10 Years with Evernote: Why I’m Finally Saying Goodbye

[keesje 10]

I have decided that the time has come to say goodbye to Evernote, and in this post, I will explain why.

I have been using Evernote for Mac since 2014, primarily as a filing cabinet to store PDFs. I used to find it an excellent tool because of its outstanding tagging capabilities combined with scripting. This allowed me to use the app Hazel to scan the text of incoming PDFs in my email, rename them, and save them in Evernote with relevant tags and internal links.

Then came Evernote 10, and to my astonishment, it did not support scripting (I am well aware this is because Evernote 10, unlike earlier versions, is not written in C++ but built using Electron). But what do you do when you have nearly 10,000 notes in Evernote (9498 to be exact)? I dreaded the migration.

Because of that, I continued using the legacy version. When PDFs stopped appearing correctly in the legacy app last year, I had to rely on Evernote Legacy alongside version 10 to import PDFs via scripting. However, this option became unavailable when Evernote discontinued support for the legacy version in March of this year. Since then, I have solely used Hazel to rename the PDFs and move them to an Evernote import folder

Additionally, internal and app links have not been working in the desktop version of Evernote (at least in the Mac version), an issue present since January. Initially, I assumed this was a temporary problem that would be quickly resolved. It has been almost six months now, and this issue still hasn’t been fixed. This is unacceptable for a note-taking app!

What is the point of new features if basic functionalities do not work? Especially when they are not even well-implemented, such as the AI-powered search, which is pretty useless?

Another example: if you accidentally close the main window in the Mac version using CMD-W, in any other well-functioning program, you can reopen it via the “New Window” option in the “Window” menu. In Evernote 10, you can only do this through a workaround, such as clicking on “Search Note” in the “Edit” menu.

I can understand such cosmetic errors occurring in a newly released app, but Evernote 10 for Mac is almost four years old… and I could go on.

The ongoing issue with internal and app links has been the last straw for me. After 10 years of using Evernote and six months of waiting for a solution to this obvious bug, I have decided to say goodbye. Six months and still no fix—could it be that Evernote just doesn’t care? Does anyone know a good alternative to Evernote? If so, please let me know.
 

[ferol 514]

On 6/20/2024 at 4:16 PM, keesje said:

I have decided that the time has come to say goodbye to Evernote, and in this post, I will explain why.

I have been using Evernote for Mac since 2014, primarily as a filing cabinet to store PDFs. I used to find it an excellent tool because of its outstanding tagging capabilities combined with scripting. This allowed me to use the app Hazel to scan the text of incoming PDFs in my email, rename them, and save them in Evernote with relevant tags and internal links.

Then came Evernote 10, and to my astonishment, it did not support scripting (I am well aware this is because Evernote 10, unlike earlier versions, is not written in C++ but built using Electron). But what do you do when you have nearly 10,000 notes in Evernote (9498 to be exact)? I dreaded the migration.

Because of that, I continued using the legacy version. When PDFs stopped appearing correctly in the legacy app last year, I had to rely on Evernote Legacy alongside version 10 to import PDFs via scripting. However, this option became unavailable when Evernote discontinued support for the legacy version in March of this year. Since then, I have solely used Hazel to rename the PDFs and move them to an Evernote import folder

Additionally, internal and app links have not been working in the desktop version of Evernote (at least in the Mac version), an issue present since January. Initially, I assumed this was a temporary problem that would be quickly resolved. It has been almost six months now, and this issue still hasn’t been fixed. This is unacceptable for a note-taking app!

What is the point of new features if basic functionalities do not work? Especially when they are not even well-implemented, such as the AI-powered search, which is pretty useless?

Another example: if you accidentally close the main window in the Mac version using CMD-W, in any other well-functioning program, you can reopen it via the “New Window” option in the “Window” menu. In Evernote 10, you can only do this through a workaround, such as clicking on “Search Note” in the “Edit” menu.

I can understand such cosmetic errors occurring in a newly released app, but Evernote 10 for Mac is almost four years old… and I could go on.

The ongoing issue with internal and app links has been the last straw for me. After 10 years of using Evernote and six months of waiting for a solution to this obvious bug, I have decided to say goodbye. Six months and still no fix—could it be that Evernote just doesn’t care? Does anyone know a good alternative to Evernote? If so, please let me know.
 

look here:

 

https://share.note.sx/7fhov09z#CFrmfq7krL/LyQ99NTGmxZCvo/YLDRHtskwBpcJe6sM

[PinkElephant 8,695]

@keesje Hmmmm ... when my main app window on the Mac is closed, I click once on the app icon in the Dock, and the main app window is back open.

Links between notes are working as expected, including the relatively new backlink capability.

So probably your install has some issues, that usually could be resolved with a full uninstall / reinstall.

What won't come back is scripting. Electron doesn't seem to allow for it. We have some reports that Apple Shortcuts are working now, but I haven't tried it myself.

 

[mackid1993 1,211]

It would be great if they wrote an enscript replacement that would connect directly to the API for nerds like me! Even if it was just a command line tool documented on Github.

[Jon/t 1,612]

7 hours ago, mackid1993 said:

It would be great if they wrote an enscript replacement that would connect directly to the API for nerds like me! Even if it was just a command line tool documented on Github.

I imagine we'll get a new public API at some point. The old one is most likely running on the monolith Java thing which they want to switch off at some point.

I'll be using it, especially for tasks. 

[eric99 1,077]

7 hours ago, mackid1993 said:

It would be great if they wrote an enscript replacement that would connect directly to the API for nerds like me! Even if it was just a command line tool documented on Github.

a REST api maybe ?