New blog post: Evernote Free accounts will have fifty notes and one notebook

[PinkElephant 8,261]

2 hours ago, Hossbie said:

I've been using Evernote for years. Just got used to it and have a lot of information in there ... Of course, they are going to lose lots of clients here, starting with myself. 

Your questioning is exactly the intended outcome: Make Free users decide whether to subscribe or leave. In your case they loose a user, not a customer, not even a prospect.

There are free alternatives, so pick your choice. You can use a desktop client to export your notes.

[Bill Myers 458]

6 hours ago, Hossbie said:

Looking for a non-agressive-profit alternative to Evernote NOW.

There are lots of free and low-cost alternatives to Evernote "NOW," and there have been for years. Instead of posting hostile comments in a user-to-user forum, try a Google search. It's not anyone else's responsibility to do your shopping for you.

[Bill Myers 458]

On 12/25/2023 at 3:36 AM, Fabian36 said:

I hope they go bankrupt over this move. Merry Christmas 

You're hoping that a for-profit company will go bankrupt. As the result of deciding to stop offering near-unrestricted access to their services -- for free.

I'm really not sure you're acquainted with how the world works.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

On 12/25/2023 at 3:36 AM, Fabian36 said:

I am extremely pissed off about this, I couldn’t be angrier. This is a classic bait and switch. Now I have to export years of university notes elsewhere manually or give in to the blackmail of 100€ p.m.

I hope they go bankrupt over this move. Merry Christmas 

So you ate the bait for years.... Generally a bait and switch works a little faster than that. You used resources that I paid for for years, to do professional (or at least graduate) level work. And which one of us should be angry?

[fierylevi 17]

Just gonna leave this here.

https://obsidian.md/

And this.

https://help.obsidian.md/import/evernote

Enjoy freedom. 

[PinkElephant 8,261]

This is just the usual "I have the single solution for everybody" nonsense.

Who is seriously in the market should check several alternatives, test drive them against his use cases and then decide which solution works best and "sparks joy". There is no single "one app fits all" out there.

[fierylevi 17]

16 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

This is just the usual "I have the single solution for everybody" nonsense.

Who is seriously in the market should check several alternatives, test drive them against his use cases and then decide which solution works best and "sparks joy". There is no single "one app fits all" out there.

Please stop with the negative Nancy stuff. I was sharing a good alternative and a means to get there. And stop putting words in my mouth. I didn't say it was single solution anywhere. You assumed something I didn't say. Please apologize. Thank you!

[biglarry5 9]

14 minutes ago, fierylevi said:

Please stop with the negative Nancy stuff. I was sharing a good alternative and a means to get there. And stop putting words in my mouth. I didn't say it was single solution anywhere. You assumed something I didn't say. Please apologize. Thank you!

You call it "negative Nancy stuff". Psychologists call it monomania or the idee fixe disorder.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

Oh, you shared a „good alternative“ and even a „way to go there“. How valiant, walking down all that good road, and then returning just to share it here.

Whereas … a brief forum search would have shown that posts like that are 10 for a penny already, and there is no real need to share any more, if they don’t have anything new and useful in them. 

So maybe it’s your personal therapy of making up for your heartfelt loss of the freebie notes homestead, but it’s IMHO just a repetition without any additional value.

And calling it what it is doesn’t require an apology.

[gazumped 11,760]

Before there's any more shouting here,  can I just point out that for some people Obsidian seems to be really attractive - and for others it's not.  (My emphasis)

Quote

 

Obsidian’s grassroots success is all the more remarkable given that the app isn’t especially inviting to nontechnical users. While apps like Notion put all your notes in the cloud so you can instantly access them from anywhere, Obsidian gives users a folder full of files and puts them in charge of managing it. Using Obsidian also requires some familiarity with Markdown—a text-editing language with its own unique syntax—and leans on third-party plug-ins for features that are table stakes in other note-taking tools.

But that nerdiness is also part of its allure: Once Obsidian endears itself, it’s hard to imagine using much else.

 

https://www.fastcompany.com/90960653/why-people-are-obsessed-with-obsidian-the-indie-darling-of-notetaking-apps

Either way I don't think it's cool to promote specific third party options in Evernote's own forums,  so I might start deleting posts that get too specific.  Play nice please...  

[s2sailor 2,311]

5 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Either way I don't think it's cool to promote specific third party options in Evernote's own forums,  so I might start deleting posts that get too specific.  Play nice please...  

It is a bit late to be playing this card now.  Alternatives have been mentioned in these forums for years.  Maybe best for an Evernote employee to be making this decision than a fellow user if there is to be a policy change.

[Ed Cox 0]

I have been a user of the free version for at least 14 years.  It has been a great tool, although of late has been prone to run away CPU time (MAC version).  While I will admit the original free version was MORE than generous, I have to say now that for you to basically hold all your free users hostage for an outrageous $130/year is really ridiculous considering that free or nearly free alternatives exist.  Even a one time $130 purchase would be ridiculous for what most of your free users have been using it for.  I might have considered perhaps a one-time purchase of $60, but I have just finished migrating to Joplin (free) and a free DropBox account that now replicates virtually all functionality that I had with EverNote.  You would arguably have been better off grandfathering your existing free users to allow continued use as a thank you for their loyalty and I am sure plenty of useful feedback.

[fierylevi 17]

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Oh, you shared a „good alternative“ and even a „way to go there“. How valiant, walking down all that good road, and then returning just to share it here.

Whereas … a brief forum search would have shown that posts like that are 10 for a penny already, and there is no real need to share any more, if they don’t have anything new and useful in them. 

Not sure how I came off, but you sure like to assume motives. "Valiant" was not a consideration here. Also, I'm sorry I didn't scour the forums to look through all of those penny posts. 

I was actually sharing something I felt worthwhile to share and that others here (particularly in this thread) might also be of the same mind. 

9 minutes ago, gazumped said:

can I just point out that for some people Obsidian seems to be really attractive - and for others it's not.  (My emphasis)

Totally agree here! Not for everyone!

27 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

So maybe it’s your personal therapy of making up for your heartfelt loss of the freebie notes homestead, but it’s IMHO just a repetition without any additional value.

Again, another assumption that is wrong. You're entitled to you opinion, yet this was not a therapy post and your in no position to make that call. 

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Either way I don't think it's cool to promote specific third party options in Evernote's own forums,  so I might start deleting posts that get too specific.  Play nice please...  

If I violated any forum rules, then by all means, please delete the post 😊

[davide.silvi 0]

6 hours ago, fierylevi said:

I was actually sharing something I felt worthwhile to share and that others here (particularly in this thread) might also be of the same mind. 

They are.

[davide.silvi 0]

A lot of vitriol heading EN way. Understandable - it was the most ham-fisted policy change I've ever witnessed. At some point they'll understand that antagonising users is not the most successful way to increase their client base ...

 

Having said that the rot in EN stared with the previous ownership who attempted to encourage users into the subscription by making it difficult , if not near impossible, to either back up or export their data in one go, by limiting the number of notes to first 50 then 100. Swiftly followed by deleting the ability to 'save to disk' (originally limited to two folders).

 

There was no reasonable justification for crippling the app. It was an attempt to ensnare the user and limit the ease with which they could switch to another app. 

 

The 'Free' model , the way it was implemented, was dead from the get-go. Hopefully BS will soon announce a revised pricing structure to accommodate not only existing users but also attract new ones and engender some goodwill in the process. Replace the 'Free' with a stand alone version.

 

Basic : one off purchase

• Single user / No sync / save to disk only / 
• 25mb note size / 25 Folders , 5000 notes / 

Premium

• Cloud Sync / limited devices (5)? / subscription

Pro

• Evernote Sync / max limits / subscription

Teams

• As before

 

No-one subsidises anyone, you pay for what you get.

And, BS, please - one click to back up ALL notes to a single ENEX file (folder structure included)

[PinkElephant 8,261]

Changing the ENEX file structure would render most importers to other apps useless. Beside this, it is quite common the imports choke when trying too many notes at once.

The current method is quite OK for a one time export. What I miss is a solid integrated backup.

Backuppery is quite expensive, adding more or less the subscription price a second time. I use the GitHub project, which works fine, but is not for everyone because it needs some tuning in the engine room.

[davide.silvi 0]

59 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Changing the ENEX file structure would render most importers to other apps useless. 

Which just shows why the ENEX file structure shouldn't have been tampered with - it was a step backwards for no gain. I'm not convinced the file structure was ever changed as opposed to just imposing an arbitrary limit on how many files could be selected at any one time. The limitation applies to copying and moving too, not just export.

59 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Beside this, it is quite common the imports choke when trying too many notes at once.

Well, I've exported a subset of over 2500 flies (in their respective folders at a 100 notes a pop - great fun) and the Obsidian importer devoured the entire export folder within a minute without choking - with no errors.

59 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

What I miss is a solid integrated backup.

Agreed.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

There is more than just one other notes app out there, and if you search the forum, you find numerous reports about import problems. They are often related to the size of the import.

BTW the notebook information was never part of the ENEX file definition.

[KennyMan666 1]

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

Basic : one off purchase

• Single user / No sync / save to disk only / 
• 25mb note size / 25 Folders , 5000 notes / 

Without the syncing, there would be absolutely no reason for anyone to buy that instead of just going with for example Joplin or Obsidian though, since the biggest disadvantage of those when compared to Evernote is the lack of (zero-effort and convenient) sync across multiple devices and lack of web client. And if there's no sync, then the web client thing doesn't matter anyway, and at that point the free alternatives offer more than this basic plan idea since they have no limits on notes or folders.

That said, a one-time purchase with sync and a 5k note limit (though, honestly, any limit should be on total file size used, not total number of notes, and there's absolutely zero reason to limit number of folders other than to be mean) is something I could have gone for if it was reasonably priced, though.

[s2sailor 2,311]

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

by making it difficult , if not near impossible, to either back up or export their data in one go, by limiting the number of notes to first 50 then 100.

You have everything exported now so this won't help you but you can export by notebook and are not limited to 100 notes.  The select all and export option that was in Legacy did allow you to export all notes into one enex file but you lost the notebook assignments.  That may be why they removed this from v10.

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

Swiftly followed by deleting the ability to 'save to disk' (originally limited to two folders).  There was no reasonable justification for crippling the app.

Can you explain that?  I'm not sure what this refers to.

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

The 'Free' model , the way it was implemented, was dead from the get-go.

Agreed.  For many there was no reason to go to a paid plan.

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

And, BS, please - one click to back up ALL notes to a single ENEX file (folder structure included)

This would require a change to the enex file format and as mentioned above, would break the importer used by other apps.  I would prefer a one click export similar to how it is done with the Github code, but with an update to the API so that task data is also included.

[eric99 1,008]

3 hours ago, davide.silvi said:

Well, I've exported a subset of over 2500 flies (in their respective folders at a 100 notes a pop - great fun)

You know you can export an entire notebook at once, right?

[eric99 1,008]

18 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

This would require a change to the enex file format and as mentioned above, would break the importer used by other apps.  I would prefer a one click export similar to how it is done with the Github code, but with an update to the API so that task data is also included.

No, this wouldn’t break the importer at all. Legacy already exported all notebooks in a single enex. Unfortunately, the notebook id wasn’t specified in the enex. But that is very simple to add without breaking the existing XML (tools). As a matter of fact, just for testing, I added the notebook name to an existing enex and it was still readable by several importers. This is no surprise because XML has been designed to be eXtendable (Open Closed principle)

[s2sailor 2,311]

2 minutes ago, eric99 said:

I added the notebook name to an existing enex and it was still readable by several importers.

Thanks for checking.  Easier to fix this concern than I expected.

[gazumped 11,760]

Not sure quite what we're discussing here,  but if you export one notebook to one ENEX file,  it will re-import to anything that can read it no problem.  If you export multiple notebooks to one ENEX file,  all the notes in that file will go into one notebook.  You'll need to have tagged individual notes with the name of the parent notebook to be able to sort them out again.  This has always been true of the format. 

If you wish to have a one-button export of multiple notebooks without a major rewrite,  you'd have to accept the one file per notebook format.

[s2sailor 2,311]

7 minutes ago, gazumped said:

If you wish to have a one-button export of multiple notebooks without a major rewrite,  you'd have to accept the one file per notebook format.

As I read it, the comment is suggesting that a major rewrite may not be needed.

[eric99 1,008]

47 minutes ago, gazumped said:

If you wish to have a one-button export of multiple notebooks without a major rewrite,  you'd have to accept the one file per notebook format.

Two tags should be added to the ENEX, which would make the export complete and consistent: 

   <noteId>         to restore forward and backward links

   <notebook>    to export all notes intoa single enex

Existing importers are not aware and not affected by these extensions, but of course they may use it in future releases.

My own enex to html implementation can use it for link and notebook restoration.

Below the two lines to be added to the note description in the enex, not exactly a major rewrite...

<note>

    <noteId> 12345 </noteId> 

   <notebook>name0</notebook>
    <title>test0</title>
    <created>20231229T154151Z</created>
    <updated>20231229T154307Z</updated>

    <tag>abcd</tag>
    <note-attributes>
      <author>John Doe</author>
    </note-attributes>
    <content>  ...   </content>
  </note>

[gazumped 11,760]

2 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Two tags should be added to the ENEX, which would make the export complete and consistent: 

Sure - so how are we restructuring the database to generate these codes again?

[s2sailor 2,311]

Maybe I’m not following.  Aren’t the noteid and notebook name already part of the database? The suggestion, as I understand it, is to include those in the enex files.

[eric99 1,008]

5 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Sure - so how are we restructuring the database to generate these codes again?

I see no reason to "restructure" the database, but apart from that, enex should be extended with these two tags just to make the export complete and consistent.  Enex is an export format, not only intended for evernote import but especially for archival / backup of your data. As I already mentioned,  my own enex to html implementation generates proper html, showing even more info than  V10 desktop does (location, map). 

 

[gazumped 11,760]

20 minutes ago, eric99 said:

enex should be extended with these two tags just to make the export complete and consistent.

I'm happy to confess I know absolutely nothing about how Evernote works in detail (I have my doubts that they do sometimes...) so I guess we'll have to wait and see...

[BASboy 43]

Take care everyone. I am going to remove notifications on these comments. As I am about to proverbially burn my ships after I come ashore on the beaches of Island NOTION. So no need for me to have my focus pulled away. 

[davide.silvi 0]

4 hours ago, s2sailor said:

Can you explain that?  I'm not sure what this refers to.

In the earlier versions of EN there was the option of 'saving to disk'  in EN designated folders These files were local only. No sync. Useful for 'personal' files that one didn't want synced across multiple devices or users.

[s2sailor 2,311]

40 minutes ago, davide.silvi said:

In the earlier versions of EN there was the option of 'saving to disk'  in EN designated folders These files were local only. No sync. Useful for 'personal' files that one didn't want synced across multiple devices or users.

Oh, local notebooks.  Yes, I miss those as well.  One of the features that made Evernote unique and special IMO.

[gazumped 11,760]

Yup - local notebooks are no longer a 'thing'.  You can save onto an external HD or a different cloud and keep the link in Evernote,  or rely on their encryption and jump onto the net storage.

[s2sailor 2,311]

3 minutes ago, gazumped said:

You can save onto an external HD or a different cloud and keep the link in Evernote

Files yes, notes not really unless you save them to pdf and then save externally.  Local notebooks were very handy for keeping some items off the cloud but still be searchable within Evernote.  I’ve always hoped this would be replaced by encrypted notebooks, but sadly I’ve given up on that.  We have ai instead … woohoo 🫤

[mackid1993 954]

45 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

encrypted notebooks

This would be awesome. For now I just password protect sensitive attachments like PDFs. Client side encrypted notebooks would be a great feature, even if you couldn't search or OCR in them. 

[s2sailor 2,311]

1 hour ago, mackid1993 said:

For now I just password protect sensitive attachments like PDFs.

Same here.  Even if we could only search metadata, I would be fine with that.  I've stopped using the built-in text encryption since that doesn't export to other apps.

[bbarl 1]

I have the free version and reduced my files to lower than 50.  But I can't create any new ones (under 50), or even move them from one notebook to another so that I can consolidate.  Am I missing something obvious?

[VincentC 274]

@bbarl,

You said, "...or even move them from one notebook to another"....

https://evernote.com/blog/evernote-free-note-limits

 

The limits are no more than 50 notes and ONE notebook.  It seems that you have more than one notebook.    You'll have to consolidate your notebooks.

 

Vinnie

[wtcipher 1]

Evernote is becoming nasty and nasty... which alternative, free option do we have? How can we export Evernote notes to other apps?

[gazumped 11,760]

1 hour ago, wtcipher said:

Evernote is becoming nasty and nasty... which alternative, free option do we have? How can we export Evernote notes to other apps?

Hi.  Evernote is mainly wanting to be paid for it's services - which doesn't seem too unreasonable.  If you're moving elsewhere,  other providers sometimes have their own ways to import data from Evernote;  or you can export from any desktop version of the app.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005557

[s2sailor 2,311]

1 hour ago, wtcipher said:

How can we export Evernote notes to other apps?

You need to install a desktop version in order to export your notes.  Concerning what to move to, there is already a lot of information available on this forum.  There is no one perfect answer.  It will depend on what devices you use it on and what is important to you.

[SFG 1]

On 1/2/2024 at 3:00 AM, bbarl said:

I have the free version and reduced my files to lower than 50.  But I can't create any new ones (under 50), or even move them from one notebook to another so that I can consolidate.  Am I missing something obvious?

You need to delete the existing notebooks except for the default one, which will move your notes to trash, 
You can then restore the note from the trashcan and it will restore to the single default notebook 
Once you have done this you will be able to create new notes again, upto the free limit of 50 

I did this yesterday with the web browser version and it worked fine for me, Tho I would advise backing your notes up to another service before trying it 

[gazumped 11,760]

49 minutes ago, SFG said:

I would advise backing your notes up to another service before trying it 

Thanks for the idea - hadn't thought of this as an option.  It should also be possible to export all notes to ENEX on a notebook-by-notebook basis (which also gives you a backup) and then re-import them to the same notebook in Evernote if you aim to continue with that account.

[DavidPierson 15]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:53 AM, notetakeingguy said:

I think Evernote will have a huge hack, because that's what happens, karma wise, the companies that treat their customers so bad.

Yesterday I saw that thousands of US hospitals, schools, facilities and government-related instutions had been hacked last year, and a similar problem also for private companies. Can only be a matter of time. Removing all notes with personal information now.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

And then ? Engraving it in Stone, buried in the backyard ? Printed in rows of folders ?

You have the cloud server master copy, plus a local copy on any desktop computer connected to your account, plus (if you decide to do so) another backup as ENEX files. Each copy is encrypted at rest (unless you decided not to encrypt your local drives, which is your responsibility), and all data traffic is encrypted  as well.

Couldn't be safer, because the complete content can be reproduced from every copy.

But panic is so much better than a little bit of reasoning ?!

[DavidPierson 15]

9 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Each copy is encrypted at rest

Is it the case that all notes are encrypted at rest on the Evernote servers? I've not heard that that is the case. Only that text within notes can be encrypted. 

[PinkElephant 8,261]

https://evernote.com/security

This is the last comprehensive description I am aware about. BS is currently working on the back end. Being an Italian company, they are obliged to follow GDRP rules (European Data Protection Law). It is quite explicit about protecting users data, and it comes with heavy fines. BS has a lot of experience with sensitive personal data - they developed and operated the Italian COVID tracing app.

So I expect even when they are moving the servers and improve the backend, data protection will stay on a very high level.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

2 hours ago, DavidPierson said:

On 11/30/2023 at 10:53 AM, notetakeingguy said:

I think Evernote will have a huge hack, because that's what happens, karma wise, the companies that treat their customers so bad.

Yesterday I saw that thousands of US hospitals, schools, facilities and government-related instutions had been hacked last year, and a similar problem also for private companies.

I will just say that "hospitals, schools," etc., kind of invalidates the karma argument.

[s2sailor 2,311]

2 hours ago, DavidPierson said:

Is it the case that all notes are encrypted at rest on the Evernote servers? I've not heard that that is the case.

Yes, as far as I remember, but they hold the encryption key.  It is not zero knowledge encryption.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

We shouldn't mix up things here.

If a text in a note is encrypted by a user, EN holds no key for that.

EN holds the keys (each account has its own) for the notes stored. They need to, because services on the server like OCR, indexing and thumb nailing demand access to the content. EN clearly says that only their bots are allowed to access users data, no humans. This is as good as it gets - you always have to trust these statements.

Now we have another layer on top of this, because GDPR requests any holder of data to thoroughly protect it. This means it is now a legal requirement to encrypt the notes - storing them open would be a clear GDPR violation.

Talking about security: No hacker can enter an account, and encrypt it himself for ransom. The regular access to the server does not permit to execute code. That`s a difference to other storage services where a server is part of the package: If such a server is hijacked, the hacker can use it to execute his malware.

In total I would say "Pretty secure". And then, as already posted, there are the local copies (usually protected by the OS encryption) and if wanted another backup data copy.

The total setup fulfills the 3-2-1 rule for backups, and that's the holy grail of data protection. It doesn't get much better.

[s2sailor 2,311]

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

We shouldn't mix up things here.

If a text in a note is encrypted by a user, EN holds no key for that.

No we shouldn’t.

I wasn’t referring to Evernote’s in note text encryption.  It’s clear that you are happy with Evernote’s security but I think more can be done.  Other apps manage E2E encryption, and personally I would be ok with limitations such as note encryption but with unencrypted metadata.  Or bring back local notebooks. That was a great solution to this concern.

 Evernote already encrypted at rest before the sale to BS.  As far as I can see, GDPR law doesn’t add any additional security over what was already there.

 

[bbarl 1]

Thanks for the advice.  I reduced my notes to well below 50.  But when I go to create new notes, I get the same window saying I have to upgrade to a paid version to create new notes. Am I missing something?

 

 

[agsteele 2,967]

How many notebooks do you have?  This needs to be just one too.  Also, it is probably good to empty your trash.

[bbarl 1]

On 1/4/2024 at 7:38 AM, agsteele said:

How many notebooks do you have?  This needs to be just one too.  Also, it is probably good to empty your trash.

I was down to one notebook, but hadn't thought of the trash bin, which was huge.  Emptying it seems to have done the trick.  

Many thanks.

[krmiedema 0]

Wow, nail in the coffin. I just downloaded Obsidian. Bye Evernote!

[LucaBen 23]

On 11/30/2023 at 12:53 PM, Ullys said:

I have been using Evernote for free for some years. Just small personal things.
I don't find it a very welcoming business method to just announce me from one day to another that I can't make more notes.
At least some kind of warning a week or a month ahead would have been sensible.
When I look up Evernote's official system limits, it says that free users can create 100,000 notes. https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005247-Evernote-system-limits

I am missing a cheaper plan for personal use. With the current pricing, if I want to upgrade to the Personal plan, I will have to pay 83% of what a Professional plan costs. That seems rather expensive for being able to synchronize my shopping list across devices...

There is no doubt in my mind that the new owners have no ethics whatsoever, and no idea how to run a company successfully. Free users are now vexed with extremely invasive dark patterns on both mobile and desktop, essentially every single time that you use the app, an overlay or two is thrown at you, asking to register, and asking "are you sure?" if you don't. So ridiculous! Best way to look desperate in the eyes of your customers, and get massive amounts of negative reviews. As you said, this sudden move is another sign that the management has no cue how to deal with customers. It's fine to add new features and ask people to pay, but asking people to pay for something that used to be free, and do it this way... I've been a paying member and stopped doing so when it became obvious to me that in this company, they don't listen to customer feedback, and the new features were mostly useless to me. It's time to leave for good, there's alternatives out there. I am happy that I didn't pay a cent to use Evernote in the last couple of years, as they don't deserve my money, and I am certainly not going to pay them a cent in the near future.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

There is no doubt that either you subscribe, or you don’t have a valid use case with this app any longer.

If you like it or not is up to yourself. As a proverb says, don’t ask the frogs before you drain the swamp.

[BBB_MI 2]

Been using Evernote since 2010, but will need to find another option if they persist with this "50 notes and 1 notebook" limit.

Seems people seem to be missing a basic fact re: the huge price increase.  The price someone is willing & able to pay for a product depends on the VALUE they receive from said product.

A working professional that uses EN extensively in their job may find enough value to justify a $15/mo cost. 

Beyond that market, potential users of EN at $15/mo PER PERSON is likely very, very small.

It's also worth noting that the price of a subscription to something like Evernote needs to be proportional to that of other major software products.  I can subscribe to Quicken for ~$5/mo.  Ditto, MS office ($99/yr for up to 6 people [!], which works out to $4.12/mo for wife & I) which also includes a Terabyte of online storage per person.  The use cases and beneficial utility provided by Quicken and MS Office far exceed that of EN.  Let's not lose site of the fact EN is simply a note taking application.  I manage our entire complex household finances with Quicken for $5/mo.  And we all know the value MS Office provides for similar cost.  For EN to think that they can get $15/mo for a note taking app which is far less robust in importance or functionality than either of those other two products is in my opinion simply insane.

BendingSpoons can do whatever they want with the product.  It's their company now.  That said,  I suspect they will very quickly find they are limiting their market primarily to employed, business professionals as VERY few "home" users are going to pay $15/month per person (!!) for a NOTE TAKING APPLICATION.  Especially in an economy where many people are struggling to pay bills for essentials like groceries, utilities and fuel for their cars.

Wife and I both retired in 2019.  There is no way on earth I (or anyone else on limited or fixed income like a retiree) can justify or pay thirty dollars a month (?!) for the two of us to continue using a note taking application.

Sad to see it come to this.  Evernote used to be a good app with reasonable restrictions (IIRC, something like 50 MB upload / month), but the restrictions of 50 notes and 1 notebook TOTAL are in my opinion ridiculous.  50 new notes and 1 new notebook a month (beyond what you already have in your database if that were grandfathered in)?  Sure.  That'd be reasonable.  But to tell people that they need to totally empty their EN out of any previous notes to be able to continue use it in a "light usage" scenario like most home (not business) users have is really missing the boat and totally unreasonable.

I suspect BendingSpoons will very quickly find that they are going to essentially kill off Evernote for all but the business professional market.  Perhaps that's by design.  Who knows..all I know is that I'm not paying $15/mo per person to continue to use it.  And as I'm not going to spend countless hours emptying out my existing Evernote database and then continue to have to do that anytime I approach the 50 note / 1 notebook limit, it appears I'll be looking for another option.  Joplin looks interesting, as does OneNote that I can get for $4.12/mo/person for the two of us, along with ALL of Microsoft Office AND a Terabyte EACH per month of online storage. 

PS:  I respectfully do not need a "fine, then don't use it" response from the L5 users.  Just giving my honest opinion and feedback.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

2 hours ago, LucaBen said:

There is no doubt in my mind that the new owners have no ethics whatsoever, and no idea how to run a company successfully. Free users are now vexed with extremely invasive dark patterns on both mobile and desktop, essentially every single time that you use the app, an overlay or two is thrown at you, asking to register, and asking "are you sure?" if you don't. So ridiculous! Best way to look desperate in the eyes of your customers, and get massive amounts of negative reviews. As you said, this sudden move is another sign that the management has no cue how to deal with customers. It's fine to add new features and ask people to pay, but asking people to pay for something that used to be free, and do it this way... I've been a paying member and stopped doing so when it became obvious to me that in this company, they don't listen to customer feedback, and the new features were mostly useless to me. It's time to leave for good, there's alternatives out there. I am happy that I didn't pay a cent to use Evernote in the last couple of years, as they don't deserve my money, and I am certainly not going to pay them a cent in the near future.

You are confusing free users with customers. A customer pays for what they use. A review saying "Don't use Evernote without paying!" is not going to hurt them too badly, IMHO. I agree that the new restrictions on free accounts should have been much better communicated. But even so, people still have access (including editing access) to existing notes, they just can't make any new ones. They have an option to move elsewhere and find another free lunch (meaning a lunch that someone else is paying for), until that business finds itself faced with the same stark choices as Evernote. For those of us who actually are customers and do find the new features not only useful but worth paying for, the loss of our nonpaying neighbors will not be as painful as some of them seem to think.

[BBB_MI 2]

Would love for someone to explain to me how the new limit of 50 total notes and 1 notebook aligns with the original intent of Evernote being the "one source" repository for all of your information.

If we have to empty the database every time we hit the limit of 50 whole notes and 1 notebook, what good is Evernote as a searchable repository of information?

BTW, I was a paying user for most of the past 13 years.  I stopped paying when we retired, as I no longer used Evernote as extensively as I did in my job so could not justify the cost.  Now, I use it lightly to take notes about personal things, like the other day when I was researching Air Purifiers.  Do I need a note like that on "all my devices"?  Nope.  So, I can use MS Word or something else instead.  And if I really want it on my iPhone, I'll put it into DropBox or OneDrive and pull it down.  But it'd be nice if we had an option like we did "back in the day" to enter a reasonable number of new notes (maybe 50-75/month) and new notebooks (1-3/month?) into EN and sync across all our devices, regardless of whether we had 1 or 10,000 notes already in our database.  That way, we could get what EN originally strove to be - a searchable repository for "all" your key information.

I'd gladly pay (no more than) $5/mo per user for that.  But I'm not able or willing to pay $129.99 (which I now realize is the yearly, "discounted" over monthly) price.  That's $260 a year for 2 retired people and simply not something I can justify on a limited, fixed income retirement budget.  Retirement budgets aside, I suspect MOST people that are not "heavy" (mostly business) users of Evernote  will not be able to justify $129.99 a year for a note taking app, either.

Bottom line - EN needs a Service Level Tier between $0 and $129.99/year for people who are not "hardcore" users.

If BendingSpoons fails to objectively listen to their customers on this, I suspect they may have just set Evernote on the path to rapidly becoming an end-of-life, sunset product that most people will abandon in the search for a more reasonable solution.  There are simply too many other options out there (OneNote, Obsidian, Joplin and many more) that provide much of the same functionality at far lower cost. 

BTW, before I retired, I spent 40+ years working in the Software industry for many of the largest, most well known Software companies in the world.  I started in the late 70s, when most people didn't even know what a computer was.  I know this business extremely, extremely well.  And these folks at BS are really torpedoing the EN business in my strong opinion.  Whether EN will even be around in a year or two depends on what they do next.  Hopefully, they'll take a long hard look at this decision and realize that best intentions aside, they are pricing EN at a level that most aside from a small handful of passionate, ardent users simply will not pay. 

Please listen to us, Bending Spoons management, and offer a more reasonable (~$5/mo) pricing option for people who are not hard-core, heavy users but want to use Evernote for what it was originally intended for a - a "repository for ALL your information".

 

[LucaBen 23]

20 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

There is no doubt that either you subscribe, or you don’t have a valid use case with this app any longer.

If you like it or not is up to yourself. As a proverb says, don’t ask the frogs before you drain the swamp.

Yes there's no question it is like that. I don't think that proverb applies to businesses who aim at being successful in 2024, but that's a different story.

[LucaBen 23]

19 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

You are confusing free users with customers. A customer pays for what they use. A review saying "Don't use Evernote without paying!" is not going to hurt them too badly, IMHO. I agree that the new restrictions on free accounts should have been much better communicated. But even so, people still have access (including editing access) to existing notes, they just can't make any new ones. They have an option to move elsewhere and find another free lunch (meaning a lunch that someone else is paying for), until that business finds itself faced with the same stark choices as Evernote. For those of us who actually are customers and do find the new features not only useful but worth paying for, the loss of our nonpaying neighbors will not be as painful as some of them seem to think.

Well it's not my goal to hurt anybody, I am just expressing my views on this. Let the Evernote ship sink, as that's what I think will happen, and I've done my best to avoid that scenario and contribute with feedback, but hey if that's whwre they are heading towards... I hope you and other paying users will enjoy the product, as long as you are motivated to pay for what you get. I wouldn't be too optimistic that this company will last long, though; it's quite obvious to me that the management is doing mistakes that could have been easily avoided, and lacks some basic knowledge of customer relationship, and design thinking.

One note about what you've written: theoretically yes, you can still use the product for free, given some limitations. Practically, they are quite openly forcing free users to leave: that's the message you are giving to people if you throw at them 2 to 4 overlays to insist that they should subscribe, every time they open the app. I find it sad that in 2024 business people still think that such a strategy can lead them anywhere.

I notice that you and other paying customers often refer to non-paying users are "free riders", or those who get a "free lunch" on other people's shoulders, but I'd like to remind you that people are not left with much choice, when  the business model is that you either pay a disproportionate price for what they get (a note-taking app, not some video editing software), and essentially pay the company for the many mistakes that have been made in the last few years, or get out. Evernote competitors won't necessarily have to face the same "stark" choices, just do better than Evernote did. They'll probably get a lot of new customers in the next couple of weeks - a golden rain for them, with no effort.

[delawaredave 55]

How cheesy.....  Gone to Notion and loving it.

[janndk 562]

11 minutes ago, delawaredave said:

How cheesy.....  Gone to Notion and loving it.

This is popping up everytime I go to Evernote Web. Unnecessary and annoying, as I already have a subscription (two subscriptions actually) 🙄  

Fortunately there seems to be only 8 hours and 32 minutes left until I hopefully get peace again 🤔😜

[LucaBen 23]

1 hour ago, janndk said:

This is popping up everytime I go to Evernote Web. Unnecessary and annoying, as I already have a subscription (two subscriptions actually) 🙄  

Fortunately there seems to be only 8 hours and 32 minutes left until I hopefully get peace again 🤔😜

Naaah, just wait, the next promotion is coming! 😆

[Sveruser 0]

For the last 2+ years or whenever the switch to v10 happened, the same bug persisted for me: "the scroll of doom". On the mobile version, when I scroll notes in an album, the app sometimes becomes completely unresponsive for like 4 second while it continues to scroll down (until the scroll deceleration stops it). I also don't always know if my scrolling will open some random note instead or will work the way it's intended.

It happens so often when I use the mobile version, I always chuckle. SURELY, I have been telling myself, the next Evernote app store update will fix this easily reproducable bug. SURELY, the upgrade to iphone12 to 14, or to the next iOS will somehow fix it.

Nope. It didn't. But I got bombarded with the neverending "discounts" to upgrade to premium to enhance my user experience.

I'm ready to pay and enhance my user experience once the basic feature known as touch scrolling (the year is 2024 btw) starts working well and in a predictable way.

But now all the hope is gone, apparently. Can't even interact with the app since i'm well beyond the note limit. And not paying for this buggy and very user-unfriendly software.

I miss the days when Evernote had cool and snappy app that worked perfectly on the iphone5s/6 or whatever model I had 10 years ago. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

7 hours ago, LucaBen said:

Let the Evernote ship sink, as that's what I think will happen, and I've done my best to avoid that scenario and contribute with feedback, but hey if that's whwre they are heading towards... I hope you and other paying users will enjoy the product, as long as you are motivated to pay for what you get. I wouldn't be too optimistic that this company will last long, though; it's quite obvious to me that the management is doing mistakes that could have been easily avoided, and lacks some basic knowledge of customer relationship, and design thinking.

I've been on these forums a few years, and predictions of Evernote's demise have been made throughout that time. Respectfully, if Evernote is still around in a year, I'd like to invite you and the others who think it is doomed to pop back in and just say "Oops." If it's gone, well, there'll be nowhere to pop back in to. Charging people what your product is worth is hard for me to see as a management mistake, though letting them milk the cow dry for free probably was.

7 hours ago, LucaBen said:

One note about what you've written: theoretically yes, you can still use the product for free, given some limitations. Practically, they are quite openly forcing free users to leave: that's the message you are giving to people if you throw at them 2 to 4 overlays to insist that they should subscribe, every time they open the app.

Forced to leave ... or, you know, subscribe. Pay for what they're getting, if they think it's worthwhile and can afford it. Which I do realize not everyone can, and I agree with those who say there ought to be a low-priced tier with fewer features. Such a tier did exist for years (Plus, etc.), and failed to attract much interest, because the free program was so ridiculously generous. Now that it isn't, that tier might actually gain subscribers.

7 hours ago, LucaBen said:

I notice that you and other paying customers often refer to non-paying users are "free riders", or those who get a "free lunch" on other people's shoulders, but I'd like to remind you that people are not left with much choice, when  the business model is that you either pay a disproportionate price for what they get (a note-taking app, not some video editing software), and essentially pay the company for the many mistakes that have been made in the last few years, or get out.

But there was a choice for many years. I started as a free user, and after 6 months or so realized I was getting significant professional and personal value, and I chose to pay for it. Many chose not to pay, some because they couldn't, some because they just preferred not to. Those latter are the ones--significant users of the service who by choice paid zip--that Evernote is offering a new choice, to pay or go.

Of course, people who don't think Evernote is worth paying anything for always like to call it "note-taking software," as if it was only good for shopping lists and short notes-to-self with no significant content or future use. Those who actually use Evernote that way (which may have been a high percentage of free users) might actually manage within the new free limitations. But for people who link among notes, create tables of contents, search for OCR'd text in PDFs and images, create a dashboard on the Home page, etc., to say "it's just a note-taking app" is laughable, IMHO, and not a serious argument one way or the other.

[LucaBen 23]

13 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I've been on these forums a few years, and predictions of Evernote's demise have been made throughout that time. Respectfully, if Evernote is still around in a year, I'd like to invite you and the others who think it is doomed to pop back in and just say "Oops." If it's gone, well, there'll be nowhere to pop back in to. Charging people what your product is worth is hard for me to see as a management mistake, though letting them milk the cow dry for free probably was.

Forced to leave ... or, you know, subscribe. Pay for what they're getting, if they think it's worthwhile and can afford it. Which I do realize not everyone can, and I agree with those who say there ought to be a low-priced tier with fewer features. Such a tier did exist for years (Plus, etc.), and failed to attract much interest, because the free program was so ridiculously generous. Now that it isn't, that tier might actually gain subscribers.

But there was a choice for many years. I started as a free user, and after 6 months or so realized I was getting significant professional and personal value, and I chose to pay for it. Many chose not to pay, some because they couldn't, some because they just preferred not to. Those latter are the ones--significant users of the service who by choice paid zip--that Evernote is offering a new choice, to pay or go.

Of course, people who don't think Evernote is worth paying anything for always like to call it "note-taking software," as if it was only good for shopping lists and short notes-to-self with no significant content or future use. Those who actually use Evernote that way (which may have been a high percentage of free users) might actually manage within the new free limitations. But for people who link among notes, create tables of contents, search for OCR'd text in PDFs and images, create a dashboard on the Home page, etc., to say "it's just a note-taking app" is laughable, IMHO, and not a serious argument one way or the other.

Oh yes, link between notes, a dashboard, OCR, these are such advanced features, that they require years of hard work and commitment! Your statement is a laughable one, not mine.

You know I don't really care whether my predictions are going to become true or not, I am now ready to migrate to another product. The future of Evernote doesn't really matter to me. I just gave a word of warning to those who are willing to listen to my opinion. Please go ahead, if you are happy to pay an overpriced fee that compensates for poor management. As many have explained to you and those who don't want to hear it, the new management has already failed in many ways, the reactions on this community and the bad reviews that they have been getting consistently in the last few weeks are a proof of that. Not to count that resorting to dark patterns in 2024 is just pathetic. But you and another couple of users who apparently like to spend hours on this community forum are going to defend them, no matter what. Please go ahead. I wonder what's your relationship to Evernote? Do you work for them, are somehow part of the team? With 5000+ posts in ten years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to spend that amount of time voluntarily on a community forum like this one...

Anyway I am now going to stop following this thread so probably won't read the rest of future comments. This community is dead. Just a couple of hardcore subscribers who thumb up one another and unsatisfied users announcing that they are going to leave, because they are not happy with the product, being bashed for daring to say so. It's not an interesting place to be, I rather go out for a walk and get some fresh air.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

Or in short words: Farewell. You will hardly be missed.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

3 hours ago, LucaBen said:

But you and another couple of users who apparently like to spend hours on this community forum are going to defend them, no matter what. Please go ahead. I wonder what's your relationship to Evernote? Do you work for them, are somehow part of the team? With 5000+ posts in ten years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to spend that amount of time voluntarily on a community forum like this one...

Yet more irrational speculation and accusation. Since you're no longer here, I only answer for the sake of others who come along later. Any Evernote employees here are marked as such with badges in their profile icons. People who only come here to complain and resist all efforts at dialogue since only their opinion could possibly be correct, only their experience is valid, will find this hard to understand, but there are people who like to help others. Most of my posts are made to give advice and respond to genuine questions. I do respond to opinions with my own opinions, which include the opinion that Evernote works well for me and is worth the money. People who think otherwise sometimes allow me to have this opinion, sometimes (like @LucaBen) insist that anyone who thinks differently than they do must be some kind of company plant or stooge. Eventually, they stalk out and slam they door behind them, which is apparently the best argument they have. I've done my best to make my point and to correct fictions with reality, and am going to just sit quietly for awhile and try to recover from the useless labor.

[justnewlistings 1]

found success with notion as alternative  mostly imported notebooks seamlessly.  couple imported half way and working on work around.  

 

however you can share notebooks publicly without peope having to register with evernote.  we'd asked for that capability for 10 y ears!  (maybe it changed recently but pathetic to have ignore your legacy users for so long)

 

what a freaking disaster. when I import enex files into onenote the notebooks are emtpy. I'd pay someone $100 to get me set up in onenote/onedrive.  guess zoho note has an import feature is what I read with evernote.  I lost 3 hours on this and can tell I wont' get any further.  when I first tried to use evernote2onenote I had some success. but when I dtried to get it to sync to android onenote something got messed up. if there is any contractor that can help me.....

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

@justnewlistings, forum etiquette does not permit multiple postings of the same message. It made sense in the thread on migrating to OneNote, but it seems a little off-topic here. (Though heaven knows it's hard to say what's on topic the way this thread has developed.)

[Lowdown 10]

I agree with the condemnation of the Evernote apologists populating this board.

All they seem to do is insult users with trouble.

I doubt their independence based on their replies.

EN keeps working to chase off users

I have about a thousand notes and WAS a paid user. It WAS a useful archive, progressively less so, sacrificing usefulness for novelty and only increasing  the costs, cost which to them were trivial compared to pricing.

I now am extorted with the new "Promotional Bargain" (50% off of only annual Personal) only to allow me the ability to migrate off of what seems to move to annoy me at every turn.

Annoying threats that pop up with confusing changes and threats to remove more, presented in ways that require wasted investigation to understand increase .

I am happy to pay a reasonable fee for a useful program.

Not happy to be messed with  for basic features

I doubt their business is to be around much longer, anyway or relegated to a niche..

I hope this comment warns people away from the increasing trouble this program has created and the constant insults of users encountering difficulties.

Other programs may be structured differently, but I have seen nothing else that  pulls these kind of moves.

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,261]

Oh, you are happy to pay the price you want ? Maybe you missed it, but that's not how it works: A price is asked, and you decide to take it or leave it.

If you don't like what you get, leave.

Giving your hilarious negative gossip about others, you will not be missed.

[CalS 5,287]

In general, after almost 500 posts in the thread...

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

2 hours ago, Lowdown said:

I agree with the condemnation of the Evernote apologists populating this board.

All they seem to do is insult users with trouble.

I doubt their independence based on their replies.

I will refrain from criticizing or disagreeing with anything else you say, since that would apparently make me an insulting apologist. But your insinuation that some of us (and I know you include me in your target) are being paid or are less than independent is false, insulting, and frankly hurtful. Why shouldn't I think you're being paid by Notion, Microsoft, or Google?

Not liking Evernote's pricing or marketing is, to me, not the same as "having trouble." If you'll look around the forums a bit, you'll find that users actually having trouble with features of the program are generally treated with respect and offered helpful suggestions by the people you are slandering.

[BBB_MI 2]

I'm admittedly newer to posting here, although I'm a 13+ year (previously) PAID user.

That said, it's unfortunate that there doesn't seem to be a more constructive dialogue to finding a good solution to the problem, with L5 users hitting pretty hard on those with (IMHO, reasonable) feedback designed to make EN a better solution for ALL.

It would appear that EN is pricing themselves out of all but a very small market (power users & business professionals).  There's likely a massive, untapped market out there to go capture - at a "reasonable" price point of ~$3-5/month per user.  The first company to do that at scale is gonna make a LOT of money, and BS / EN is primed to do that if they simply execute well.

$129.99/yr for a (sorry) NOTE TAKING APPLICATION is not reasonable.  (Most people do not use all the fancy, advanced features.  If you want and use those - great!  Then separate those features into a higher cost/higher tier level of service but don't penalize the entire user base who could care less about those features.  QED).

IF BS could come up with a $3 - 5/month per user price for the "core" features that syncs notes across all of a user's devices, it'd sell like hotcakes.  Heck, I wish I owned that business, as I'd buy a small south pacific island to chill on with the profits.

Even better: charge by storage, like almost every other cloud company on the planet (Dropbox, etc).  Have a small database (however you define "small")?  Pay a small cost.  Medium database?  Medium cost.  Large/massive database?  Larger cost.  That's how EN started, IIRC.  Something like 5 GB/month upload at Tier 1.  Heck, you could probably even do 1-3 GB/mo max upload and capture a huge # of customers.

The cost of the Service IMHO should not depend on how many devices you have connected to it.  Just like DropBox, iCloud, etc doesn't.  Want to connect your iPhone, iPad, Android, Web Browser and Windows PC?  No problem.  Same cost.  We only care how much storage you use, because that's where the cost to support you as a user comes from (which it does.  # of devices has NO impact on operational cost - or it shouldn't).

This isn't hard.  (40+ year Software industry veteran here saying that).  Just course correct.  Make EN "Core" $3-5/mo, and the customers will be there in large numbers.  But at $129/yr as the "first (paid) level", you're gonna absolutely kill the business for all but the power and professional business users.  And while I admittedly couldn't tell anyone how large that market is as I'm not a marketing expert, experience and gut tells me it's not that big of a potential user base.

Me?  Been with EN since 2010 (most of those years paid), and I'd like to see it survive and thrive.  Hopefully BS management will take the sincerely offered advice from a software industry "old-timer" & course correct here, while there is still a small window of time to do so, before a large # of users bail to another app.

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,983]

1 hour ago, BBB_MI said:

$129.99/yr for a (sorry) NOTE TAKING APPLICATION is not reasonable.  (Most people do not use all the fancy, advanced features.  If you want and use those - great!  Then separate those features into a higher cost/higher tier level of service but don't penalize the entire user base who could care less about those features.  QED).

IF BS could come up with a $3 - 5/month per user price for the "core" features that syncs notes across all of a user's devices, it'd sell like hotcakes.  Heck, I wish I owned that business, as I'd buy a small south pacific island to chill on with the profits.

Even better: charge by storage, like almost every other cloud company on the planet (Dropbox, etc).  Have a small database (however you define "small")?  Pay a small cost.  Medium database?  Medium cost.  Large/massive database?  Larger cost. 

Sigh. I'm going to express a partial agreement and a partial disagreement. I hope you will consider that "constructive." Most people who think Evernote is overpriced don't seem to.

I agree that Evernote should have a low-priced, low-powered tier for occasional/casual/light users. I don't know what the price and feature levels should be, but I do think there's a market--now that Free is a very basic trial plan. It's often been pointed out that Evernote Plus, a previous low-cost plan, didn't attract enough users (enough, though, that some of them are howling about being bumped up to Personal). But that was because the Free plan was too generous. It isn't anymore, and that might make a Basic or Core or whatever tier marketable. I 1000% guarantee that such a tier would also generate reams of complaints here that, for $60/year, it ought to have more features.

I disagree that Evernote in all its glory is "a note-taking application," as you evidently expected someone would do, and rightly so. I hope you will back up your claim that "Most people do not use all the fancy, advanced features.... don't penalize the entire user base who could care less about those features.  QED." NED (nihil est demonstratum). Unless you've got a survey that shows what "most people," let alone "the entire user base," use and don't use, want and don't want. My guess (which has as much likelihood of being right as your guess) is that most people use a selection of Evernote's features, and that the selections differ wildly from user to user, since Evernote is so well adapted to so many different kinds of uses. (You yourself, right after calling it a "note taking application," designate it a cloud storage service, which is a very, very different animal.) And if Evernote tries to slice and dice feature sets among plan/price levels--well, yet more reams of complaints. Let's see, allow a decent quantity of uploads for Core/Basic, but don't OCR them? Make Note History available to Basic/Core users, or not? How many features on the Home page? (But no one uses that, right? Right?) Tasks for Basic users? PDF export? (It's currently limited to Professional, but wouldn't Basic users be the ones most likely to want to export and leave for something cheaper?)

My point is that, in the absence of real data about who wants what, figuring out what a low-priced tier should include would be neither simple nor non-controversial. (And the familiar argument that "I don't want it so no one should have it" will continue to crop up--you didn't say that, but many people have.) I hope they'll make one. I hope you'll come back to the forums to help field the angry posts about it.

[Osud 1]

Dear god, almost got heart-attack today. Some strange company took over Evernote and my life notes which are over thousands are now in their hands, with some funny 50 limit. Oh dear god what should I do now, I need to download my notes quickly and migrate somehow somewhere before this cause dissaster life problems for me. Have been using evernote for Years, why all good services have to end like this

I have told them before, make 10eur year plans do not be greedy or company will end, and they did not listen and here we are.

[PinkElephant 8,261]

If you want to pray, do it at home or go to church.

If you need advise, come here.

If you want to rant, we will soon offer ranting tickets for the forum. Bronze for 3 lines, Silver for a full post, gold will buy a thread. Get stars for insults. Prices will be available with a 1st year discount.

See, it already works - just ***** .

🤣

[Osud 1]

Ok so, opened my old ancient notebook, it synced and export did work, so exported 1785 notes :DD in all ways. Now quite puzzled where should I migrate it to. Was so used to evernote cant imagine one day without it, was so good app, this will be pain T.T .

[PinkElephant 8,261]

You could just re-import, the app is quite decent.

For everything else you need to go looking yourself. Without any clue what your use cases are we can just name the usual suspects. And this a forum search would do easier.

[Osud 1]

I wanted to add new note. But it stated that 50 notes is free limit. (this topic name right) . So I cannot re-import more than 50 notes right ? Or does desktop app not have this 50 limit ?

[PinkElephant 8,261]

Usually your notes should still be there.

To use the account meaningful beyond 50 notes, you need a subscription. And to import any significant amount of notes, you need one as well. Importing creates new notes, and they run against the upload limit. Which is 60MB per 30 days on Free, and hardly enough for any significant import.

[s2sailor 2,311]

23 minutes ago, Osud said:

was so good app, this will be pain

It is still pretty good, but yes, you will need to subscribe to reasonably use it.  The new free plan is really only usuable as a trial, or as an archive for your current note collection.

[Dave Green 212]

My suggestion is to pay monthly for Evernote, if at all possible, and start your research to choose your next tool.  There have been many articles (web search) and posts in this forum.  There is no direct replacement, so you have to take your requirements and evaluate them against the alternatives.   Be sure to consider adding ease of migration from Evernote and the ability to export your information from your new tool to your list of requirements.  Good luck.

[Der Eisgraue 32]

On 12/29/2023 at 3:15 AM, gazumped said:

Before there's any more shouting here,  can I just point out that for some people Obsidian seems to be really attractive - and for others it's not.  (My emphasis)

https://www.fastcompany.com/90960653/why-people-are-obsessed-with-obsidian-the-indie-darling-of-notetaking-apps

Either way I don't think it's cool to promote specific third party options in Evernote's own forums,  so I might start deleting posts that get too specific.  Play nice please...  

Sorry for my jump in so late to this topic.

 

I mean, I have been there with the lovely people from Obsidian and LogSeq and I have used the tools, testing, if they can fit my needs as note-taking-, and productivity apps. I am not a nerd. I am a pragmatic writer and manager. I like things easy, clear and understandable.

They are  good as long you have no need for synchronization - if you want to synchronize, you are at the same costs as here. There is no win.

Then: Obsidian as all those local first Markdown editors, are caging the user with the language. Means: yes, you have the control over your files. But you are more or less trapped in the Markdown world. Especially LogSeq has a lot of features that needs an own Markdown language set. If you fill the diary, hence the app with your notes over and over, and you want to get them out to use another app, you are screwed.

The reason why so many people are obsessed with Obsidian or LogSeq is simple: people want to be evangelists, in the first row of the next hot *****. E.g.: Santi Younger was a super helpful young guy with a great knowledge about the productivity use of Obsidian. Then came LogSeq and Santi jumped over, started creating vids of Obsidian and LogSeq and how to let them play nice together and created online trainings to get some money. It is his business to be the Latin-American Guy Kawasaki 🙂

The there came Tana and all the people who were evangelists for LogSeq and Obsidian and what do I know, the run like fraggles to the next hot ***** to get their position as evangelists. They drum for the next god. The main thing is that they drum.

I am just a user and want to use a tool that helps. I am not happy with the pricing of Evernote, but I assume, that the folks there have also families and want to live a life. So do I.

Cheers,

Peter

[Der Eisgraue 32]

1 hour ago, Osud said:

Ok so, opened my old ancient notebook, it synced and export did work, so exported 1785 notes :DD in all ways. Now quite puzzled where should I migrate it to. Was so used to evernote cant imagine one day without it, was so good app, this will be pain T.T .

What's about paying the costs of a personal plan? If you don't pay a product, you are the product. Why should everything be free forever and to all? And how can you entrust your personal data to a solution for so many years without knowing how to get out if you ever need to? I cannot understand this irresponsibility towards your own personal data and information.

I have been there with the free products and I go, where I have to pay to have assurance that I am a customer, not a user.

Cheers!

Peter

[brianpals 1]

11 minutes ago, nathschlaeger said:

What's about paying the costs of a personal plan? If you don't pay a product, you are the product. Why should everything be free forever and to all? And how can you entrust your personal data to a solution for so many years without knowing how to get out if you ever need to? I cannot understand this irresponsibility towards your own personal data and information.

I have been there with the free products and I go, where I have to pay to have assurance that I am a customer, not a user.

Cheers!

Peter

I'm really confused. I don't use Evernote regularly as I just use it as a reminder why I did things in the past. It doesn't hold security data. I have Bitwarden for that.
It seems I have 1523 notes in (I suppose) one Notebook. Even if I joined for one month for £8.99 how can I download all of my notes?
Conversely, if I start paying the annual fee, what are the restrictions? I am not a professional, just a retired old man who thought Evernote was such a good idea so many years ago.

[gazumped 11,760]

3 minutes ago, brianpals said:

It seems I have 1523 notes in (I suppose) one Notebook. Even if I joined for one month for £8.99 how can I download all of my notes?

Hi.  You should still have access to your notes without subscribing and will be able to download them from the Desktop Notebooks page - click the three dots to the right of the page and choose 'export'.  You only need to subscribe to add more content.

[Der Eisgraue 32]

7 minutes ago, brianpals said:

I'm really confused. I don't use Evernote regularly as I just use it as a reminder why I did things in the past. It doesn't hold security data. I have Bitwarden for that.

Hi!

I was not specifically writing about security data. I was writing about memories, information, stuff that a worth for you to take down into a note app. Sorry for being misunderstandable.

Cheers/Peter

[brianpals 1]

14 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  You should still have access to your notes without subscribing and will be able to download them from the Desktop Notebooks page - click the three dots to the right of the page and choose 'export'.  You only need to subscribe to add more content.

Thank you for this. It is letting me export 100 notes. Is there an easier way? Would it be best to delete them now so that I know where the next 100 starts?

[brianpals 1]

10 minutes ago, nathschlaeger said:

Hi!

I was not specifically writing about security data. I was writing about memories, information, stuff that a worth for you to take down into a note app. Sorry for being misunderstandable.

Cheers/Peter

No, thanks for your input, Peter. You have spurred me on to doing what I suppose I should have done years ago. I just didn't think. 🙂

[gazumped 11,760]

2 hours ago, brianpals said:

Is there an easier way?

2 hours ago, brianpals said:

from the Desktop Notebooks page - click the three dots to the right of the

...notebook name and look for 'export'.

[s2sailor 2,311]

Alternatively, in the lefthand pane, right mouse button on the notebook name -> Export notebook

[Unhappy Chappy 3]

I moved to Joplin instead - got sick of the constant upgrade nags and newly-imposed limitations.

Last year, I didn't think Evernote could get worse - I was wrong....

[Cyborg912 2]

I have a free account since 2014 and have noticed a complete overhaul to the web interface and subscriptions. I have 1 notebook with 40 notes and it alerts me that on a free plan, I can have 1 notebook with 50 notes. Yet, it doesn't allow me to create a new note.

Don't I have the ability to create a maximum of 10 more notes?

 

[0148 1]

This actually is a bait and switch. If you want advanced features like calendar, tasks etc, then it's fine to offer that for cost.

But if you've offered a free version for years, to suddenly place limits on the free version such that the average person doing the most basic notes CAN NO LONGER USE IT without a steep cost - so you switched.

1 notebook and 50 notes isn't enough for a high schooler, excuse me.

And for those out there like me who just want to easily clip recipes and don't use anything else, and have used this system FOR FREE for almost 10 years - no it's not right to suddenly say you have to pay or you can't even move a note already created within the notebooks that have been there for years because there is more than one notebook, and suddenly you're only allowed 1 notebook.

It's not right to discount out us just because we don't pay for a very simple free service and don't need or want, and in my case, absolutely cannot afford to pay for a simple recipe filing system. For more than a decade a very simple service was offered for free in hopes we would want to use advanced features, and now the free service has been reduced to be unusable and everyone has to pay even to do the most basic things.

So the service went from free to paid - yes, bait and switch. And we have a right to be upset.

PS Paying via Paypal in the case of currency problems doesn't help. I am also having this issue and it won't accept Paypal because it says it doesn't match with the country - but I have no option to change country or currency anywhere, not on the page, not on settings, no where. Thankfully it still accepted my out of country credit card.

[s2sailor 2,311]

3 hours ago, 0148 said:

1 notebook and 50 notes isn't enough for a high schooler, excuse me.

You are correct.  This isn't enough for any meaningful work.  It is not meant to be.  It is now only good as a trial for new users or an archive for existing ones.

3 hours ago, 0148 said:

And for those out there like me who just want to easily clip recipes and don't use anything else, and have used this system FOR FREE for almost 10 years - no it's not right to suddenly say you have to pay or you can't even move a note already created within the notebooks that have been there for years because there is more than one notebook, and suddenly you're only allowed 1 notebook.

Be thankful you got ten years of free use out of a pretty good app.  The free plan is ending because it is not sustainable.  Other users were paying for the free users and there just weren't enough of those to keep the free plan going.  I personally think they should have a lower price entry plan, but they don't.  They are now targeting this app for the heavy user that makes use of all the features and can justify the cost.  For those that can't there are numerous low cost options to evaluate.  

3 hours ago, 0148 said:

It's not right to discount out us just because we don't pay for a very simple free service

They aren't.  There is currently a 50% discount being offered to those that were on the free plan and want to stay with Evernote.

3 hours ago, 0148 said:

So the service went from free to paid - yes, bait and switch.

No the service was paid and free where the paid users were paying for the free.  The free bait tasted good for a long time, now there is a charge for it.