(Archived) How do you add an alias or file link to Evernote for Mac?

[pendolino 6]

I am trying to add a link to a file on my Mac into Evernote Mac as the file is very large (audio) and I would simply like a Finder link or alias instead of having the file imported in its entirety and then synced with the server.

I have not found a way to do this and when I created a file alias in Finder and then dragged that to Evernote I found that it imported the target file and not the alias.

[engberg 89]

There's no easy way to do this in the UI, but you can manually make a hyperlink to a particular file if you know the full path to the file. I just tested this by displaying the Info for a file so I could see the "Where" and the file name. Then I went into Evernote, typed some text, and selected it to right-click and make a hyperlink.

In the dialog box, I typed in:

file:///Users/dave/desktop/270.JPG

This is a combination of the directory for the file and the name of the file.

Once that's done, I can click on that to open the corresponding file in Preview.

[pendolino 6]

wow that's a pretty cumbersome process. i was hoping for something along the lines of drag and drop since i plan to use this pretty often. any plans to do this anytime soon?

on a side note: it seems that evernote is pretty primitive on the mac. seems that most of the development work is happening on the windows side.

[engberg 89]

Mac supports a lot of things that aren't available in Windows yet: thumbnail view, hybrid view, print-PDF-to-Evernote, etc. There are some things that Windows has which Mac doesn't, but I sure wouldn't say one is clearly inferior to the other.

[bioniccat 0]

Hi Dave,

Any chance that ability will be coming to the Mac version at some point? I have the bad habit of comparing Evernote to my "old" note taking app. I think Evernote is on a much better trajectory, but I miss the ability to ability to easily link to a note. Add that and the ability to OCR scanned PDFs and the beer's on me! ;-)

Cheers,

Stephen

[engberg 89]

We haven't heard many Mac users requesting this so far, so I don't think it's currently in the works, but I'll definitely pass along the feedback.

Thanks

[rcherny 7]

Hmmm, I think this is a feature with some potential value — I would use it and found this thread checking into it. Just in terms of organizational flexibility. A Mac Alias should just be a file type to support, you would think, but I don't know how they work.

I know that DevonThink, Together, and Journler all support it. Obviously not a huge issue, but I would put it right there with the ability to link to other Evernote notes as well, something else I'd like to see that most of the other apps support. Obviously out of context (iPhone, Web) it might not perform or work, but in the client it's handy.

I've signed up for Premium and I'm starting to add new files, but I have a huge collection of legacy files in directory structures I'd like to periodically just link to. I guess saving the file path into the note is one way, but the Mac doesn't typically offer a way to paste in a file path to open a file short of opening your app, and doing a file > open ... cumbersome ...

[patelc75 0]

I would definitely be interested in this feature. There is quite a big disconnect between my file structure and my notes structure and I'm constantly digging around for files associated with notes. Unfortunately, my current workflow does not allow me to store my files in Evernote itself. Please pass this feature request on the right person. Thanks! Chirag

We haven't heard many Mac users requesting this so far, so I don't think it's currently in the works, but I'll definitely pass along the feedback.

Thanks

[patelc75 0]

I've found a temporary solution around this

• 1. Get a utility that can copy the file path (In Path Finder

http://cocoatech.com/, right click > Copy Path > URL)
2. Paste the file path (eg. file://localhost/Users/patelc75/file.txt) into the Source URL field in the header of the Evernote
3. Click the small arrow next to the source URL field in the Evernote header

Chirag

[pendolino 6]

for users of quicksilver on mac there's a built in feature to get path of any selected file but I still think evernote mac needs to work on some better way to do this.

[Chuck Burt 0]

+1 for this feature.

OmniFocus does a really nice job of this in the "notes" field about a task. You can drag-and-drop a file into the notes and it will place an alias to the file there.

Also, I know this is slightly different, but I'd also like the ability to create an alias to a note in Evernote. I keep project folders for each project and I'd like to be able to put an alias to the corresponding note (or notes) in the project folder, just by dragging the note to the folder. This way I have access to everything from one place. It might be a nice touch to also allow a modifier key to change the 'create alias' action to 'export' action... but the alias would be a much higher priority for me.

Thanks and keep up the great work. It's a truly incredible product!

Cheers,

-Chuck

[crispinb 8]

I'd like to bump this and add my request for this feature. Adding files as attachments to notes is great, but not always what is needed (eg. where existing files have a good reason to live where they do in the hierarchy). Using the URL field is all well and good, but limits you to one file link per note.

[JMichaelTest 19]

I also would like this feature, but realize that this would restrict access to the file to being on the actual machine where the file is located. Not good.

I think what would work very well is integration with something like DropBox (on all EN clients).

With DropBox you can setup a specific folder (with sub-folders) for all files that you would like auto-synced to the cloud, and then to all DropBox clients.

So if EN would tightly integrate with DropBox, the "file link" could be a reference to the file on DropBox cloud.

Thus, anywhere you have Internet access you have access to your file through EN and DropBox.

Your thoughts?

[yellowait44 5]

See that post for some trick.

[GeorgeC 1]

I request the ability to simply paste a link to a file as well, and by a simple operation. Evernote developers could ask OmniFocus developers how to do that. The end result for OmniFocus is that if I drag a file to OmniFocus, only link gets created. If I Option-drag file to OmniFocus, the file gets actually embedded in OmniFocus.

Neat, eh? But if you want to make it a bit more complicated, then how about a command in pop-up (context) menu?

C'mon, Evernote. You can do at least as well!

GeorgeC

[anjoschu 67]

See that post for some trick.

The above is probably the easiest-to-use workaround for now (installing an applescript service).

For what it's worth, you also can drag browser-compatible files onto safari to quickly generate a file:// url:

1. Drag file onto safari

2. CMD-L, CMD-C, CMD-W (to close Safari window)

3. Paste link into Evernote.