(Archived) Watched folders: Evernote imports some files but not all

[Hein 0]

Hi There,

This question concerns the Evernote Windows app. I am currently setting up a workflow to store emails in Evernote automatically. In Outlook i have MessageExport generate pdf files from my emails to a dedicated folder on my hard drive. Then i have Evernote watch this folder for new files and import them. Currently there are 750 pdf files in the folder that is being watched by Evernote, but only 3 of them have been imported...

Why are the other files not being imported? Any ideas?

I would really appreciate your suggestions.

[gazumped 11,665]

Hi - welcome to the forums. I'm assuming you have your Input folder set to delete files once copied,  otherwise your notes are being created and you need to look again!  I'm also assuming you're aware of upload limits and note maximum sizes and file name conventions,  and that none of these are a problem.

 

If you do delete copied files,  you may have a file locking issue.  A number of Windows applications,  Outlook included,  seem to be quite possessive when it comes to locking files.  Most apps do this so you'll be warned if you're trying to do something to a file that's already being processed by other software.  Some apps release a lock as soon as you exit the file.  Others hang on to the connection just in case you want to get back to that file quickly.  PDF files also complicate the issue because they take a while to complete,  so may be opened for processing ... and closed seconds later.

 

Evernote has a hair trigger when it comes to import folders.  As soon as a file appears there,  EN will make an attempt to snatch the file into your database.  

 

Put Outlook's slow release and Evernote's quick snatch together and you'll find Evernote can't open the file when it appears because Outlook still has it locked,  or it's still processing the PDF - which sometimes means Evernote will copy but not delete it,  and other times means Evernote is blocked from doing anything.

 

In Windows the way around this is to use a file manager like Belvedere - set up a non-import folder to receive your PDFs,  and get Belvedere to move the completed files from there to an Evernote import folder.  

 

In fact,  if you wish,  using Belvedere you can move files selectively depending on their name or type into different import folders to assign them to different notebooks.

[Hein 0]

Thank you Gazumped, for your insightful reply. The issue seems to be the trigger moment. When i copy files manually into the watched folders it is working as intended. So for now i decided to add files manually. This way i can also save some of the 1G upload limit for other tasks.