Preparing for V10 - do I really need to back up each notebook to ENEX file first?

[Mike DM 11]

In the interests of my shortage of time, I've decided to proceed with updating my Windows Desktop legacy version (6.x) to V10x.

On this page: https://evernote.com/blog/legacy-decommissioning it says that it's a good idea to back up each notebook to ENEX files before proceeding.  Item 3 says this:

Back up your notes. Consider backing up all your notes as ENEX files before updating. As a best practice, we recommend exporting notes on a per notebook basis: it’s faster than going note-by-note, yet ensures that you can easily re-upload any content back into Evernote without exceeding the monthly upload limits (which might happen if you used a bulk exporter plug-in to export one massive file).

That will take a lot of work, obviously.  I have my Windows machine doing nightly backups (using Macrium Reflect, FYI), so do any advanced users have opinions on whether I should bother to proceed with what I currently perceive to be a waste of time?  If the conversion failed or produced a corrupted database, couldn't I uninstall V10, replace my EXB file with my latest backup and do over?  I'm thinking that they wrote those instructions for the millions of users who don't do regular backups of their precious data.

Worst case scenario: that also fails, due to something about my current EXB file. I reinstall the legacy version (which I have a copy of) and THEN follow their suggested process? 

2nd question: I'm pretty sure that I never created any "local notebooks". How can I be sure?  In the ...\Evernote\Databases folder, I have only the one main EXB file that holds my database. It's about 878 MB.  Should I look elsewhere for the "local notebook" file? Does it use a different file extension?

[agsteele 2,952]

My opinion... Do you really NEED to backup your notebooks? Probably not. But it is definitely a belt-and-braces approach just in case. However, I would make a final sync with V6 (Legacy). Then check via the web client that all your data is on the server. If it is, then I would say that you are good to go with V10 which will build your data from the server.

You might want to review how you will make backups in the future. The evernote-backup program from GitHub will do this an d the process can create the notebook ENEX files. Do that first and you will have the ENEX files should they be needed.

Local notebooks should be exported as ENEX before the switch.

[Mike DM 11]

@agsteele, thank you. That is sound advice.  I never considered that they would rebuild from the server rather than my own EXB file. Makes sense, of course.

15 hours ago, agsteele said:

You might want to review how you will make backups in the future. The evernote-backup program from GitHub will do this an d the process can create the notebook ENEX files. Do that first and you will have the ENEX files should they be needed.

Ugh! You just reminded me of why I was avoiding V10 in the first place. What you are saying is that in spite of Evernote management having redundancy processes in place, having just the one database stored on their servers is a data loss risk. I have to agree. A number of years ago, Verizon (cell svc provider in the US) lost my data stored in their Verizon Cloud service. I know damn well they had an archive that they could have restored me from, but I could never get past the low level front line personnel to even a manager. They lost me as a customer FOREVER. They eventually phased out their cloud service - perhaps because of so much bad management?

I appreciate the pointer to what appears to be a very useful tool on GitHub, and I'll bookmark that, but for me, that will require a lot of time also (learning curve). I hope to have more time in about a year. I think my plan for now will be to follow your first advice, then place a backup copy of my EXB file into the same folder that I have the installer file for Legacy 6x, and hope they don't lose my data until I can spend the time to do the GitHub thing. If they do, I'll have lost whatever I added since the conversion.

16 hours ago, agsteele said:

Local notebooks should be exported as ENEX before the switch.

I'm pretty sure I never created any local notebooks. How exactly might I check?  See my first post.

[agsteele 2,952]

1 minute ago, Mike DM said:

I appreciate the pointer to what appears to be a very useful tool on GitHub, and I'll bookmark that, but for me, that will require a lot of time also (learning curve). I hope to have more time in about a year. I think my plan for now will be to follow your first advice, then place a backup copy of my EXB file into the same folder that I have the installer file for Legacy 6x, and hope they don't lose my data until I can spend the time to do the GitHub thing. If they do, I'll have lost whatever I added since the conversion.

I'm pretty sure I never created any local notebooks. How exactly might I check?  See my first post.

Actually, I was really quite straightforward when I set it up.  I hva eeverything scheduled to run once a week and it just updates the local backup to stay in sync with the cloud.  The program is based on the Evernote code from Legacy but designed to run on its own.

As for Local Notebooks.  They will be idetifiable in the Legacy program - I think in the Notebook menu.  v10 should also warn you if it finds any when you are installing.

[Mike DM 11]

3 hours ago, agsteele said:

Actually, I was really quite straightforward when I set it up.  I hva eeverything scheduled to run once a week and it just updates the local backup to stay in sync with the cloud.  The program is based on the Evernote code from Legacy but designed to run on its own.

I'll have to take your word on that, but not today - ha!  Thank you, though.

3 hours ago, agsteele said:

As for Local Notebooks.  They will be idetifiable in the Legacy program - I think in the Notebook menu.  v10 should also warn you if it finds any when you are installing.

Thank you. I am now pretty certain that I never made any local notebooks.