest, I would love to use the latest and greatest version of applications etc. However, in v10 I'm struggling with loads of things. I can't be productive, I find I end up trying to fix things, rather than focus on what's important which is my workflow.

So I reverted back to Legacy - I've also reached out to support today to and find out what their future plans are because it seems, even in this forum , there are loads of end users who are simply not happy with the latest release.

There was an link provided earlier in another thread which highlighted problems with the new version. I have problems which I can add to those, so maybe I'll do that.. 

Anyway I appreciate all the insight from you guys and so happy I was able to share with you the process I use to perform backups ...

Thanks

 

[gazumped 11,695]

Just to note - just for interest I used @KoZz's backup method on my old laptop and had a backup of my entire Legacy database in under 6 hours.  (Big database!)  Last time I tried in v10 it took DAYS.  <sigh>.

[KoZz 111]

@gazumped That's Great!!!  

[Jane Doe 14]

@KoZzThank you for sharing this - it has saved me so much time and so much worry!

[KoZz 111]

14 hours ago, Jane Doe said:

@KoZzThank you for sharing this - it has saved me so much time and so much worry!

Your welcome 

[gazumped 11,695]

31 minutes ago, KoZz said:

Your welcome 

Being me,  I tried all the other key combinations of Ctrl+Shift+? and as far as I can tell,  only Q and R work - Ctrl+Shift+Q quits the operation and Ctrl+Shift+R says 'choose account' - but it doesn't say anything about exporting...  Anyone any idea what that does?  (And please don't use an account you're fond of to try it out...)

[gsetser 0]

I've read numerous places that to export a note one should right-click and select "export". I see no "export" option (there is none) when I control click on a Mac. Has the export function been removed from Evernote? Is "export" function only available on the paid platform? I use the free version since I don't save all that much. Apparently it is or has been available to many people. I'm confused.

 

[agsteele 2,952]

Please confirm the version of Evernote you have. 

In v10.58 open the note three dot menu in the top right of the note. Select Export Note.

To export a whole notebook, open the three dot menu at the top right of the snippet/card view column or the three dot menu in the notebook list. Choose export notebook.

Otherwise we'll try again if you have a different application version.

[dhansel 1]

I couldn't get CTRL+Shift+E to do anything for me on Windoze 10 following KoZz's steps exactly. What am I missing?

[gsetser 0]

@agsteeleOn my iphone I'm using Evernote vs. 10.51.2. On my Macbook air I access Evernote through my browser. I'm only allowed to use one app on the free version. Since I most often capture things from my phone, I use that one. I don't see a way to export using the phone app either. Right-clicking obviously isn't available on the phone. I don't know. Perhaps the only way to export is by being a subscriber, but I think I used to be able to export.

[KoZz 111]

33 minutes ago, dhansel said:

I couldn't get CTRL+Shift+E to do anything for me on Windoze 10 following KoZz's steps exactly. What am I missing?

Maybe it's because you are not using Legacy and are using v10 ?

[agsteele 2,952]

8 hours ago, gsetser said:

@agsteeleOn my iphone I'm using Evernote vs. 10.51.2. On my Macbook air I access Evernote through my browser. I'm only allowed to use one app on the free version. Since I most often capture things from my phone, I use that one. I don't see a way to export using the phone app either. Right-clicking obviously isn't available on the phone. I don't know. Perhaps the only way to export is by being a subscriber, but I think I used to be able to export.

Export is via a desktop app or with a third party application. But you are stuck with a Free account to two devices. As far as you are concerned those two are your mobile and the web. So, yes, unless you disconnect the web version and change to a desktop app you cannot export. 

Remember, too, that you are limited to a maximum of two disconnections per month.

[gsetser 0]

@agsteele Thank you.

Alas, I trust Evernote less and less and don't use it enough any more to justify the high cost of subscribing. Mainly, I fear it will disappear, which is why I'm asking. Over my long involvement online I have learned that many, many entities disappear forever, so I've become very careful where I place my most valuable "eggs". A 'paid' option is obviously safer, but Evernote is extremely high cost for such minimal use, plus the Trust factor is a huge stumbling block for me. I once found Evernote to be solid. Not so much any more. Sad. I very much appreciate your response.

[PinkElephant 8,159]

Personally I tried the GitHub repository for the EN backup. Worked fine for me, on my Mac.

Currently I am working to install the Docker image on my Synology NAS, and run a backup there as a regular job.

Beside this, EN has this great note history feature. As long as the note still exists, it can be rolled back in time. This is running on all accounts, all the time. Just to access it a paid subscription is necessary. So a Free user could decide to pay for one month, to get access to note history and roll back to a prior version of a note. It’s not a full backup, but for many cases it will replace a backup. 

[Twitchly 28]

 

On 7/4/2023 at 3:22 AM, PinkElephant said:

There are other ways to backup, by scripting or by an export through the API. You can use the professional service by Backuppery as well, but it cost a subscription.

https://www.backupery.com/products/backupery-for-evernote/ 

https://github.com/vzhd1701/evernote-backup 

I just tried GitHub unsuccessfully. I'm no coder, so I'm just trying to follow steps. I installed everything in the ReadMe file and got as far as trying to initialize the database. When I entered my login credentials, it ran a bunch of crud and then said 'User.tooManyMessageAttemptsTryAgainLater'  So I'm stuck.

Guess I'll just stick with the time-consuming process of exporting one notebook at a time. 

[agsteele 2,952]

If definitely works for me. Chances are that there is a tiny hitch in the script that is run.

Give your self a test. Then completely delete everything and start again.