(Archived) If I were Evernote, I'd be a little worried...

[psionmark 73]

This ain't perfect (read the full review), but it's going to be pretty darn close for a lot of people, especially with comments such as:

[MODERATOR EDIT: The link above takes users to a review of Attachments.me]

Their advanced search makes it easy to retrieve your attachments. It does a context based search inside your files for better results.

and

The best part about Attachments.me is its ability to sync your data with other cloud services like Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Drive.

Throw in an iOS and Android app (which I'm sure will be in the pipeline) and...

Just about to try it out.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

This ain't perfect (read the full review), but it's going to be pretty darn close for a lot of people, especially with comments such as:

Their advanced search makes it easy to retrieve your attachments. It does a context based search inside your files for better results.

and

The best part about Attachments.me is its ability to sync your data with other cloud services like Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Drive.

Throw in an iOS and Android app (which I'm sure will be in the pipeline) and...

Just about to try it out.

In my opinion, Evernote ought to keep their eye on the ball and innovate to improve their products instead of worrying too much about what other companies are doing, and trying to do battle with every app that shares some overlap in terms of functionality. Sure, take a look around and keep abreast of changes in the marketplace, but don't obsess about the competition.

Anyhow, your link (I have edited your post to indicate where your link is taking us) is about Attachments.me. To be honest, I am not sure what you think ought to worry Evernote here. If anything, it might be interesting to see the app somewhere in the trunk as a partner. If someone could locate, organize, and get my attachments out of Gmail and into Evernote, I'd be interested

[psionmark 73]

Anyhow, your link (I have edited your post to indicate where your link is taking us) is about Attachments.me. To be honest, I am not sure what you think ought to worry Evernote here. If anything, it might be interesting to see the app somewhere in the trunk as a partner. If someone could locate, organize, and get my attachments out of Gmail and into Evernote, I'd be interested

I gained the impression (from reading a lot of the posts here) that a lot of people considered the ability to search within attachments to be one of Evernotes real strengths (as is indeed the case). Attachments.me appears to me to offer identical functionality (plus a lot of other stuff, e.g. save attachments to Google Drive etc)

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Anyhow, your link (I have edited your post to indicate where your link is taking us) is about Attachments.me. To be honest, I am not sure what you think ought to worry Evernote here. If anything, it might be interesting to see the app somewhere in the trunk as a partner. If someone could locate, organize, and get my attachments out of Gmail and into Evernote, I'd be interested

I gained the impression (from reading a lot of the posts here) that a lot of people considered the ability to search within attachments to be one of Evernotes real strengths (as is indeed the case). Attachments.me appears to me to offer identical functionality (plus a lot of other stuff, e.g. save attachments to Google Drive etc)

I agree. Evernote's ability to search in attachments (specifically, it searches images, PDFs, and text) is one of the main reasons I use it!

But, I consider my email as a rather poor way to collect and/or organize my memories (this is what I understand Evernote's aim to be). Searching through email attachments is a long way from Evernote's business model, but I certainly do see it as a nice potential partnering opportunity.

As an analogy, it would be like saying that Evernote should be worried about Microsoft Word, because it has a bunch of word processing features that Evernote lacks. I guess I see Evernote competing in a different way on a different playing field. There is an overlap of functionality, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are competitors.

[psionmark 73]

If someone could locate, organize, and get my attachments out of Gmail and into Evernote, I'd be interested

It doesn't get it to Evernote, but it does get it to attachments.me - I just carried out a text search on a graphic I just upload and it was there instantly.

Nice being able to also save attachments directly from Gmail to Google Drive, DropBox etc.

[psionmark 73]

As an analogy, it would be like saying that Evernote should be worried about Microsoft Word, because it has a bunch of word processing features that Evernote lacks. I guess I see Evernote competing in a different way on a different playing field. There is an overlap of functionality, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are competitors.

Not really. I'm saying maybe it's a viable competitor because it'll allow you to search within files, which is what a lot of people use Evernote for.

Not for everyone, of course, and it's very early days, but from the brief time I've spent with it, I can see me using this a lot. I'm not abandoning EN! But I can see this being really useful.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

As an analogy, it would be like saying that Evernote should be worried about Microsoft Word, because it has a bunch of word processing features that Evernote lacks. I guess I see Evernote competing in a different way on a different playing field. There is an overlap of functionality, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are competitors.

Not really. I'm saying maybe it's a viable competitor because it'll allow you to search within files, which is what a lot of people use Evernote for.

Not for everyone, of course, and it's very early days, but from the brief time I've spent with it, I can see me using this a lot. I'm not abandoning EN! But I can see this being really useful.

I'm always on the lookout for cool apps. Thanks for the heads-up

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

But, I consider my email as a rather poor way to collect and/or organize my memories (this is what I understand Evernote's aim to be). Searching through email attachments is a long way from Evernote's business model, but I certainly do see it as a nice potential partnering opportunity.

As an analogy, it would be like saying that Evernote should be worried about Microsoft Word, because it has a bunch of word processing features that Evernote lacks. I guess I see Evernote competing in a different way on a different playing field. There is an overlap of functionality, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are competitors.

I agree with GM. Although I archive many of my emails in Evernote, they proportionally make up a small part of what I use EN for. It would be a major PITA to email myself everything that I use EN for.

Another analogy is saying EN should be worried about Dropbox. Although both are cloud services & there is a bit of overlap, their strong points are vastly different. I use both daily & even have paid accounts for both.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

But, I consider my email as a rather poor way to collect and/or organize my memories (this is what I understand Evernote's aim to be). Searching through email attachments is a long way from Evernote's business model, but I certainly do see it as a nice potential partnering opportunity.

As an analogy, it would be like saying that Evernote should be worried about Microsoft Word, because it has a bunch of word processing features that Evernote lacks. I guess I see Evernote competing in a different way on a different playing field. There is an overlap of functionality, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are competitors.

I agree with GM. Although I archive many of my emails in Evernote, they proportionally make up a small part of what I use EN for. It would be a major PITA to email myself everything that I use EN for.

Another analogy is saying EN should be worried about Dropbox. Although both are cloud services & there is a bit of overlap, their strong points are vastly different. I use both daily & even have paid accounts for both.

I agree with me too!

I would like to say, though, that I am wanting to get attachments out of GMAIL. I have just been too lazy to do it yet. This app my spur me into action. Of course, if it can get the attachments into Dropbox, I will then drag them all right into Evernote

[jbenson2 2,147]

I take the opposite view with my GMail account. I am close to the upper limit of free storage, so I rely on www.findbigmail.com to help find and get rid of big space-eating attachments.

Here is a review of the program:

http://www.labnol.org/internet/locate-big-emails-in-gmail/17937/

[psionmark 73]

I'm not saying it's an exact clone of EN. However, there are a lot of other comments along the lines of "If DropBox enabled you to search INSIDE documents...". Well, with this, you can. There's therefore now more that just a bit of overlap.

I'd be the first to agree I wouldn't want to use Gmail as an alternative for EN (although maybe you could argue that with Gmail Folders and attachments.me it'd maybe be close), but I'm also not writing it off just yet

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I'm not saying it's an exact clone of EN. However, there are a lot of other comments along the lines of "If DropBox enabled you to search INSIDE documents...". Well, with this, you can. There's therefore now more that just a bit of overlap.

I'd be the first to agree I wouldn't want to use Gmail as an alternative for EN (although maybe you could argue that with Gmail Folders and attachments.me it'd maybe be close), but I'm also not writing it off just yet

If Dropbox enabled you te search inside of documents, it would be replicating a function found in Google Drive, which does do that. For PDFs GDrive is horribly limited to just the first ten pages (making it essentially worthless for most of my PDFs), but I imagine it will improve over time. Google Drive is not a very enjoyable place to take notes or store your memories. I find Evernote far better-suited for that.

GDrive is, however, a nice alternative to Dropbox, and if it sees the kind of widespread integration that Dropbox has achieved, then I think it will come to dominate that space. We'll see. I was a paying Dropbox user until this month, when I switched over to Google Drive. It was so much less expensive than Dropbox. I held out for about a moth in the hopes that Dropbox would rise to the challenge, but it seems the best they could do was to get rid of Public folders for new users, and it appears that links to files sent to people now force them to sign up first to view the files (at least, that is what the few holdouts without Dropbox are telling me). Ugh. I hold out hope for them, and I am keeping an eye on the service

[psionmark 73]

GDrive is, however, a nice alternative to Dropbox, and if it sees the kind of widespread integration that Dropbox has achieved, then I think it will come to dominate that space. We'll see. I was a paying Dropbox user until this month, when I switched over to Google Drive. It was so much less expensive than Dropbox. I held out for about a moth in the hopes that Dropbox would rise to the challenge, but it seems the best they could do was to get rid of Public folders for new users, and it appears that links to files sent to people now force them to sign up first to view the files (at least, that is what the few holdouts without Dropbox are telling me). Ugh. I hold out hope for them, and I am keeping an eye on the service

Certainly with you on that one. I partly feel sorry for DropBox (but then they came up with the business model). I really love the service, but I'm not paying quadruple for it. Yes, it's better than Google Drive, but not 4 times better. And they're a bit knackered in that they can't really reduce the cost that much, as they have fixed costs from Amazon WS.

I follow their forums daily and it really does appear to be splitting between the "I love DropBox, but I can't justify the cost" and "I'll stay here using DropBox until they close the doors" camps.

Personally, as I previously purchase additional Google storage, I get 25Gb for $5 a year - I can't see anyone competing with that!

[EdH 1,670]

Honestly, I don't see how this compares to EN. Gmail collects data from one place. Gmail.

Evernote collects from any email source, (work and personal), automatically from IFTTT triggers, my scanner, web pages, my camera, etc. EN is pretty much input agnostic. The only thing it cannot hold is physical objects from the real world that cannot be captured via scan/picture/video for some reason.

If your world is about one email account, and I understand for some that is valid, then attachment.me could be very useful. For me though, my input comes from dozens of sources, hundreds if you start enumerating specific sites, vendors, customers, etc. Even if you did a lot of the same stuff, you'd have to email it to Gmail to get it there, and where do you email it from? Set up another account? Otherwise it is in your inbox and sent items folder.

I don't think EN has anyomre to worry about from Attachment.me than Attachment.me has to worry about EN. They don't do much of the same thing.

[psionmark 73]

I'm not trying to pick a fight or say they're identical. Maybe I'm just seeing it differently, but...

Honestly, I don't see how this compares to EN. Gmail collects data from one place. Gmail.

Not really. Gmail collects data from wherever it's sent from, same as EN. Want it in EN? Create a new Note and stick it in there. Want it in Gmail? Send yourself an email to Gmail.

Evernote collects from any email source, (work and personal), automatically from IFTTT triggers, my scanner, web pages, my camera, etc. EN is pretty much input agnostic. The only thing it cannot hold is physical objects from the real world that cannot be captured via scan/picture/video for some reason.

You can use Gmail with IFTTT. You can email your scanned docs, web pages, photos to Gmail.

If your world is about one email account, and I understand for some that is valid, then attachment.me could be very useful. For me though, my input comes from dozens of sources, hundreds if you start enumerating specific sites, vendors, customers, etc. Even if you did a lot of the same stuff, you'd have to email it to Gmail to get it there, and where do you email it from? Set up another account? Otherwise it is in your inbox and sent items folder.

Maybe I'm wrong, but everything I use to send stuff to Evernote (web clipper, Flipboard, Instapaper etc) also have a send by email. In fact, just about everything has a send by email, whereas not everything has a send to Evernote function. No, you don't have to create a new account - just email it to yourself from Gmail. Adding stuff to Gmail is just as easy (in some cases easier) than adding stuff to EN. Use Chrome, Firefox etc? Just drag attachments to the email you're going to send to yourself. Functionally, it's almost identical to getting stuff into an EN Note.

As to the one account, I assume you only have one EN account. One EN account can = one Gmail account. You've got labels in Gmail to replicate Notebooks in EN if you want to use them.

I don't think EN has anyomre to worry about from Attachment.me than Attachment.me has to worry about EN. They don't do much of the same thing.

I can fully understanding people not wanting to use anything other than EN - and that includes me at the moment - but the arguments being presented so far all seem to have counter-arguments.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Are we talking now about differences between Evernote and Gmail? Collaboration, editing, note links etc., etc.

Of course, some of the functionality overlaps. Evernote is designed that way. However, it is the same argument I made above regrding Microsoft Word. One could look at Microsoft Word and lament the sorry state of word processing in Evernote, or look at Gmail and see how limited emailing is in Evernote, but that would be missing the point: Word and Gmail don't claim to be your external brain any more than Evernote claims to be your word processor or emai account. They are apples and oranges.

The title of the thread suggests that Evernote ought to be worried about an app called attachments.me that organizes your attachments in email. I remain unconvinced, and the counter-arguments you have presented seem, at best, to say that Gmail has some features similar to Evernote.

[psionmark 73]

I'm obviously not getting my point across properly, so I'll just stop here.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I'm obviously not getting my point across properly, so I'll just stop here.

No worries! You had a provocative title, it started a nice discussion, and you introduced a new resource to us. If I am not getting it, perhaps I just don't see things the same way is all. Anyhow, thanks for posting the thread.

[psionmark 73]

No worries! You had a provocative title, it started a nice discussion, and you introduced a new resource to us. If I am not getting it, perhaps I just don't see things the same way is all. Anyhow, thanks for posting the thread.

You're right - I did indeed

As you say, no worries - we're all different, thank goodness

[EdH 1,670]

psionmark, on how I get stuff into evernote, i do very VERY little with the email address. You mentioned the following when you said

but everything I use to send stuff to Evernote (web clipper, Flipboard, Instapaper etc) also have a send by email.

:

• web clipper - i don't understand this. When I use the web clipper in IE or Chrome, puts it directly into EN. IE puts it in the local copy that gets sync'd to the web, and Chrome (and Firefox I think) use the webAPI and send it directly to my online account, which gets sync'd to my local copies.
  
• Flipboard - I use the "read later" link to send to Pocket, which IFTTT sends to EN for me.
  
• I don't use instapaper, so cannot comment.
  

I also use Feeddler on iOS and it has an Evernote link right in it.

Files I scan in are sucked in by Evernote automatically through the Tools|IMport Folders feature.

About the only thing I email to Evernote are emails on my phone or iPad that I want in EN. Everything else is collected directly.

Your point about emailing it to yourself in gmail go get it in gmail is something I like to avoid. It adds clutter IMHO to have it in the sent folder and inbox folder.

I'm not saying i don't like the Attachment.me concept. I have it in my EN to do list (GTD - via Zendone) to check out this weekend :-) Managing attachments in Gmail is a bear. I just don't see it as competition to Evernote, anymore than Evernote can compete with Gmail for sending and receiving emails. (yes, EN does both, but for collecting or modest sharing, not for true email management. I suspect there are zero people in the world that use EN as their primary email client, even though it supports the features to some degree)

[EdH 1,670]

Oh, and not to belabor the point, but there are three other key differences between Gmail and Evernote.

1. With Evernote, we are the customers. There are various ways to get in touch with EN support, including Chat for premium customers. I've had a few support issues over the years and the EN team has never failed to get back to me within 24hrs, usually much quicker, and in 100% of the cases, it was resolved, even if the resolution is "yup. that is now a confirmed bug. thanks." With Google, we are the product We are being sold to advertisers so they can pay for our inbox storage space. Have you ever tried to get tech support from Google about anything? Let me know how that works out for you.
   
2. The reason #1 above is so critical, is when something goes wrong with your account, the EN team recognizes you are a customer and will leap into action to make it right. The Gmail team recognizes you are the product, and only one of millions. They won't do much. Is that a common occurrence? Absolutely not. Are you willing to risk that happening to all of your data though and be that one in a million ***** up? I'm not. Not with my critical info.
   
3. Evernote is available offline. It would totally suck if the EN servers went offline for a few hours, but I'd have all of my local stuff, only missing whatever didn't get sync'd from my web account 1-15 minutes before the outage happened. Not so with Gmail. Few have offline data, though you can with iMAP, that is a painful experience.
   

[psionmark 73]

Ed: my absolute last comment on this is... I love your avatar

[EdH 1,670]

Ed: my absolute last comment on this is... I love your avatar

Thanks!