Found a workable alternative to Evernote Legacy

[Zawen 15]

Dear all,

Like so many of you, my frustration with the deterioration of Evernote has been steadily building these last couple of years. Now that Evernote Legacy has become practically unusable, I tried my best to live with the new Evernote, but it just doesn't work (both working with Evernote and the Evernote app itself). So, in a courageous moment, I decided to migrate to Devonthink. It took an evening to set it up jùst right (more or less like the Evernote we loved 5 years ago but with extra features!), but now it works like a charm and the delight of being able to work without being frustrated every 30 seconds has really made my life noticeably more fun. 

The reason I'm writing this now is to alert anyone thinking about switching about a ticking timer. Migrating Evernote notes to Devonthink right now is lightning fast and super easy (in Devonthink, select the notebooks you want to import, and it does so within seconds including tags, metadata and everything else). However, Devonthink can only import from Evernote Legacy! As of now, while Legacy is no longer usable as a tool, it still runs and will allow Devonthink to import. Once Legacy is removed or doesn't start up anymore, notes will be locked into Evernote by all practical definitions. As such, if you are in doubt, just try it, install the free Devonthink trial and import everything, even if just to have free access to it once Legacy is gone.

Feel free to DM me for practical advise about switching, happy to help wherever I can.

Best,

Zawen

@_pinkelephant: please stay out of this, it doesn't concern you.

[gazumped 11,698]

Hmmn.  Didn't think Devonthink was a secret... and importing seems pretty easy - https://www.devontechnologies.com/blog/20230503-switch-from-evernote#:~:text=Import in DEVONthink&text=Launch the legacy version of,imported notebooks and their notes.

If Devonthink can import ENEX files then even if someone is locked into a v10 account,  you can still export all notes into ENEX by going to the Notebooks page and exporting each notebook (no 100-note limit) in full.

Devonthink is "for Mac" and costs a little less than Evernote (I believe).  I'm currently staying with Evernote because I don't seem to be having the same bad experience that some are.  Have fun with Devonthink

 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Wow, a new enthusiast ...

Anybody thinking about DevonThink (LOL) should think about this: 1) It is self hosted, the Database needs to reside on a Mac. A cloud service is only used for limited syncing to other devices. This means anybody operating DT is responsible for his own data, and access from the road means opening the own home network for access 2) It is Mac & iOS only 3) It relies heavily on code provided by MacOS. There are no plans to open it up to other platforms, like Windows or Android.

Who still says it my sort of app can easily give it a try. I think it is a valid offer, but it is for sure no "one size fits all", and it has a learning curve.

[Zawen 15]

In case my point didn’t come across clearly:

1. Devonthink is the alternative you’ve been looking for. I’ve tested a dozen, and they all fall short except for DT. 
2. Switching now is easy (done within Devonthink), switching once Legacy will be gone will be hellish (at 100 notes per batch taking half a day). 

[Zawen 15]

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Wow, a new enthusiast ...

Anybody thinking about DevonThink (LOL) should think about this: 1) It is self hosted, the Database needs to reside on a Mac. A cloud service is only used for limited syncing to other devices. This means anybody operating DT is responsible for his own data, and access from the road means opening the own home network for access 2) It is Mac & iOS only 3) It relies heavily on code provided by MacOS. There are no plans to open it up to other platforms, like Windows or Android.

Who still says it my sort of app can easily give it a try. I think it is a valid offer, but it is for sure no "one size fits all", and it has a learning curve.

I asked you very nicely to stay out of this. 

For anyone still reading this guy’s posts, don’t believe him:

1. it is completely straightforward to put your data in the cloud (at a provider of your choice) and it syncs perfectly. 

2. if you’re still on Windows, that’s probably the cause of many of your problems. Switch to Mac if you want to enjoy life again. 

3. the learning curve for DT is quite easy really, nothing to be feared. Happy to help anyone get through initial setup. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

You know, it's really interesting how people who express positive opinions of how Evernote works (while also acknowledging problems) get called fanboys and evangelists, while people who come here to evangelize for other software, refusing to acknowledge any of its limitations, are somehow supposed to be considered benefactors of humanity. But it is interesting that @Zawen and @PinkElephant agree on one thing: Mac is the only rational choice of operating systems. Fanboys! 😜

[s2sailor 2,230]

It has been a couple of years since I tested out DT.  It is impressive software but not a good fit for everyone, especially Windows users.  It can import directly from Evernote Legacy and that is lightning fast.  It can also import from ENEX files.  Evernote V10 can export ENEX files, so you can always move to DT long after Legacy is gone if desired.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Some people come here to praise „the perfect solution“, and then can’t stand valid arguments. Their problem, not mine.

1) There is no „perfect“ solution, which includes EN. There may be a temporary best fit to one’s own use cases. Be happy if you found it, be prepared this can change.

2) You need a Mac to host DT. DT is Mac only, it makes massive use of MacOS features. No way around it, there is no magical server operated in the cloud that does things for you.

3) The mobile solution is iOS only. You typically sync only selected „databases“ to iOS  (a database is like a notebook or stack in EN). The mobile client was more limited in his functions than EN mobile, at least when I last tried.

4) Who tells the learning curve would be easy has not dived deep enough. Ever tried to integrate DT with Hazel, Alfred or Apple Script ? There you go …

5) They have a nice, moderated forum. Their EN importer is among the best in the field. The team is very engaged, and they keep their focus: Apple ecosystem only. Ah, and I forgot: Some AI-ish features in their search.

Finally just a word about DT related to myself: I have mentioned it several times in the past as a valid EN alternative. For a long time before some forum user came here and starts to found his personal DT fan club in the EN forum.

I stand to my opinion: DT is a solid EN alternative, but probably not for most users.

[Zawen 15]

I think it's amazing how a pro-choice topic gets hijacked immediately by the pro-life brigade. 

To people actually looking for a way out of Evernote, don't let them dissuade you. Their supposed advice is purely meant to keep you from trying. Whether they are on Evernote payroll or so invested in the program that work upside down if that's what the UI requested, doesn't matter, they want to stay no matter what and they need to justify that.

The straw that broke this camel's back, is that it now takes ages just to simply tag a (limited) bunch of notes, which is not only a disgrace to the programmers who thought this was somehow acceptable, but also makes the new Evernote completely useless for me. Devonthink is not perfect (or everyone would have switched by now), but it is so much better than the new Evernote which is an indisputably bad piece of software. I was perfectly happy with Evernote Legacy, and Devonthink comes closest to that experience.

It's pointless to engage in any discussion with the likes of pinkelephant. I'll only reply to questions and constructive comments from now on, but as an example, just to show how manipulative some of these arguments are:

44 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

1) There is no „perfect“ solution, which includes EN. There may be a temporary best fit to one’s own use cases. Be happy if you found it, be prepared this can change.

There used to be a great solution: Evernote Legacy, but then they broke it. Devonthink isn't a temporary fix, it works like a charm. It's creators are much less monetisation driven than Evernote, and have been listening to and supporting their user base for years now.

45 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

2) You need a Mac to host DT. DT is Mac only, it makes massive use of MacOS features. No way around it, there is no magical server operated in the cloud that does things for you.

Why would Mac users be bothered that Devonthink is Mac only? Why would we want a server in the cloud? Devonthink syncs and backs up (through the cloud), what more would one need?

48 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

3) The mobile solution is iOS only. You typically sync only selected „databases“ to iOS  (a database is like a notebook or stack in EN). The mobile client was more limited in his functions than EN mobile, at least when I last tried.

This topic is obviously for people in the Apple universe. If you're not, then why would you bother reading about Devonthink?

A database is what you define it to be, it's not a "notebook or stack". You can use a single database for everything, use separate ones for personal and professional use, use one database per notebook, whatever you want. You can also sync as many databases as you want with the mobile app. 

51 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

4) Who tells the learning curve would be easy has not dived deep enough. Ever tried to integrate DT with Hazel, Alfred or Apple Script ? There you go …

I did integrate with Apple Script and it's great. The flexibility is endless. It took me an hour to get a hang of the syntax (never used it before), but now I can just have Devonthink do anything the way I want it to. As I said, learning curve is nothing to be scared of. 

53 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

5) They have a nice, moderated forum. Their EN importer is among the best in the field. The team is very engaged, and they keep their focus: Apple ecosystem only. Ah, and I forgot: Some AI-ish features in their search.

This is actually correct. 

53 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Finally just a word about DT related to myself: I have mentioned it several times in the past as a valid EN alternative. For a long time before some forum user came here and starts to found his personal DT fan club in the EN forum.

I'm not starting a fan club, I'm notifying other Evernote users that switching will become harder. If Evernote would produce (or even just maintain) decent software, none of us would even consider switching.

55 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I stand to my opinion: DT is a solid EN alternative, but probably not for most users.

It's not for windows users, for the others it's pretty damn close to what we had in Evernote a couple of years ago. If you liked that more than you like the current Evernote, just give Devonthink a try. It's free, will cost you only an evening, and backing up all your Evernote data in a Devonthink database might actually be a good idea before Evernote goes completely locked box on their users.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Others …. Mac & Android - nope, Mac & Windows - nope, Linux - nope (unless you get DT server, 500bucks). What a narrow view of the world, only counting Apple ecosystem users as a valid use case. Saying this, being 100% on Apple myself. But that’s my personal solution, and others have their own, and still come here for advise. They probably make up more than 85% of all EN users. Small wonder, being platform neutral is one of the USPs of EN.

About the rest: There is truth, but there are avoided weaknesses as well. Sound advise covers both, that’s why I call this the attempt of founding a DT fan club here. OK, sort of a club, population 1 (maybe some will join in, why not, it’s a free place here).

But as I said: DT is a decent solution, and has a decent forum of their own. If you look for any DT solution (or new club members), maybe try it over there.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

7 hours ago, Zawen said:

To people actually looking for a way out of Evernote, don't let them dissuade you. Their supposed advice is purely meant to keep you from trying. Whether they are on Evernote payroll or so invested in the program that work upside down if that's what the UI requested, doesn't matter, they want to stay no matter what and they need to justify that.

Don't know if I'm one of "them" or not, but on the off chance: this is borderline censorship. Anyone offering an opinion differing from the author should be shouted down or ignored. Then throw in baseless conspiracy suspicions about "their" motives.

DevonThink works great for you, fine. It's like Evernote used to be, I'll take your word for it. But this kind of casting aspersions on others is out of place here. In my opinion, of course, which may also be ruled out of bounds.

[eric99 986]

19 hours ago, Zawen said:

 However, Devonthink can only import from Evernote Legacy! As of now, while Legacy is no longer usable as a tool, it still runs and will allow Devonthink to import. Once Legacy is removed or doesn't start up anymore, notes will be locked into Evernote by all practical definitions.

Can you please explain in more detail why Devonthink needs legacy? Isn't it just using the evernote API then?

[gazumped 11,698]

3 minutes ago, eric99 said:

why Devonthink needs legacy?

I don't think it does - according to Devonthink (see the link I posted above) they can import from ENEX files.  AFAIK there's no difference between the Legacy or v10 ENEX formats.

[Mike P 2,661]

30 minutes ago, gazumped said:

AFAIK there's no difference between the Legacy or v10 ENEX formats.

The only difference I know is that the enex in legacy contained the character recognition data for scanned text, while the V10 enex does not. However, I don't see why this should affect the import process.

[Frki2 76]

Few points as ex DT user ( using it for few months daily ) vs EN:

1. DT interface is ugly and outdated, UX hell

2. DT is somewhat near EN replacement but just somewhat

3. Sync is very bad, doesn't update sometimes, need to refresh manually, cannot count on it

4. Learning curve is huge

5. No web access

6. Nicely saves documents, does OCR pretty good

7. A lot of automation available through DT without Hazel or so

8. Def not EN replacement for average user

 

btw, i am saying this from point of user who almost totally abandoned EN currently and using EN only as old archive and FW tool for emails ( service that is almost un possible to find anywhere )

 

Tbh, between DT and EN i would always choose EN.

[s2sailor 2,230]

DT does support AppleScript for those that may want or need that. 

[Will S 9]

On 8/14/2023 at 11:23 PM, s2sailor said:

DT does support AppleScript for those that may want or need that. 

Yes. Also, I have had great experience with the DT forums—their tech guys are lightning fast in responding, quickly acknowledge any bugs and fix them promptly, and have even helped me on several occaisions by writing/editing things like AppleScripts when I was stuck.

 

DT is an extremely full-featured program, with many features I will never use. There is a bit of a learning curve. But its features are amazing, and its handling of a wide variety of material is superb. 

 

That said, as DT freely admits,  it has nowhere near the resources of EN—and the result is that some things, such as its web-clipping capability, are less smooth than EN's.

 

All in all, I prefer DT—even though the UI is definitely less simple, and having so many options and features does increase the learning curve to some degree, I have a lot more confidence in the company. They are extremely responsive and their people obviously love what they do—that's something money can't buy.

[Will S 9]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:26 PM, PinkElephant said:

Wow, a new enthusiast ...

Anybody thinking about DevonThink (LOL) should think about this: 1) It is self hosted, the Database needs to reside on a Mac. A cloud service is only used for limited syncing to other devices. This means anybody operating DT is responsible for his own data, and access from the road means opening the own home network for access 2) It is Mac & iOS only 3) It relies heavily on code provided by MacOS. There are no plans to open it up to other platforms, like Windows or Android.

Who still says it my sort of app can easily give it a try. I think it is a valid offer, but it is for sure no "one size fits all", and it has a learning curve.

This is largely true—although it's worth pointing out that it now syncs via iCloud (CloudKit), which is quite reliable and the same way Apple Notes syncs.

And while it's true that the DB resides on a Mac, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It's really a question of whether one wants full control over one's information—as well as full responsibility for data integrity, backups, etc.

One other thing: because DEVONthink is so deeply integrated with the Mac file system, it has the ability to index Finder folders and files, as opposed to simply importing them. This isn't generally necessary for text-based files—but it's indispensable when dealing with, say, a few thousand video files comprising several TB of data.

[gazumped 11,698]

Whilst an in-depth analysis of Devonthink's capabilities may be of interest to techies,  this is an old thread on the Evernote User Forums,  which seems a tad rude and off-topic.  Maybe continue it elsewhere?

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

I dunno, @gazumped. I kind of appreciated @Will S's DevonThink reflections. Multiplicity of features that not everyone will use and a complex interface are two of the biggest complaints of people who want to leave (or pay less for) Evernote, so it's interesting to see (a) they do occur in other services and (b) can apparently be handled if one chooses to.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

I think we have a pretty balanced discussion here. Some esteemed users of this forum are now using DT, still contributing their experience here.

On the other hand DT is for sure not for everybody, as discussed as well.

My feeling is that people running a Google search for DEVONThink and Evernote may find this, and benefit from the very factual information.

[gazumped 11,698]

OK - I sit corrected...