(Archived) couldn't I just use gmail?

[grahampcharles 17]

I love me some Evernote, but it just sort of struck me that I couldn't really think of anything it does -- except offline notebooks -- that I couldn't do myself with a dedicated GMail account.

Thoughts?

g.

[megsaint 441]

If it's not useful to you, don't use it. Everyone's needs are different.

[grahampcharles 17]

Um, that wasn't my question. And I do use it, madly and often.

My question is what features EN brings to the table that GMail or GDocs don't already provide. Offline notebooks, native apps -- anything else?

[Metrodon 2,162]

Well if you use it madly and often - what do YOU use it for that Gmail doesn't support. There are so many different ways that people use Evernote that really your own experience is the only one that matters.

[grahampcharles 17]

Nothing comes to mind. That's why I asked.

[TheGurkha 0]

How about the indexing and searching of notes & attached documents, and searching the text and handwriting in images...

[Limegreen 8]

I sort of do - and sort of don't - understand the question.

Every website or app is a 'container' of data of some sort. Facebook is a good container for social information and images, youtube is a good container for videos, and I guess gmail & gdocs is a good 7GB container for data generally( text, documents, images, videos(?) ).

Evernote is another container where you can throw general data. But unlike, say gmail, which was not built as a general data reference, Evernote is designed for easy and ubiquitous capturing, sorting and accessing of that data.

For that it needs to have good software so that I can easily

capture (i.e. take a picture with my phone, record a few words etc. not sure how I would 'capture' some things with gmail)

sort (it needs to have a good folder and tag system, gmail only seems to have a rudimentary tag system with inadequate grouping)

Acess (easily on my phone, tablet or PC, whether or not I have a connection were I happen to be at that moment, gmail doesn't seem to be quite there just yet)

So when I look at that I find that you can indeed use gmail as the sort of 'general filing-cabinet' that Evernote is. But you are then sort of working against the design of gmail which was originally just about e-mail. Between Gmail and Evernote lies not a difference in kind of of degree.

[grahampcharles 17]

Oh, attached documents are searched? I was under the impression they were not, but most of my note-taking is text-based. There, that is an excellent feature.

Thanks,

g.

[jbenson2 2,138]

I can't tell how large a file or note is in a GMail. This is a very serious issue. I hit the storage cap a few months ago, so I try to delete the old emails. But it would be a lot easier if I could find the large emails. Yes, I could pay Google a monthly fee for more storage, but it would not be needed if they let me find the large emails that I could offload.

I don't see any way to change the created date in GMail. In Evernote, I can edit the Created Date for meetings, appointments, and tasks in the future.

Perhaps it is possible, but I don't see a way to restrict the viewable GMails to a specific time frame. In Evernote, I could use search to find everything created between December 26, 2010 and January 31, 2011 ( created:20101226 -created:20110201)

[logandb 224]

...

I don't see a way to restrict the viewable GMails to a specific time frame...

OT, I know, but it is possible to filter Gmail messages by date, using the search syntax:

after:yyyy/mm/dd before:yyyy/mm/dd

For example, “after:2010/10/03 before:2010/10/13” will display emails sent/received between 3 December 2010 and 26 January 2011. Moreover, the 'Quick Links' gadget in Labs is handy for creating the Gmail equivalent of EN's saved searches for complex queries.

[jbenson2 2,138]

after:yyyy/mm/dd before:yyyy/mm/dd

For example, “after:2010/10/03 before:2010/10/13” will display emails sent/received between 3 December 2010 and 26 January 2011. Moreover, the 'Quick Links' gadget in Labs is handy for creating the Gmail equivalent of EN's saved searches for complex queries.

1.) Thank you for the search example. I saved it in Evernote.

2.) Do you know if there is a way to determine the size of an individual email in GMail? I can do it easily with Evernote, but the information seems to be purposely hidden in GMail.

[Owyn 457]

Locate all the Big Emails in your Gmail Account

FindBigMail security

[jbenson2 2,138]

Thanks Owyn,

Wonderful suggestion.

[terheyden 3]

I used gmail before moving over to evernote. I don't need features like limiting results by date, or OCR / image search. The first feature that made me make the transition to evernote, is the search highlighting. For example, if I search for "intitle:java hashmap", evernote will show me results and auto-scroll directly to the word "hashmap" and highlight it in yellow. Gmail doesn't do that.

The second feature is the clipping and thumbnail evernote shows. My wife and I have put every recipe we like into evernote, with a pic. We can scroll through the 'recipe' notebook and see nice thumbnails of all our recipes.

I would say the third feature is what I call the "sub-searching." I'm not sure that this is a documented feature, because I discovered it quite by accident. If I click on a saved search, let's say, "recipes," then do a search for, say, "chicken," only the "recipes" notes are searched. That is very useful. Gmail doesn't do that either.

The fourth feature I love is evernote's awesome export capabilities. If I *did* want to move back to gmail or any other competing app, evernote will export all my stuff (or just selected notes) to XML or HTML. When I transitioned from gmail to evernote, I had to do it by hand.

I'm sure there are other little things I'm forgetting, but yeah, gmail does run a distant second to evernote IMHO. YMMV.

[Owyn 457]

The way I think of it is Gmail is another source of information, some of which I really want to remember now. Some I might need to remember later.

The obvious goes into Evernote immediately, either by forwarding email to Evernote or clipping from email body.

I depend, A LOT, on GMail search & labels to find things which I sort of remember. I archive everything except Spam in GMail.

Most items which I have to go back to GMail to find are then Evernoted as well. i.e. It has now become obvious that I need to have it in my first tier of digital memory.