Attachment versions change

[DutchPete 247]

I have noticed the following:

1. open a Microsoft Office file attachment from within Evernote (Windows desktop client)
2. make changes to the file
3. click on save
4. close the file

When I subsequently look at the Attachments subfolder in the local Databases folder I notice that the version has been changed & upped by a notch.

E.g. name of file is Test.xlsx. After step 4 above the name of the file is Test[1].xlsx.

The next time I make changes to the file the version may or may not be changed to Test[2].xlsx.

This does not happen when you open a Microsoft Office file from within the native app itself. So the above process must be imposed by Evernote. For some of my files attached in EN I have a number of these semi-duplicates.

Is it possible to prevent it from happening when opening files from within Evernote?

If it is not possible, is there any "harm" done?

[Wordsgood 526]

EDIT: Also, are you looking at the Synced versions in Evernote?

Any attachment in Evernote are copies of the orginal. Changes made to either the original or the copy in Evernote will *not* be reflected in the other one. If you want identical copies you must ensure you save in both programs.

Hope that helps. ☺

I have noticed the following:

• open a Microsoft Office file attachment from within Evernote (Windows desktop client)
• make changes to the file
• click on save
• close the file

When I subsequently look at the Attachments subfolder in the local Databases folder I notice that the version has been changed & upped by a notch.

E.g. name of file is Test.xlsx. After step 4 above the name of the file is Test[1].xlsx.

The next time I make changes to the file the version may or may not be changed to Test[2].xlsx.

This does not happen when you open a Microsoft Office file from within the native app itself. So the above process must be imposed by Evernote. For some of my files attached in EN I have a number of these semi-duplicates.

Is it possible to prevent it from happening when opening files from within Evernote?

If it is not possible, is there any "harm" done?

[DutchPete 247]

All my notes are in 1 local notebook.

I am not talking about different copies. I want to know why EN decides to change the name by adding a number between square brackets.

 

EDIT: Also, are you looking at the Synced versions in Evernote?

Any attachment in Evernote are copies of the orginal. Changes made to either the original or the copy in Evernote will *not* be reflected in the other one. If you want identical copies you must ensure you save in both programs.

Hope that helps. ☺
 

I have noticed the following:

• open a Microsoft Office file attachment from within Evernote (Windows desktop client)
• make changes to the file
• click on save
• close the file

When I subsequently look at the Attachments subfolder in the local Databases folder I notice that the version has been changed & upped by a notch.
E.g. name of file is Test.xlsx. After step 4 above the name of the file is Test[1].xlsx.
The next time I make changes to the file the version may or may not be changed to Test[2].xlsx.
This does not happen when you open a Microsoft Office file from within the native app itself. So the above process must be imposed by Evernote. For some of my files attached in EN I have a number of these semi-duplicates.
Is it possible to prevent it from happening when opening files from within Evernote?
If it is not possible, is there any "harm" done?

 

[Wordsgood 526]

Please see my response to you other post about loading your EN taking a long time. ☺

All my notes are in 1 local notebook.

I am not talking about different copies. I want to know why EN decides to change the name by adding a number between square brackets.

EDIT: Also, are you looking at the Synced versions in Evernote?

Any attachment in Evernote are copies of the orginal. Changes made to either the original or the copy in Evernote will *not* be reflected in the other one. If you want identical copies you must ensure you save in both programs.

Hope that helps. ☺

I have noticed the following:

• open a Microsoft Office file attachment from within Evernote (Windows desktop client)
• make changes to the file
• click on save
• close the file

When I subsequently look at the Attachments subfolder in the local Databases folder I notice that the version has been changed & upped by a notch.

E.g. name of file is Test.xlsx. After step 4 above the name of the file is Test[1].xlsx.

The next time I make changes to the file the version may or may not be changed to Test[2].xlsx.

This does not happen when you open a Microsoft Office file from within the native app itself. So the above process must be imposed by Evernote. For some of my files attached in EN I have a number of these semi-duplicates.

Is it possible to prevent it from happening when opening files from within Evernote?

If it is not possible, is there any "harm" done?

[gazumped 11,667]

Evernote's Attachments folder is where temporary copies of files live while you're viewing or making changes to them.  Once the file is closed down it is re-absorbed back into the main database.  The attachment copy is just left there - which is untidy housekeeping by Evernote,  unless there's a reason of which we're not aware.

 

What happens though is that you have MyFile.Docx attached happily to a note and hidden in the database.  Open the file to edit it,  and because Office and other applications won't read the file from Evernote's database,  "MyFile.Docx" now appears in the Attachments folder while you view and make changes.  If you have changed the file,  you save the changes back as "MyFile.Docx" - which gets sucked back into the note and database but not deleted.

 

Open that file again though and your OS won't allow Evernote to create another file with the same name as MyFile.Docx - as that file already exists;  you get MyFile[1].Docx and so on.

 

Every so often you could clear out the Attachments folder - close Evernote first,  just in case!

[jefito 5,589]

Evernote's Attachments folder is where temporary copies of files live while you're viewing or making changes to them.  Once the file is closed down it is re-absorbed back into the main database.  The attachment copy is just left there - which is untidy housekeeping by Evernote,  unless there's a reason of which we're not aware.

My experience -- anecdotally via previous co-workers where I worked a couple of years ago; we were doing the same thing as Evernote, functionally, and probably implementationally -- is that the handoff back to the the originator is not always clean; sometimes you don't get the notification that the handling application is done with the file, so you don't know to delete it. So it's possible that Evernote could be running afoul of this, though it's also possible that it's bad bookkeeping, as you say.

For whichever reason, the name of the file in the Attachments folder doesn't really make any difference, except as a warning sign that file cleanup is not occurring correctly. It's a temporary file only. Unless you're losing edits, or it's happening every time, it's probably nothing to worry about (too much).

[DutchPete 247]

Thanks for this explanation Gazumped, I was not aware that that is the way EN handles attachments.

Apart from the MyFile.docx, MyFile[1].docx, etc files in the Attachments subfolder, there are also files with extensions like MyFile.docx.backup & MyFile.docx.eninfo. Can these also be deleted?

If so, because all the files in the Attachments folder are temporary, what I need to do is clean out the Attachments folder regularly by deleting everything that is in there, Correct?

 

 

Evernote's Attachments folder is where temporary copies of files live while you're viewing or making changes to them.  Once the file is closed down it is re-absorbed back into the main database.  The attachment copy is just left there - which is untidy housekeeping by Evernote,  unless there's a reason of which we're not aware.

 

What happens though is that you have MyFile.Docx attached happily to a note and hidden in the database.  Open the file to edit it,  and because Office and other applications won't read the file from Evernote's database,  "MyFile.Docx" now appears in the Attachments folder while you view and make changes.  If you have changed the file,  you save the changes back as "MyFile.Docx" - which gets sucked back into the note and database but not deleted.

 

Open that file again though and your OS won't allow Evernote to create another file with the same name as MyFile.Docx - as that file already exists;  you get MyFile[1].Docx and so on.

 

Every so often you could clear out the Attachments folder - close Evernote first,  just in case!

[gazumped 11,667]

I'm a belt and braces and suspenders kinda guy,  so what I do is every month I zip the current contents of my Attachments folder into a new archive and delete the one I created last month.  But in principle,  yes - you can clear the folder.  Different apps create different sets of files while you're editing and saving,  but none of that is Evernote-critical.

[Wordsgood 526]

I love your posts! They alway make me chuckle.

[gazumped 11,667]