Should Evernote eliminate the notebook limit?

[Roadrunner RV Rental 3]

If you have run up against the dreaded "250 Notebooks" limit using Evernote, please post your experience under this topic.  Many work-arounds and the reasons why the won't work for many uses have been posted: search "noebook limt".   The purpose here is to remind Evernote that this continues to be problem for many users and that we want the notebook limit eliminated.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

If you have run up against the dreaded "250 Notebooks" limit using Evernote, please post your experience under this topic.  Many work-arounds and the reasons why the won't work for many uses have been posted: search "noebook limt".   The purpose here is to remind Evernote that this continues to be problem for many users and that we want the notebook limit eliminated.

 

Hi. I don't use notebooks much, but I can see why 250 would be too few in some cases. While I am all for unlimited (anything in the service), I can see the need for limits, especially if the number of notebooks impacted database performance and so forth. I am just speculating about the reasons for the 250. Whatever the reason for the limit, I suspect that it will make it difficult to achieve unlimited. 

 

However, as you mentioned in the other thread, making the Business library searchable would help a lot to alleviate problems. You have up to 5,000 notebooks in there. It seems (to my uninformed mind) that this change on the server side (using Evernote's servers to search through the notebooks) would be more doable than increasing the notebook limit in each account, which would, at the very least,  require changes to every app.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Many users created lots of notebooks when they started (me included) and quickly realized the program works much more effectively if they use fewer notebooks based on broad topics (job, personal, finance, leisure, miscellaneous).

 

Consistent title format, specific tags, and Evernote search grammar are more powerful in running Evernote than increasing the 250+ notebook restriction. If they could increase it without impacting speed and scalability - that would be fine,  but I have a feeling that is a big reach.

 

Evernote certainly is aware of the users who have asked for more notebooks over the years.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I can imagine a need for more than 250, of course. Notebooks can be shared. Tags can't. So, right there, if you have more than a few hundred clients (or students), then sharing becomes something of a juggling act. Shared tags would alleviate the need to replicate and maintain the same notes in multiple notebooks. It would also enable us to avoid placing notes in strange places just to deal with sharing / joining. 

 

Shared tags. A great idea. Don't know if they would be feasible under the current framework, but if so, they'd help a lot, in my opinion.

[jefito 5,589]

Shared tags. A great idea. Don't know if they would be feasible under the current framework, but if so, they'd help a lot, in my opinion.

Not really sure what the term "shared tags" means to you, but if the current situation with tags across shared notebooks were handled better, that'd be all I'd need. I keep identical tags (i.e. tags with the same name, e.g. "_Todo") in my two separate accounts (wherein I have several shared notebooks), but the identical tags behave so weirdly, at least in the Windows client UI, it makes it difficult to work with them. Yes, you can find notes in notebooks from separate accounts that have the same tag -- that's exactly the behavior that I want to see -- but why are they kept as separate items in the UI when you can't do anything with the individual tags? For example, you cannot distinguish the separate tags in a tag search; in fact, in the UI, both are displayed, and if you click on one, the other highlights as well. Why? Never made sense to me, and I grew tired of beating dlu up over it (I wasn't even that mean about it).

I don't need any kind of separate tag sharing facility. I just want identical tags to be treated as one tag in the UI (with perhaps an option to distinguish them in some situations, the search language for example).

 

On the notebooks topic: I don't have more than 10 notebooks in either of my accounts, so not a big deal for me. 250 notebooks in a single level hierarchy doesn't feel to me like a great leap forward in usability, I gotta say. Tags have worked pretty well for me so far, modulo the shared tag craziness lamented above...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

You are talking about poor design (in my opinion), and it is more of a bug than a feature request. My idea wouldn't fix any bugs.

 

Designate a tag as shared (just as you designate a notebook as shared). Notes with the shared tag would appear in someone's account if they joined that tag (just as you join a notebook). That's all. 

 

I could share the same note with 10 different people by putting 10 different tags on it instead of having to create ten separate notebooks. I might have 1 note I only want to share with you, but 9 others I share with the everyone else. The tag for sharing with you would be on all ten notes, and the tags I use for sharing with the other 10 people would be on nine of them. All of the notes would remain where they belong in my account instead of getting moved about.

 

Other programs accomplish a similar feat through other methods. For example, DevonThink "replicates" and "indexes" content. If you "replicate" something, it appears in multiple locations at once. A change made to one replicant affects them all. Or, it indexes the content of a folder on your drive (for example). Changes made in that folder appear in the main database, and vice versa. 

 

Evernote has some of the tools in place (tags, notebooks, sharing, etc.) to make this work really well, but conceptually, there are some unfortunate limits. The same thing could be said of the Business Library -- all of the elements are in place for "selective sync," and a solution for some problems created by the 250-notebook limit, but the concept of having the ability to search through the Business Library is missing. It seems natural to me, but hasn't happened.

[jefito 5,589]

You are talking about poor design (in my opinion), and it is more of a bug than a feature request. My idea wouldn't fix any bugs.

Oh, it's certainly confusing design. Never sure that it got acknowledged as a bug, but it's darned irritating.

 

Designate a tag as shared (just as you designate a notebook as shared). Notes with the shared tag would appear in someone's account if they joined that tag (just as you join a notebook). That's all.

Yeah,see, that's exactly what I *don't* want, a special tag sharing facility. To my mind, a tag is just a word, wherever it comes from. If you share a notebook with someone, for purposes of collaboration, you are implicitly agreeing to use the same vocabulary to describe your common stuff. I want this to happen automatically, but I want the power to disambiguate if the need arises, via the search language, which should contain the basis for all filtering operations.

 

I understand that my thinking on this is aimed at the way that I use Evernote, btw. 

 

I could share the same note with 10 different people by putting 10 different tags on it instead of having to create ten separate notebooks. I might have 1 note I only want to share with you, but 9 others I share with the everyone else. The tag for sharing with you would be on all ten notes, and the tags I use for sharing with the other 10 people would be on nine of them. All of the notes would remain where they belong in my account instead of getting moved about.

I'm a little confused by your example. Are you talking about a share-via-tag facility instead of shared tag names?

 

Other programs accomplish a similar feat through other methods. For example, DevonThink "replicates" and "indexes" content. If you "replicate" something, it appears in multiple locations at once. A change made to one replicant affects them all. Or, it indexes the content of a folder on your drive (for example). Changes made in that folder appear in the main database, and vice versa.

Sure, many ways to skin the 'aliasing' cat. I don't have a concrete need for such a facility in my Evernote usage, so I haven't devoted a lot of neurons to the task.

 

 

Evernote has some of the tools in place (tags, notebooks, sharing, etc.) to make this work really well, but conceptually, there are some unfortunate limits. The same thing could be said of the Business Library -- all of the elements are in place for "selective sync," and a solution for some problems created by the 250-notebook limit, but the concept of having the ability to search through the Business Library is missing. It seems natural to me, but hasn't happened.

Not being able to search through a large Business library seems like a pretty obvious gap. Wonder if it's an indexing problem / limitation, complicated by needing to keep all those notebooks in sync?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I am talking about share-via-tag. Replace the "notebook" in "shared notebook" with "tag" and you've got it. It would work exactly the same, except the limit would be 10,000, instead of 250, and I wouldn't have to cannibalize my account to share stuff with folks. 

[jefito 5,589]

I am talking about share-via-tag. Replace the "notebook" in "shared notebook" with "tag" and you've got it. It would work exactly the same, except the limit would be 10,000, instead of 250, and I wouldn't have to cannibalize my account to share stuff with folks. 

Got it. I know that this has been requested before. An obvious direction they could take; I just don't have much sense of the feasibilities. I wonder if there's something special about notebooks that has optimizations for text search indexing, but that's just a guess on my part.

 

"Cannibalize" or "Balkanize"?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Eviscerate?

 

Yeah. It seems obvious to me. It has been requested for years by me and others. But, it might not be feasible. My sense is that the current framework was set up for a personal account that lacked sharing (the early days of the service), and when sharing was added, it made sense at the time to apply the capability to notebooks, but over time, as account sizes grow and features increase, especially with Business, you run into problems with the notebook limits and the broader question of how to combine your public and private life effectively through joined, shared, and regular notebooks. It will be interesting to see how the service evolves. It certainly needs to.

[Roadrunner RV Rental 3]

I've read all this in other topics.  Not really looking for advice here.  Just trying to see if enough people use notebooks in evernote to justify any of us staying with it.  Thanks.

[jbenson2 2,147]

<snip>Just trying to see if enough people use notebooks in evernote to justify any of us staying with it.  Thanks

 

In May 2014, Evernote hit a major milestone:

100 million users in 190 countries around the world.

That's a lot of people.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I've read all this in other topics.  Not really looking for advice here.  Just trying to see if enough people use notebooks in evernote to justify any of us staying with it.  Thanks.

So...you're trying to lead a mass exodus...??? I would think most users are adult enough to make this decision on their own.

[Roadrunner RV Rental 3]

Ok, I did not want to turn this into a discussion...but here we go:  If evernote decided at some point during development that we should use tags instead of notebooks, why continue to offer notebooks as a tool for organization (rhetorical question).  Starting out in evernote several years ago, I had a choice between using something familiar to me (notebooks) or something un-familiar (tags).  Which one do think I (and most users) went with? "Tell what he's won, Bob"...  You got it: Notebooks.  Many of us are way down inside the notebook rabbit hole and it is going to take many hours of work to get out of it by converting existing notes over to tags one note at a time.  As a business owner it is difficult for me to justify investing any more time on something evernote is never going to fix.  Are there ANY actual evernote employees listening?   I hope my sense of bewilderment and frustration is coming through without seeming rude.  I do appreciate the suggestions and help.  I am still trying to figure out a less time-consuming work-around, so if any one knows how to add a tag to several thousand notes at once or how to select and export several thousand notes to a new account without losing the organizational structure, I'm all ears.  Thanks again.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Ok, I did not want to turn this into a discussion...but here we go:  If evernote decided at some point during development that we should use tags instead of notebooks, why continue to offer notebooks as a tool for organization (rhetorical question).  Starting out in evernote several years ago, I had a choice between using something familiar to me (notebooks) or something un-familiar (tags).  Which one do think I (and most users) went with? "Tell what he's won, Bob"...  You got it: Notebooks.  Many of us are way down inside the notebook rabbit hole and it is going to take many hours of work to get out of it by converting existing notes over to tags one note at a time.  As a business owner it is difficult for me to justify investing any more time on something evernote is never going to fix.  Are there ANY actual evernote employees listening?   I hope my sense of bewilderment and frustration is coming through without seeming rude.  I do appreciate the suggestions and help.  I am still trying to figure out a less time-consuming work-around, so if any one knows how to add a tag to several thousand notes at once or how to select and export several thousand notes to a new account without losing the organizational structure, I'm all ears.  Thanks again.

You are presenting nothing new here. It's all been discussed before, in existing threads. I am not inclined to re-re-repeat what I have posted here. Please feel free to use the use the search function on things like tagging multiple notes and/or exporting to enex.

[jbignert 473]

Yes we're listening. Don't have any statements at the moment I'm afraid but we are aware that for some users the limit is prohibiting. 

[jefito 5,589]

Ok, I did not want to turn this into a discussion...but here we go:  If evernote decided at some point during development that we should use tags instead of notebooks, why continue to offer notebooks as a tool for organization (rhetorical question).  Starting out in evernote several years ago, I had a choice between using something familiar to me (notebooks) or something un-familiar (tags).  Which one do think I (and most users) went with? "Tell what he's won, Bob"...  You got it: Notebooks.  Many of us are way down inside the notebook rabbit hole and it is going to take many hours of work to get out of it by converting existing notes over to tags one note at a time.  As a business owner it is difficult for me to justify investing any more time on something evernote is never going to fix.  Are there ANY actual evernote employees listening?   I hope my sense of bewilderment and frustration is coming through without seeming rude.  I do appreciate the suggestions and help.  I am still trying to figure out a less time-consuming work-around, so if any one knows how to add a tag to several thousand notes at once or how to select and export several thousand notes to a new account without losing the organizational structure, I'm all ears.  Thanks again.

Tags and notebooks are not an either/or; they have different properties, and different usages.

 

Notebooks are still important because they are, at the moment, the way that you share sets of notes with other users, and for desktops, they are the container type for local notes. They also serve a partitions to your account, meaning that each note belongs to exactly one notebook. They also give you a concrete metaphor to stand on; most people understand physical notebooks. In Evernote, notebooks act as containers.

 

Tags may seem unfamiliar, but really they're not. They're just keywords that you hang on a note that describe it, not unlike a physical tag that you might stick on a note contained in a notebook. Other programs have similar concepts: MS Outlook uses "categories" in the same way, and GMail uses "labels". Tags aren't really containers, though they can act like them.. They're just a convenient way to refer to a set of notes that are alike in one aspect. The difference is that you can have another tag that describes a different set of notes that are alike in some other aspect.

 

Yes, you can add a tag to a number of notes; you can make a selection in the note list, and then just add the tag using the multi-selection panel that appears where a single note is displayed, or use the Assign Tags dialog (Ctrl+Alt+T).

[chirmer 567]

Ok, I did not want to turn this into a discussion...but here we go:  If evernote decided at some point during development that we should use tags instead of notebooks, why continue to offer notebooks as a tool for organization (rhetorical question).  Starting out in evernote several years ago, I had a choice between using something familiar to me (notebooks) or something un-familiar (tags).  Which one do think I (and most users) went with? "Tell what he's won, Bob"...  You got it: Notebooks.  Many of us are way down inside the notebook rabbit hole and it is going to take many hours of work to get out of it by converting existing notes over to tags one note at a time.  As a business owner it is difficult for me to justify investing any more time on something evernote is never going to fix.  Are there ANY actual evernote employees listening?   I hope my sense of bewilderment and frustration is coming through without seeming rude.  I do appreciate the suggestions and help.  I am still trying to figure out a less time-consuming work-around, so if any one knows how to add a tag to several thousand notes at once or how to select and export several thousand notes to a new account without losing the organizational structure, I'm all ears.  Thanks again.

While tags have many, many additional features and benefits over Notebooks, I do agree -- it can be mind-boggling to get used to after decades of OS file-navigation. If you want, you can set up your tags to function identically to Notebooks (as long as you don't need to share the notebooks, that is). You can make the tags list show up in your Evernote sidebar, just like notebooks (the steps to do this differ depending on your OS). Then, go into each notebook, hit CTRL+A or CMD+A depending on your OS, and then tag them with a tag identical to your notebook name. Do this for each Notebook. You should start to see the tags appear in your sidebar, just like Notebooks, as you create them. Once you have done this for each notebooks, you can organize them as hierarchically as you please -- tags can be indented more than just one level -- until they're how you like. Then, go to All Notes, hit CTRL+A or CMD+A, and move them all to one notebook. Voila! You can now use the tags just like you did notebooks, and ignore all the other features and functions they serve until you're comfortable with the system you have.

 

Upsides to this setup:

1. It visually replicates the Notebook setup, but gives you the flexibility to stick Notes in more than one Tag (to use the 'place inside' metaphor the Notebooks system uses)
2. Your limit is now 10,000 instead of 250

Downsides to this setup:

1. You can't share by Tag (though you can have notebooks for sharing with people, put the notes you need to share in there, and it will not impact your tag structure in the slightest)
2. Tags aren't functionally hierarchical, so while you can click a Stack and see all of the notes in each of its Notebooks, Tags will not do the same.

[Roadrunner RV Rental 3]

Jefito and Chirmer, excellent explanation of the differences between notebooks and tags and how they both work.  I have spent the last two days converting all of my stacks/notebooks structure to tags.  I am still experimenting but so far I have not found anything that I can't do with tags.  The only downside I have found is that tags are easier to accidentally delete than notebooks.  Jbignert, happy to know evernote is listening.  I would suggest that evernote provide a positive indicator in the UI for the notebook limit:  A "fuel gauge" showing the number of notebooks used and number remaining, something like a data limit graph.  This would make new users aware of the notebook limit and allow them to make informed decisions about notebooks and tags.  I will update my progress with the conversion in a few days.   Thanks again.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I, like you, went nuts with notebooks (well, maybe not exactly like you, I got to about 30 notebooks before I started to get a bit frustrated) for the first few years. I then quickly started to notice things like:

1) I would create a stack like "academic literature", then make notebooks "Food Safety" "governmentality" "nonhuman" and so on. But then I'd have things that straddled categories.... how to deal with this, copy the note too both Food Safety and nonhuman notebooks? That's senseless. 

2) I had a notebook called "receipts" for my personal receipts. I also had "work receipts". I also had a notebook called "household receipts" which was shared with my partner, in addition to a notebook called "household". 

 

In about five minutes I was able to rid myself of about 12 notebooks.

1) convert the stack "academic literature" to a single notebook. Any notes adopt a tag named after the notebook they previously resided in, and are moved to the academic literature notebook. This means ALL of my notes on academic literature are in a single notebook, rather than dozens. Now if I have something that is about both nonhuman and food safety, I can just apply those two tags. No struggle. 

2) Anything in a "......receipts" notebook adopts the tag "receipt" and is moved to the "......" notebook. So receipts previously in "household receipts" now just go into the household notebook and are tagged "receipt". Same with personal receipts and work receipts, they go into my "personal" notebook and work notebooks, respectively. 

 

This process took a matter of minutes because it bulk-tagging is reasonably quick. Tag, move, delete old notebook. Rinse, repeat. 

 

I have notebook elimination I could do, but I haven't worked up the courage. I would like to convert every stack to a single notebook.

My Work stack has:

Admin

Project X

Project Y

Contacts

 

Ideally I'd just take everything in "admin" and tag it as "admin" and dump it into the "work" notebook. Same with "project X" and "Y".... but I'm not quite there yet. 

[vljacobs 0]

I came across this thread today after a search hoping that Evertag may have finally increased the notebook limit.  I stopped actively using Evernote last year and still holding out for them to increase the limit or a suitable alternative to come along.  The notebook limit limits my productivity.  I had a premium account.  I would have been willing to pay more to organize my information that works best for me.  From the forums it seems like plenty of others would as well.   

I'm at least somewhat aware of the inherit benefits of tags versus hierarchical structure, but many of us are accustomed to organizing information in hierarchical folder structures.  I could already organize all my information just fine and like the freedom Evernote seemed to provide.  I will take blame for not realizing the notebook limit until I had already passed it and ran into issues that resulted in lost notes.  But it really seems a little misleading to allow so many users to jump in and truck along like life is great and then hit a brick wall and told to turn around and do it differently.  

 

Evernote is doing well and is overall a great service.  But so were plenty of others and there is an increasing number of ex-Evernote users.  Based on this and other relevant discussions I don't expect anyone on the Evernote bandwagon to agree or care.  'No statements at this time'?  What's the point in listening if you're going to continue ignoring the topic.  When will there be some official plan\vision on this?  If that's asking too much then when will you know when there will be a statement?  This continued lack of love is why I regret ever supporting a company like Evernote to begin with.  

 

[CaptainTime 94]

While I have converted from thinking I needed notebooks to a tag believer, I can still see some reasons for having a lot of notebooks.

 

As GrumpyMonkey said, you can share notebooks but not tags. If I want to create training manuals and ebooks using Evernote and share them, I could eventually go over limit. Another use is creating notebooks and sharing with clients. While I may have only 15-20 active clients at a time, I have had hundreds of clients over a 3-5 year period. So I wouldn't be able to create a notebook for each client project and share with them. So I am stuck with using Word and other solutions in that case even though Evernote would be much better.

 

Evernote is SOOOO close to being an amazing publishing tool. With just a couple of minor tweaks, I would start publishing my ebooks with it. All I need is the ability to order the notes within a notebook, better table formatting and the ability to do headers and I would be all set.

 

Hopefully it will come. They have added some of the features I was hoping for like highlighting so I am feeling positive.

[John Christopher Jones 29]

While I have converted from thinking I needed notebooks to a tag believer, I can still see some reasons for having a lot of notebooks.

 

As GrumpyMonkey said, you can share notebooks but not tags. If I want to create training manuals and ebooks using Evernote and share them, I could eventually go over limit. Another use is creating notebooks and sharing with clients. While I may have only 15-20 active clients at a time, I have had hundreds of clients over a 3-5 year period. So I wouldn't be able to create a notebook for each client project and share with them. So I am stuck with using Word and other solutions in that case even though Evernote would be much better.

 

Evernote is SOOOO close to being an amazing publishing tool. With just a couple of minor tweaks, I would start publishing my ebooks with it. All I need is the ability to order the notes within a notebook, better table formatting and the ability to do headers and I would be all set.

 

Hopefully it will come. They have added some of the features I was hoping for like highlighting so I am feeling positive.

 

I stumbled across this post recently.  It seems that the current iteration of Evernote Business would be perfect for publishing ebooks like you suggest, with a limit of 10,000 notebooks per business account.

[Babu R 0]

Is am evaluating Gneo to migrate Omnifocus projects. Gneo creates a notebook for every project. It creates a note per action.

I have 230 projects in Omnifocus. In Evernote I have 70+ notes. This means I can not directly migrate my GTD system ( without having to drop / condense project details )

EV should have at least 1000 notebooks.

[AnthonyZ 1]

read final para first

 

 

I am (or was) considering Evernote for wider business use, but I have become aware of restrictions that have made me retreat from the idea.

 

The 250 Notebook limit: I have no idea why this exists, but it is arbitrary and I cannot allow such a limit to halt my business use while whatever steps might be required. I have no desire whatever to keep a count. One of the beauties, if not the greatest Evernote advantage is the ability to capture information in a disorganised (or simply random) manner and later to assign order (tags, etc). 

 

The "Add another account" feature. To encourage my clients to join me In Evernote it seemed great that I could set them up and hand then the account perhaps with some info already added. Then of course I found that means sharing login details which is amateur. Granted not designed for use in this way.

 

So I signed up for a Business subscription and am (still) trying it out (not that it is at all a "trial", I am paying for it (which illustrates how much I actually want Evernote to work). The interface is great, especially the display of file content - but and here I am struggling: I have tried adding a user and I have also purchased  premium account to see if that is better than a business account; I can switch between those without limit. BUT then I lose control over the data. 

 

The business account seems to cost twice the price of a premium account, which itself varies dramatically in cost depending on exactly how you sign up. 

 

I am also looking at Office 365 with Sharepoint online and Basecamp and Dropbox... .. Evernote chat is attractive as a closed system 

 

For sure I will remain a Premium user, but every time I look at how to roll it out to clients or customers or associates I run into one block or another - 

 

I think my issues are,

arbitrary limits (which means a risk to my business and that is a deal breaker).

no provision for the professional to client relationship (this is different to the business to employee relationship, if I had to think how, one aspect is a great deal less data, and a lot more control, for low cost and allowing me to give support in an admin capacity.)

 

anyway, I came here because of the 250 notebook limit - I can't proceed with limits in place - I read somewhere that notebooks are really just forms of tagging, but for old fashioned me they are like directories and so on. Tagging I continue to learn how to do better - but meanwhile I have to make a living without someone imposing road blocks just because of why? Do I care? I suppose truthfully not really because I cannot afford the risk to my living - as a one person business I work with and support many others and need service providers who support that business model - such are few .

 

ok, so a 10,000 limit is better    https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23283158

Maybe this should be made clear somewhere I could have noticed it - I suspect I may have seen it BEFORE I became aware of the 250 limit and so not realised its significance, then forgot all about it. So, a communication issue.

 

 

 

 

Anthony

 

 

p.s. for wordsgood, I was hoping it was apparent I or the system as I didn't give the ok, posted my missive only part way through - sorry I cant reply as a reply but I am limited to only a few posts being as I am a new user - who naturally would not have many many questions and of course another arbitrary limit ;-)

If you should elect to edit to a different response I stand gladly ready to benefit from some wisdom as I am struggling here. I very much want to use it for business, but keeping feeling blocked. Thank you very much in advance for anything you might choose to add. - such as where have the inline spreadsheet views disappeared to? (question posted elsewhere, from my meagre allotment) I wonder when 8.22pm is, Evernote limits time.

[Wordsgood 526]

Anthony, the current Notebook limit for business users is 10,000. The 250 limit is for free and premium accounts. Here's a link to the Evernote Knowledge Base article explaining:

https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23283158/

I am (or was) considering Evernote for wider business use, but I have become aware of restrictions that have made me retreat from the idea.

The 250 Notebook limit: I have no idea why this exists, but it is arbitrary and I cannot allow such a limit to halt my business use while whatever steps might be required. I have no desire whatever to keep a count. One of the beauties, if not the greatest Evernote advantage is the ability to capture information in a disorganised (or simply random) manner and later to assign order (tags, etc).

The Add another account feature. To encourage my clients to join me In E

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Anthony, Evernote is definitely NOT a business enterprise system.  The Evernote CEO, CTO, and others have stated this many times.  So, if you are expecting anything like that, you will need to look elsewhere.

 

Yes, Evernote has improved on its Personal Information Manager (PIM), adding a few features to make it more acceptable to small businesses, but at it's heart it is designed for personal use.  Also remember that Evernote is mostly a FREE software, with a very small percentage who choose  to pay a relatively very small fee for the premium features.  Business enterprise systems can easily cost 10's, if not 100's of thousands of dollars.  So you can't even begin to expect Evernote to provide business enterprise features/scope/etc.

 

With the current structure and UI design, I can't image how anyone could even use 1,000 Notebooks, much less 10,000.

As long as Evernote does not fully support hierarchical, sub-notebooks, using a large number of NBs just isn't practical.

 

Consider also that using Notebooks in Search is very limiting as compared with Tags.  You cannot specify multiple Notebooks (other than as a Stack), nor can you  exclude Notebooks in the Search.

 

Sharing of Notebooks is also very limited as compared with, say, a file server, or file-based systems like DropBox.

 

Evernote does NOT have any form a system templates that you can use to quickly setup new accounts with.

 

So, if the limitations of Evernote concerns you, and you want/expect enterprise-like features, then you are probably best served by looking elsewhere.

 

 

I am (or was) considering Evernote for wider business use, but I have become aware of restrictions that have made me retreat from the idea.

 

The 250 Notebook limit: I have no idea why this exists, but it is arbitrary and I cannot allow such a limit to halt my business use while whatever steps might be required. I have no desire whatever to keep a count. One of the beauties, if not the greatest Evernote advantage is the ability to capture information in a disorganised (or simply random) manner and later to assign order (tags, etc). 

 

The "Add another account" feature. To encourage my clients to join me In Evernote it seemed great that I could set them up and hand then the account perhaps with some info already added. Then of course I found that means sharing login details which is amateur. Granted not designed for use in this way.

 

So I signed up for a Business subscription and am (still) trying it out (not that it is at all a "trial", I am paying for it (which illustrates how much I actually want Evernote to work). The interface is great, especially the display of file content - but and here I am struggling: I have tried adding a user and I have also purchased  premium account to see if that is better than a business account; I can switch between those without limit. BUT then I lose control over the data. 

 

. . .

 

 

I think my issues are,

arbitrary limits (which means a risk to my business and that is a deal breaker).

no provision for the professional to client relationship (this is different to the business to employee relationship, if I had to think how, one aspect is a great deal less data, and a lot more control, for low cost and allowing me to give support in an admin capacity.)

 

anyway, I came here because of the 250 notebook limit - I can't proceed with limits in place - I read somewhere that notebooks are really just forms of tagging, but for old fashioned me they are like directories and so on. Tagging I continue to learn how to do better - but meanwhile I have to make a living without someone imposing road blocks just because of why? Do I care? I suppose truthfully not really because I cannot afford the risk to my living - as a one person business I work with and support many others and need service providers who support that business model - such are few .

 

ok, so a 10,000 limit is better    https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23283158

Maybe this should be made clear somewhere I could have noticed it - I suspect I may have seen it BEFORE I became aware of the 250 limit and so not realised its significance, then forgot all about it. So, a communication issue.

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Anthony, the current Notebook limit for business users is 10,000. The 250 limit is for free and premium accounts. Here's a link to the Evernote Knowledge Base article explaining:https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23283158/

I am (or was) considering Evernote for wider business use, but I have become aware of restrictions that have made me retreat from the idea.

The 250 Notebook limit: I have no idea why this exists, but it is arbitrary and I cannot allow such a limit to halt my business use while whatever steps might be required. I have no desire whatever to keep a count. One of the beauties, if not the greatest Evernote advantage is the ability to capture information in a disorganised (or simply random) manner and later to assign order (tags, etc).

The Add another account feature. To encourage my clients to join me In E

Actually, as I understand it, you can have only 250 open in your account at any one time. The rest are in the business library, which is not searchable, so finding something in thousands of notebooks will be difficult unless you are very organized. The last I checked, business was 5,000, but they may have raised it to 10,000. Either way, the limitation with searching makes the number moot.

Now, if they did have searching, we'd essentially have this selective sync thing I've been asking for, and that would be a big deal.

[Wordsgood 526]

I was just going by what the KB article said. But yes, given my own personal experience with Evernote the software, and what I read here on the Forum, I too think that anyone not already signed up with a Business account, should proceed with extreme caution.

Read through the Business Sub-forum Threads and all the Business related Articles on the Evernote Knowledge Base at the Evernote.com site. Ask questions in the Business Sub-forum about anything you read that you're not clear about.

I'm not categorically saying don't sign-up for a Business account. But from what I've seen since EN ventured into the business market, I would say the ride so far has been very bumpy and the new direction appears to be having a negative impact for all users, regardless of what type of account they have. I could also be completely wrong on that score, but it's just my impression as someone who uses it for personal use only and is fairly active on the Forum.

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

Although, I can do nothing much to address the situation.. I am more of a 'NoteBook' person, and i am close to 200, i think .. No one here other than Evernote can offer a solution.. 

 

I request users to maybe offer their condolences, or other suggestions like merging Notes into a single Notebook, and Create an Archival Notebook and Free up some Notebooks or something of that kind.. BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT SUGGEST USERS THAT WHY DON'T YOU GO FOR TAGS? THERE IS 10,000 OF THEM.. Seriously, The Organizational structure and features of Notebooks and Tags are such that they can work either independently or together in tandem, but one cannot replace the other... 

 

Maybe, for a person with 1-2 Notebooks. Someone touching 250.. NAAAH... 

 

It doesn't take a year for an entire company to come crashing down.. EN Is still king.. 100+ million users... Privacy users.. Syncing Problems.. Hierarchial Organizational Problems.. .MS OneNote... Synology Around.. We have just reached 5 yrs/100 year Dream of Phil Libin.. I only hope Phil Libin and his team hasn't gone to sleep reliving that 100 year dream.. It could all come crashing down in a few months.. 

 

SOLUTION - LISTEN TO YOUR USER's RANTS.. MORE IMPORTANT.. LISTEN TO GENUINE RANTS.. MOST IMPORTANT.. IF POWER USERS RANT.. AND IF YOU HAVEN"T ADDRESSED THE ISSUE, THEN YOU HAVE A REAL PROBLEM...

 

And by the Way, I still use Evernote for Premium, but went Google for Business.. and boy..  , the customer support is freaking f*ckin awesome.. awesomely cool.. cheap cos I am from India, and the experience is seamless.. the UI design, the workflow and most importantly, no sync issues at all.. I am sure EN business would not even meet 10% of customer satisfaction that GD gets on average survey.. Certainly, not with the direction that the company has taken in the last year and the way, we seem headed towards.. 

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

 

Anthony, Evernote is definitely NOT a business enterprise system.  The Evernote CEO, CTO, and others have stated this many times.  So, if you are expecting anything like that, you will need to look elsewhere.

 

Yes, Evernote has improved on its Personal Information Manager (PIM), adding a few features to make it more acceptable to small businesses, but at it's heart it is designed for personal use.  Also remember that Evernote is mostly a FREE software, with a very small percentage who choose  to pay a relatively very small fee for the premium features.  Business enterprise systems can easily cost 10's, if not 100's of thousands of dollars.  So you can't even begin to expect Evernote to provide business enterprise features/scope/etc.

 

With the current structure and UI design, I can't image how anyone could even use 1,000 Notebooks, much less 10,000.

As long as Evernote does not fully support hierarchical, sub-notebooks, using a large number of NBs just isn't practical.

 

Consider also that using Notebooks in Search is very limiting as compared with Tags.  You cannot specify multiple Notebooks (other than as a Stack), nor can you  exclude Notebooks in the Search.

 

Sharing of Notebooks is also very limited as compared with, say, a file server, or file-based systems like DropBox.

 

Evernote does NOT have any form a system templates that you can use to quickly setup new accounts with.

 

So, if the limitations of Evernote concerns you, and you want/expect enterprise-like features, then you are probably best served by looking elsewhere.

 

 

I am (or was) considering Evernote for wider business use, but I have become aware of restrictions that have made me retreat from the idea.

 

The 250 Notebook limit: I have no idea why this exists, but it is arbitrary and I cannot allow such a limit to halt my business use while whatever steps might be required. I have no desire whatever to keep a count. One of the beauties, if not the greatest Evernote advantage is the ability to capture information in a disorganised (or simply random) manner and later to assign order (tags, etc). 

 

The "Add another account" feature. To encourage my clients to join me In Evernote it seemed great that I could set them up and hand then the account perhaps with some info already added. Then of course I found that means sharing login details which is amateur. Granted not designed for use in this way.

 

So I signed up for a Business subscription and am (still) trying it out (not that it is at all a "trial", I am paying for it (which illustrates how much I actually want Evernote to work). The interface is great, especially the display of file content - but and here I am struggling: I have tried adding a user and I have also purchased  premium account to see if that is better than a business account; I can switch between those without limit. BUT then I lose control over the data. 

 

. . .

 

 

I think my issues are,

arbitrary limits (which means a risk to my business and that is a deal breaker).

no provision for the professional to client relationship (this is different to the business to employee relationship, if I had to think how, one aspect is a great deal less data, and a lot more control, for low cost and allowing me to give support in an admin capacity.)

 

anyway, I came here because of the 250 notebook limit - I can't proceed with limits in place - I read somewhere that notebooks are really just forms of tagging, but for old fashioned me they are like directories and so on. Tagging I continue to learn how to do better - but meanwhile I have to make a living without someone imposing road blocks just because of why? Do I care? I suppose truthfully not really because I cannot afford the risk to my living - as a one person business I work with and support many others and need service providers who support that business model - such are few .

 

ok, so a 10,000 limit is better    https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23283158

Maybe this should be made clear somewhere I could have noticed it - I suspect I may have seen it BEFORE I became aware of the 250 limit and so not realised its significance, then forgot all about it. So, a communication issue.

 

 

I don't think it is about cost. Google seems to have had their long term plans in mind.. They got millions of customers, free, gave them unlimited resources, make them used to the Interface.. Won the world over ( I think 97-98% of free users now use Gmail), and just offered the same experience and much more for just 5$ a month.. 

 

I don't think Evernote even had plans for Business in teh first place. evernote's greatest USP 3-4 years ago, was that it didn't go the Facebook. Twitter, DropBox route of being a social media sharing system, but something very personal and very limited means for sharing.. and they were doing quite well.. And then Evernote starts getting this great word of mouth publicity and starts growing..

 

Then maybe, someone in a meeting might have just suggested.. Why Not use our same Infrastructure and scale for business? May be .. we need to just add a presentation mode.. it will be great.. And then someone else comes out with a better idea.. Hey why can't we do it like Nike..Reebok? Why only shoes? Why not Tshirts.. Wallets.. Bags with our Brand? Cool..Won't our customers buy them? Surely, they would bring more money, because, yeah, most of our users are free, and few convert .. and we don't make much money.. So.. lets split the products and create a physical market..Isn't that cool? But, I think if they had this attitude right at the beginning, Evernote would not even have come so far.. It would have crashed long ago.. But my humble experience is that people come to Evernote to 'Manage their Digital and Paper lives".. That should be the focus.. Bring products and better experiences and try converting more free users to Premium.. If you have lost that as your primary focus, and your primary focus has shifted towards Business and The Evernote Market, I think, The 100 year dream won't be there to last.. 

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

@Jmichael - Anthony, Evernote is definitely NOT a business enterprise system.  The Evernote CEO, CTO, and others have stated this many times.  So, if you are expecting anything like that, you will need to look elsewhere.

 

I am not really sure, if they have stated this many times, but if they indeed have, then i think it was stupid or dumb enough for them to Market the Product as evernote BUSINESS.       

[kilham 13]

I have just hit the limit as  Premium member and now find I cannot carry on using Evernote as part of my business - if the limit is not lifted I will have to move to another package. What are we supposed to do?

[jbenson2 2,147]

I have just hit the limit as  Premium member and now find I cannot carry on using Evernote as part of my business - if the limit is not lifted I will have to move to another package. What are we supposed to do?

 

Change your perspective on what a notebook is.

Instead of a very specific, narrow subject, change to a broader, wider subject for each notebook.

 

For example:

Don't use notebooks for specific individual customers.

Instead use a single general notebook for all customers and use specific tags to identify each customer.

[s2sailor 2,183]

I have just hit the limit as  Premium member and now find I cannot carry on using Evernote as part of my business - if the limit is not lifted I will have to move to another package. What are we supposed to do?

Evernote's current response to this is to use tags instead of notebooks.  There is a lot of prior discussion in the forums on this if you are interested.  Personally, I would like to understand the technical reasons behind the notebook limitation since many have asked for this yet EN has held firm.  Wait, if memory serves, EN has bumped the notebook limit at least once in the past.

[gustavgi 308]

My problem with the 250 notebook limit is a result of the lack of other custom metadata fields which can be edited in each note. The only custom field is the "author" field. 

 

Once I filter by a tag, I have the need to sort the search results by notebook. In this scenario, a tag can't replace a notebooks because if you sort the search result by tags, the sorting will depend on the tag with the first letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet if the note has more than one tag.

 

More custom metadata fields for each note would be a nice addition either way.

[risah22 0]

Yes, please lift it!  I am a med school student who is in her last year in clinic.  I have spent all night entering one notebook per common medical condition so that I can recall treatments ASAP when drilled by the docs I will be working under this year. I am at 250 and still have about 10 left to go. Even 265 might be enough... Please!!! I don't want to have to do it all over again by organ system... that would take me FOREVER!