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Password Protected Notebooks


EvernoteLover9

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7 hours ago, JKST said:

what is the EN press team going to tell the media?

https://evernote.com/security

https://evernote.com/security/tips

>>great standard stuff for protection in the datacentre

I'd like to see end-to-end encryption for my database 

>>does not address local storage

Personally, my local storage security is covered
- my Evernote account is password protected;
- my devices are password protected both at login and screen-saver
- on my Mac, my database is stored in an encrypted file-vault

>>nor basic usability of having the ability to apply granular password protection to objects

Evernote supports a text encryption feature
I use the native encryption of attachments; pdfs, office/iWork documents, ...

>>Please may we have the ability to apply passwords at a notebook and individual note levels. 

There's a feature request posted at the top of the discussion for password protected notebooks
To indicate your support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

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3 hours ago, DTLow said:

Yep, seen all that and it is great standard stuff for protection in the datacentre and when in transit but does not address local storage nor basic usability of having the ability to apply granular password protection to objects at all levels within the app, starting with the Notebook level as opposed to lines of text.

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26 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I'd like to see end-to-end encryption for my database 

>>does not address local storage

Personally, my local storage security is covered
- my Evernote account is password protected;
- my devices are password protected both at login and screen-saver
- on my Mac, my database is stored in an encrypted file-vault

>>nor basic usability of having the ability to apply granular password protection to objects

Evernote supports a text encryption feature
I use the native encryption of attachments; pdfs, office/iWork documents, ...

I did not say there were not ways to protect all the possible components but any tool worth its salt should want it to be user friendly and integrated.  The amount of time that this type of request has been open for and the scale of the support indicates that a need is not being met, regardless of the individual options people may have at their disposal already. 

Please may we have the ability to apply passwords at a notebook and individual note levels. 

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29 minutes ago, Scott Nailon said:

I would love to see a way to lock these notebooks or even individual notes.

I merged your post with a similar request
You're welcome to indicate your support using the vote button at the upper left corner of the discussion

 >>I have notebooks where I keep my own personal files. Files which I dont want anyone to be able to access.

Your account is protected by password; only you can access your data

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Just to help everyone focus ... the issue with EN and encryption is at the server level, ie, Google Cloud. We assume everyone can manage security surrounding their own PC. Use login passwords, etc., to protect undesired access to Evernote on the individual PC. And, data in transit between the Google servers and the EN client is automatically encrypted to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. The issue is data at rest on the Google servers. What happens when bad people break through the Evernote security measures and gain access to the Evernote databases on Google Cloud? Or, what happens when an insider at Evernote decides to target individual accounts that hold sensitive financial or political information? We need the ability to encrypt entire Evernote databases on Google Cloud with our own security keys. That's what this forum thread is all about. I estimate Evernote could more than double their subscriptions by adding this one feature to allow users the ability to encrypt their own Evernote databases. But, for some reason, Evernote refuses to even recognize the issue. I have a premium account (cost $42 dollars), but I'm not going to renew. I suggest everyone write an email to Evernote requesting the ability to encrypt Evernote notebooks on Google Cloud servers and then cancel their subscriptions.

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55 minutes ago, AWS_solution_architect_DC said:

Just to help everyone focus ... the issue with EN and encryption is at the server level, ie, Google Cloud. We assume everyone can manage security surrounding their own PC. Use login passwords, etc., to protect undesired access to Evernote on the individual PC. And, data in transit between the Google servers and the EN client is automatically encrypted to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.

You're ignoring the posts from users concerned about access on their devices

>>What happens when bad people break through the Evernote security measures and gain access to the Evernote databases on Google Cloud?

It's a valid concern; note the data is encrpted-at-rest

>>We need the ability to encrypt entire Evernote databases on Google Cloud with our own security keys.

Be aware this will disable server-side functions; OCR, indexing for search, public access to notes, ...

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44 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I merged your post with a similar request
You're welcome to indicate your support using the vote button at the upper left corner of the discussion

 >>I have notebooks where I keep my own personal files. Files which I dont want anyone to be able to access.

Your account is protected by password; only you can access your data

Here's a simple useful case of why a password-protected *account* isn't always the same as a password protected Notebook.

I keep everything in one account, including Recipes.  On the kitchen tablet I want to display my recipes, but I don't want every Tom Dick and Harry to have access to some of of my more personal notebooks. On my living room computer I want to share my Films & TV notebook to see what I should watch next. That's it. That's the only reason I would like to see a password protected Notebook feature.  And yes, I could always create another account and share my recipes notebook and my Films & TV notebook,  but the mess that ensues with tags in shared notebooks prevents me from doing that.

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7 minutes ago, lisec said:

And yes, I could always create another account and share my recipes notebook and my Films & TV notebook,  but the mess that ensues with tags in shared notebooks prevents me from doing that.

Or just not share the recipes and film/TV stuff.  Or share them out of your main account to the secondary account and have that one logged in on the iPad and living room computer.  If the two accounts don't have anything in common other than you being the owner.  Workarounds for sure.

I moved (exported to ENEX and then imported)  a bunch of old project notes, 6000 or so, to a Basic account some time back.  Paid for Premium for a month to get everything synced.  Now I just treat them as separate accounts, no sharing.  Log into the "archive" account when I need something.  Works well for me, don't need the linkage.  But it is a use case thing.  FWIW.

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Have been a paid user of Evernotes for years,  It is disappointing to see two key and popular features are still outstanding for such a long time :-

a) Notebook level password protection.  Yes we can talk about encrypting notebooks but that can wait.  Assigning a password for specific Notebook shouldn't be that challenging, from a layman's viewpoint.   Ideally, different notebook to have different password will be default - this will be very useful with shared notebooks.

b) Ability to export Notebook (not individual notes) to proper PDF format, so that we can achieve / publish Notebooks in PDF, instead of taking up database size.   

Please, if Evernote is listening, put this is a top feature to come... I am even willing to pay for this feature as additional premium to the services.

Regards,

F Lo

 

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22 minutes ago, fkclo said:

b) Ability to export Notebook (not individual notes) to proper PDF format, so that we can achieve / publish Notebooks in PDF, instead of taking up database size.   

You're hijacking the discussion; a pdf request is posted Here

I'm not clear about the "instead of taking up database size"

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On 3/15/2020 at 11:28 AM, fkclo said:

a) Notebook level password protection.  Yes we can talk about encrypting notebooks but that can wait.  Assigning a password for specific Notebook shouldn't be that challenging, from a layman's viewpoint.   Ideally, different notebook to have different password will be default - this will be very useful with shared notebooks.

b) Ability to export Notebook (not individual notes) to proper PDF format, so that we can achieve / publish Notebooks in PDF, instead of taking up database size.   

It is a kind of joke that Evernote developers expect subscription payment without adding so primitive functions (two above mentioned). That is why I am smiling and skipping this 'professional' product. :-)

Maybe in 2050 Evernote developers will understand what security and flexibility means. Even free ColorNote mobile app has password protection.

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On 3/22/2020 at 5:30 AM, krzyziek said:

It is a kind of joke that Evernote ... <more whining> ... password protection

You're welcome to indicate your support for this request.  Use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

Password protection is important to me
Evernote accounts are protected by a password
Encryption password is supported for selected text.  
I also encrypt sensitive data using the native encryption in attachments

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For the amount of money being charged for this application, it seems such a simple request to be able to password protect the application on the computer.  It is worse than trying to locate the last Easter egg.  If one can use ONE password to retract access to the master app on the computer that would be wonderful.  However, in the absence of such a simple arcane request, perhaps some enterprising software developer should generate a synchronizing note app WITH a password and then we can all move on pass Nevernote.  Unbelievable the apparent arrogance of ignoring such a simple, basic but necessary request.

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On 4/21/2020 at 6:51 PM, elefantecamp said:

and my kids open my computer - they see everything.

Security is important to me  
- My computer is password protected for each userid   
- My Evernote account is password protected

To indicate your support for the above request, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

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1 hour ago, DTLow said:

You should post as a new topic.     
This discussion is on password protected notebooks

Well, if you are trying to be smart here is a thought for you: the topic is password protected notebooks, not "how to log out from Evernote" or "how to password protect your PC if the app that you want to protect doesn't provide this feature that many users are asking for". You get it? This ***** behavior can work both ways.

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10 hours ago, JKST said:

Instead of trotting out the same responses, that people could have read already, why not just accept that it is not an unreasonable request to have additional functionality so people may use the tool in the way they wish.

OK, a couple of things going on here. First, I think that everyone acknowledges that this is a valid & reasonable request; indeed,some of the regular responders here may have actually upvoted it. Second, though, is what to do about it the current situation. We users cannot change the code, but sometimes workarounds are available, and since this topic is very long, sometimes those workarounds get "trotted out" a number of times. Suggesting workarounds is not necessarily arguing against the request, or somehow invalidating it.

In this case, there are some things a user can do on their own: using separate OS user accounts, and/or separate Evernote accounts. More work? Yep, but "batteries included". Or in some situations (leaving your desk to go get a cup of coffee, mentioned elsewhere), the simple solution is to lock your computer while you're away: in Windows, that's just a Ctrl+L and your Windows account is now locked; no logging out required. 

We're all Evernote users here, and we all want Evernote to improve, and I'd guess that most of us want Evernote users to be able to use Evernote better. That's why I spend my time here, anyways...

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6 minutes ago, jefito said:

OK, a couple of things going on here. First, I think that everyone acknowledges that this is a valid & reasonable request; indeed,some of the regular responders here may have actually upvoted it. Second, though, is what to do about it the current situation. We users cannot change the code, but sometimes workarounds are available, and since this topic is very long, sometimes those workarounds get "trotted out" a number of times. Suggesting workarounds is not necessarily arguing against the request, or somehow invalidating it.

In this case, there are some things a user can do on their own: using separate OS user accounts, and/or separate Evernote accounts. More work? Yep, but "batteries included". Or in some situations (leaving your desk to go get a cup of coffee, mentioned elsewhere), the simple solution is to lock your computer while you're away: in Windows, that's just a Ctrl+L and your Windows account is now locked; no logging out required. 

We're all Evernote users here, and we all want Evernote to improve, and I'd guess that most of us want Evernote users to be able to use Evernote better. That's why I spend my time here, anyways...

Fair comment, thanks and I apologise @DTLow if my frustration boiled over into unreasonableness but the radio silence on why this is not being considered is more than bemusing.

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4 minutes ago, JKST said:

Fair comment, thanks and I apologise @DTLow if my frustration boiled over into unreasonableness but the radio silence on why this is not being considered is more than bemusing.

No problem -- these days I'm blaming folks' testiness here (and everywhere) it on COVID-19!  :) 

I think we'd all like more feedback on feature requests from Evernote staffers.

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8 hours ago, himanshu219 said:

After 7 years since the thread is posted still there is no update, I don't know why Evernote is not taking privacy seriously

Just because they haven't implemented this request doesn't mean that they don't take privacy seriously. Their security focus is mainly on security of your notes when they're being transferred over the Internet, and on their servers. More info here: https://evernote.com/security

Currently, if I want stuff encrypted in Evernote, I just use an encrypted container attachment (.zip file, PDF, etc.). For the short term, while Evernote sorts out its platform re-org and infrastructure, that's probably going to have to suffice. Once that's done, then maybe they'll address this feature request.

8 hours ago, himanshu219 said:

(Hope it does not end up like Zoom)

Zoom is still wildly popular, as far as I can tell. They've had some security stumbles, no doubt, but they've been working to address them. See e.g. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes. Not sure what you mean by 'end up'; they're still in business.

Quote

Even the open sourced "standard notes" have this feature.  

Hadn't heard of these folks before. Hard to tell how well they're doing or how well it stacks up against Evernote, feature-wise. I guess is privacy is a pressing concern, they might be worth checking out.

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Just adding my vote here - I sometimes work with sensitive client data and it would be great to password protect those relevant notebooks so I wouldn't have to switch to OneNote for specific cases like that. Would also give me peace of mind with personal financial records, some of which I keep in Evernote.

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I don't understand why this is a feature, which take so long to develop!

I just want to lock one notebook in case anyone view the sensitive information accidentally. You don't have to implement a fancy encryption algorithm or a system. 

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11 minutes ago, Jay Starkey said:

my private notes are just exposed for anyone to see, super annoying.

Personally, I encrypt my "private notes"   
An Evernote feature would be nice, but I'm not going to let that stop me

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11 minutes ago, Pastor-Luke said:

I thought you were advocating that the Evernote password, and the system password were sufficient. 

The Evernote password and device security provide a level of security, and is sufficient for most of my documents
I have a few documents that I believe require encryption

>>How does search work with encrypted notes?
I use sufficient keywords in the title to ensure the search feature functions

>>Have you ever forgotten or mistyped an encryption key?
I use an automated process with scripting on a Mac

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33 minutes ago, M. Black said:

default logon view humiliation!

For Windows users, check out Enscript to launch Evernote with a custom query   
Mac users can use Applescript   
This can be used to exclude nsfw notes

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1 hour ago, DTLow said:

For Windows users, check out Enscript to launch Evernote with a custom query   
Mac users can use Applescript   
This can be used to exclude nsfw notes

Thanks for the workaround, @DTLow. I'm glad to try something, at least until we get the solution we'd like ...

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I love the idea of password-protecting notebooks!  That would be so useful!  It amazes me that this thread was started in 2013 though, and we still can't do it.  Is it that difficult?

 

I've been using EN since 2008!  Still love it, but this and stacks within stacks are the only two features I'm still waiting for....

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18 minutes ago, William Freire said:

Password for notebooks

Your post has been merged with an ongoing discussion for this feature
To indicate support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

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Member since 2011 and a paid member since soon after that...and this has been the number one feature on my list for years. 

Specifically I would love the ability to encrypt an entire notebook.

To ease concerns over the data being stored in a cloud anyway, it would need to be encrypted locally with the private key generated and stored locally so that it is only in the control of the user. These encrypted notebooks do not need to be ocr'able or searchable. 

I've tried various other commercial solutions and it just sucks having to use two options, especially for EN since I'm tempted to switch over all my non-sensitive data too.

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6 hours ago, Rishan said:

Specifically I would love the ability to encrypt an entire notebook.
To ease concerns over the data being stored in a cloud anyway, it would need to be encrypted locally with the private key generated and stored locally

I would like the entire note database encrypted; end-to-end
I don't need more passwords; the Evernote account password works for me

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One aspect not to forget about: When Fully encrypted, the server will stop to work for these notes or notebooks. No indexing, no OCR, no search, no web client etc.

Today if content in a note is encrypted, the note itself can still be found, by title, tags or text in the not encrypted part.

This is not an argument against encryption (I have vote for it as well), but something to keep in mind.

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17 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

One aspect not to forget about: When Fully encrypted, the server will stop to work for these notes or notebooks. No indexing, no OCR, no search, no web client etc.

I would like to see the note content encrypted but metadata left unencrypted.  I think that would be a reasonable tradeoff between security and searching.

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I just assumed this feature was available, after years of using Evernote, and only now that I need it I see it doesn't exist. Why can't the text area passcode be applied to a notebook? I have to have evernote open and available for work, but I would like to also have a private notebook that isn't shared with anyone who happens to use my desktop. Please please make it possible to password lock individual notes or, even better, an entire notebook.

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On 4/3/2013 at 9:51 PM, EvernoteLover9 said:

Evernote already has the ability to encrypt single notes.

Actually encryption is currently restricted to text within a note

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On 11/6/2020 at 9:02 PM, DTLow said:

Actually encryption is currently restricted to text within a note

It's worse than this.  Even if you have a bullet list in your text, you cannot encrypt it.  Try it.  No reasonable way to encrypt meeting notes for example as they generally have some markup. 

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47 minutes ago, #pacman said:

No reasonable way to encrypt meeting notes for example as they generally have some markup. 

We don't usually create meeting notes using the Evernote editor

I use Notability on an iPad with an Apple Pencil    
The notes are stored in Evernote in pdf format - easy to encrypt

MS Word might be more common, stored in Evernote in .doc format - also easy to encrypt

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It is really amazing that this feature is not available.
I wonder how many europeans actually violate data protections laws and
employee/customer contracts b/c the data is stored in cloud storage which might not be
in europe and you can not ensure that the data is unusable when a data breach
happens at evernote or the cloud provider. Really can not recommend evernote
for anything sensitive.

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This thread started 2013. now it's 2021. if you cannot implement password protected notebooks in 8 yrs, where users are basically telling you on 9 pages of this forum, over 8yrs to implement simple feature, it's clear that this app is not actively developed anymore... and that this company is not really concerned with users security...


 

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On 8/28/2018 at 11:38 AM, Shane D. said:

Hi All,

You may have noticed that all threads requesting Password Protected Notebooks have been merged into this thread, regardless of platform specificity.

(This is a separate request from the ability password protect the Evernote App itself)

This was done in order to better enable us to quantify and qualify user requests, and amplify their voice.

While this does not mean this is a feature that will be coming, we certainly want to relay user feedback/sentiment to our various teams.

Moving forward, please put all commentary and votes for Password Protected Notebooks here!

Can Evernote at least acknowledge that you are considering this feature of password protected notebooks? I have been premium subscriber for more than 13 years. I really like EN and want to renew my premium subscription, but now that you have taken away "Local Notebooks" feature, which was my workaround for privacy issues with cloud notebooks, the latest version has made it even more difficult to use EN. If OneNote can provide password protected notebooks, why cant EN consider this feature?

I am okay with general notes in the cloud, but really don't want to put the sensitive information, where EN employees or unauthorized person can access my sensitive personal data. Password protected notebooks provides that level of assurance to make sure my data is secure and protected in the cloud. Your customers have been asking this feature for years, I hope you care enough about your customers to at least acknowledge that you are working or not planning to deliver this feature. 

Moving more than a decade worth of data out of EN is not easy. I can wait for couple of months for this feature, if you can at least acknowledge that this feature is coming. If you don't plan to listen to your customers, then I guess there is no choice but to go through that pain of moving my data out of EN. I know there are tools to migrate the data from EN, but they don't they don't work exactly the way you want. It's painful exercise, but if EN doesn't have any plans to deliver password protected notebooks, then I'll go through that pain. My patience is now wearing off.. 

I hope to hear from EN a definitive answer on this topic. 

 

  

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100% support of this. 

The ability to have 'hidden' / 'private' notebooks with an extra password for day to day personal notes - same issues as above, kids, family, colleagues seeing more personal notes in error. EN bills as being for work and life - as such this is a fairly basic request and need to ensure there is appropriate separation.

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On 2/7/2021 at 1:23 AM, D2K said:

Can Evernote at least acknowledge that you are considering this feature of password protected notebooks? I have been premium subscriber for more than 13 years. I really like EN and want to renew my premium subscription, but now that you have taken away "Local Notebooks" feature, which was my workaround for privacy issues with cloud notebooks....

 

  

Exactly! It seems they are "challenging" us, to see who will stand longer despite their lack of any reaction. Apart from local notebooks, with new updates some basic features such as drag and drop (from EN to mail for example) are simply gone.

Also, I may sound like "so 90's" but is printing a "lost art"? I mean, in old versions it was bad, but in the new one - half of the page is missing! Incredible.

Anyhow, as with earlier comments, I expect moderator to delete my post as I am probably not complying to rules but hey, whatever....

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We really need to be able to decide to fully encrypt a notebook. 

Even if i trust in Evernote as a company, data breach will occur.

The only question is when. I cannot take this risk for my customers 

This would be a killing feature 

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It has been 8 years since this was first requested and from what I can see, Evernote has  been completely silent on this issue. Even with the frequency of recent changes and updates, not a word about giving the user an option to encrypt complete notes or notebooks. 

 

 

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Evernote has got a good process now. I am member of evernote since 10 years, unfortunately the password protecting of notebooks is not realized yet. This would be a good time to add this. OneNote has this feature since years.

@Evernote: please, let us know your feature roadmap.

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Bumping this again for the hundredth time in 7+ years (you know, as just one of the thousands of Evernote users who want this). I LOVE Evernote and am a long time happy paying Premium paid customer, but the fact that so many customers have been vocal about wanting this for half the company's existence and that they haven't added it is baffling to me. It's a huge miss on listening to paying customers!

I consider myself a power user as I use the product for work and personal and have created 10K+ notes since becoming a customer. The product is literally woven into the workflow of my day. This feature has so many use-cases that benefits customers and there literally isn't a month that goes by that I don't think about how nice having this feature would be. One use case that I think drives the need for this feature more than ever is the current shift to work-from-home and therefore the heavy use of Zoom/WebEx type solutions. I have to constantly be careful to not accidentally screenshare one of my personal Evernote folders because I capture everything under the son in this folder (journaling, personal goals, grocery lists, profanity laced streams of conscious when I'm upset about something, lol). I know you can choose to share apps only, but I often have internal team meetings where it's easier to share one of my monitors so I can pop in and out of apps as I work through an agenda. I actually slipped up recently and someone saw some of the note titles in my personal folder and laughed that they saw a grocery list...I got lucky as it could have just as easily been a far more embarrassing note.  It sort of made me mad at that moment that Evernote still doesn't have at least the following: Simple password protection on folders that you designate should have them and could be configured to require login if you hadn't used this folder for some set period of times that are configurable. This not only makes your personal info easier to secure from a general data protection standpoint, but it also makes it much harder to accidentally expose personal info in situations where others may have visibility to your device...be it over your shoulder or on a webcast meeting. At a very minimum, give users the ability to "hide" folders if they can't password protect....although I'd still be really disappointed if this is all they did. 

I know there is an encrypted note feature, which I use often, but the feature is pretty clunky and only can encrypt text without any formatting whatsoever (no images, webpage clips, etc.). I like that feature for user/passwords protection, but a more general ability to secure an entire folder (doesn't even need to be encrypted if that's the challenge for Evernote, just pw protected!) would be far easier and far more convenient for those people that, you know, pay for your product. IMO, this is a common sense convenience feature as much, or more so, than it is a security feature.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE add this feature Evernote! I love your product and want to promote it to others without hesitation, but I always feel obligated to mention that I think you could do a much better job listening to your customers. Help me help you, Evernote!

(steps off soapbox, wipes brow, decides to go with decaf for next coffee fill).

Thank you! 

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Please add private notebooks to Evernote!!! I have been using Evernote for only a relatively short time, maybe a little over a year, but already I can't imagine life without it. I depend on it to store all my various notes and information... except one. As a family genealogist, I have downloaded the RAW DNA files of several members of my family for use in vital but sensitive analysis, and store it hidden on my laptop. If the files are ever lost and the person whose DNA it was has passed away, it can never be recovered. But as non-so-frequently accessed items, I often cannot remember where I have hidden it! And I seldom have it handy when I need it, since it is on my laptop. Since it is not "text," I can't figure out how to encrypt it on Evernote. I need a private notebook in Evernote to store these important documents. Please, please, please add this function.

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First I agree that there is a need to offer a secure place to store sensitive information.

When this has not happened yet, there are probably reasons. One I can imagine is that it may not be that easy to implement. You must not only provide an encryption, you have to make sure as well that the content is not grabbed and made visible in other program parts (like preview or search index) when it is decrypted.  I don’t want to repeat the arguments exchanged.

To tell a long story short, IMHO the current encryption tool for text snippets is far from being a secure way to store things. What you can do at this very moment is:

  • Make your EN account as secure as possible, using 2FA and on the mobiles maybe passcode or biometrics 
  • Use another tool to encrypt attachments, and use EN only for the storage of the encrypted attachments
  • Use another cloud service for sensitive information, and use a tool like Boxcryptor to make sure the content is protected.
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The difference may be:

EN holds a master key for the encryption of the account. They need and use it - for example to build previews and the search index, OCR documents and photos etc. All this is machine based, but it leads to a spread of information to different places in the account.

Encrypted content is excluded from these functions, and that is the idea behind the user enacted encryption. The downside is that the full functionality will not be there, no search other than what the user defines, no OCR etc.

But this is the technical view.

I think many users simply have the need to store information valuable to themselves in a private place. I think EN should provide a solid and applicable solution for this.

Encrypting text snippets certainly does not do that job. A special notebook IMHO would do.

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4 hours ago, Mike P said:

Wouldn't the creation of password protected notebooks be an admission that the password protection of the overall app is not good enough?

The same probably could have been said about local notebooks.  That is how many of us used them and is the solution that I would prefer, though that was cut from the v10 list from the start.

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The advantage of local notebooks is they are local. This at the same time is their disadvantage - especially in times of ransomware rampaging business and private networks.

An encrypted but synced notebook is in itself a safe backup, where no local disaster or IT-mishap can reach.

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Hold on a  second. The encryption issue seems like a red herring. One can password-protect a directory, a hard drive, or even access to an entire computer via the desktop without encrypting its entire contents. Every time I step away from my office desk for a few minutes, and a screensaver turns on, my computer becomes locked. It is password protected. Its entire contents are not encrypted.  I am talking about adding the essential option to add password protection to Evernote Notebooks on demand. I am not requesting the  encryption of those notebooks

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re: Wouldn't the creation of password protected notebooks be an admission that the password protection of the overall app is not good enough?

Not  at all,  Mike. We are talking about degrees of granularity. For example,  I may want certain financial documents to be kept in a password-secured  directory, or Notebook.

That does not mean that other notebooks cannot be shared or made public.

The inability to password-protect Evernote Notebooks is the most glaring error in the history of Evernote development as a document management, storage, and archival solution.

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On 6/23/2021 at 9:58 PM, searchwriter said:

accessible by anyone who happens to have general access to one's Evernote account, such as an assistant, a spouse, a child or a co-worker

I'm the only person with "general access" to my Evernote account   
My account is protected by password   
My devices are protected by password and time-out lock
My sensitive documents are protected using native encryption (pdfs, office documents, ...)

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I suspect local notebooks were a problem for Evernote on several fronts.  It added complexity to coding and testing and it was likely a support nightmare.  I wonder how many actually understood that the backup of local notebooks was their responsibility.  Also, I wonder how many actually used local notebooks, at least intentionally.

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> Re: 'm the only person with "general access" to my Evernote account   
> My sensitive documents are protected using native encryption (pdfs, office documents, ...)

In that case, walking away from your workstation while the application is launched  would be like leaving the door to a wall safe wide open. 

Is it difficult or impossible to provide Notebook-level security?  I don't get it. Why is this a problem? Please be specific.

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4 minutes ago, searchwriter said:

Is it difficult or impossible to provide Notebook-level security?  I don't get it. Why is this a problem?

It is not a problem for Evernote ... they aren't doing it :).

It adds difficulty but is not impossible.  As to why they aren't doing it, we can only guess.  

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17 minutes ago, searchwriter said:

Hold on a  second. The encryption issue seems like a red herring. One can password-protect a directory, a hard drive, or even access to an entire computer via the desktop without encrypting its entire contents. Every time I step away from my office desk for a few minutes, and a screensaver turns on, my computer becomes locked. It is password protected. Its entire contents are not encrypted.  I am talking about adding the essential option to add password protection to Evernote Notebooks on demand. I am not requesting the  encryption of those notebooks

All current OS versions have the ability to encrypt the whole main drive. It is made accessible when the user logs in, and locks it down the moment the user blocks his account, or the screensaver kicks in. It is only a question how you setup device security.

Apple has taken it a step further: They have a chip called T2 build into the touch sensor. It serves as SSD controller and only unlocks the encryption when the device is unlocked. The fingerprint never leaves the T2, and the SSD is not readable (if enabled) without this chip.

If you enable the SSD encryption, your local stuff (be it EN local notebooks or files in general) can’t be accessed once the device locks.

But if the device breaks, get stolen or damaged, the data is lost, unless you have a solid backup. In case of fire or theft it must be a backup stored at another safe place. Most private users don’t have that sort of IT security.

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40 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

I suspect local notebooks were a problem for Evernote on several fronts.

Definitely a problem for the v10 product with focus on web based data storage    
The Legacy product on my Mac makes use of device data storage

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There is a difference between password protection and password encryption, even though they may sound alike.  

Password protection is like locking something in a safe-deposit. It means no one can get to the locked content without knowing the right combination. This method is used on separate documents, folders, and other data a computer user may want to protect from other people who might have access to the device. 

With password encryptionyou are creating a password AND encrypting the contents of the file. It is a process during which the content one wishes to keep secret is altered to make it unrecognizable. For example, if it is a text document, letters of each word might be shuffled with additional characters so the words would no longer make any sense. The reverse process is only available if the person who wants to decrypt this data can provide a specific decryption key or a password. In other words, even if the password is removed no one could read the hidden content as it still would need to be decrypted. Of course, it is important to realize you might be unable to retrieve it too if you lose the decryption key, aka, the password.

No doubt it is safer to use password encryption since it provides two security layers and password protection has only one. Nevertheless, it usually depends on the data one wishes to protect and the people one wants to keep it away from. For instance, if you want your kids to be unable to open less important documents or other information, you could password protect it with a secure password made up from random characters; something they could never guess. On the other hand, if we are talking about sensitive data the loss of which could do damage to your virtual security,  password encryption would be indicated.

Since Notebooks are the containers for EN documents and media,  one or both methods are necessary at this "container" level.  At a minimum, at least one of these methods is necessary at the Notebook level. 

EN needs to introduce Notebook-level password protection to protect its users data from prying eyes. Its users have demanded it — for years — as a means of safeguarding the documents placed into EN. The use- cases are so abundant that denying this feature is like denying a lock on a door, a file cabinet or s safe. It is a breach of good faith.
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20 minutes ago, searchwriter said:

Password protection is like locking something in a safe-deposit. It means no one can get to the locked content without knowing the right combination.

Like the password on my Evernote account    
         the password on my device

fwiw  I vote for simple notebook password protection
          It's easier to implement than notebook encryption

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51 minutes ago, searchwriter said:

There is a difference between password protection and password encryption, even though they may sound alike.  

Password protection protects the data at rest on your computer.  It doesn't address cloud storage protection, which I believe has been the major concern/request over the years.  As I understand it, our data is encrypted at rest on Evernote's servers, but they hold the key and as we see every week in the news, no company is immune.  Certainly some are better than others, but the gold standard is zero knowledge encryption where only we hold the key.  Anything Evernote adds will be better than what we have now but zero knowledge encryption is the method that I would prefer EN to implement. 

That was the beauty of local notebooks, it kept data of concern off the cloud.

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3 hours ago, searchwriter said:

EN needs to introduce Notebook-level password protection to protect its users data from prying eyes.

Prying eyes on one's own device yes.  Not of as much use elsewhere.

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If prying eyes are an issue, the mobile clients can be protected by a Passcode or by biometrics. Mobiles don’t have user accounts.

On a desktop there are user accounts. And if the computer is unsafe, it is a stupid idea to install an EN client there. In such a case better rely on the web client - and don’t save the password in the browser.

 

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I would love the ability to password protect on an app level (I know when can do it on iOS/Android) for Mac and Windows as well as be able to add a password for notes or even entire notebooks.

Bear for Mac allows a password to open the app, then another (different password if you wish) for locked notes. Having that in Evernote would allow me to ditch Bear. It's not a bad app, I just prefer Evernote!

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On 8/28/2018 at 2:38 PM, Shane D. said:

While this does not mean this is a feature that will be coming, we certainly want to relay user feedback/sentiment to our various teams.

Ugh.

 

This feature is a big one for me, as I'd *like* to be using evernote to record, y'know, personal thoughts, and not have to log out and log in to the app every time I use it. 

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The forum is user2user. EN staff may show by, you can see it from the badge showing  „Staff“.

EN rarely comments on what they are going to do - you often find out when the release notes mention a new issue.

EN encrypts information on transport (TLS/SSL). On the server it is encrypted, but will be accessed by EN bots doing stuff like search indexing, picture OCR and syncing across devices.

Note encryption is basically contrary to EN functioning as a server based information hub. The current „text encryption“ tool is IMHO a very weak security measure.

There are enough tools to protect sensitive information - many password managers have a „secure note“ feature, that will do a much better job to shield private information.

You can sit around here and wait for stronger encryption to drop out of the blue sky, or use another service for sensitive information. 

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I finally cancelled my subscription over the lack of zero knowledge encryption for my notes. Understood that true privacy is just not part of Evernote's business strategy.  It's unfortunately commonplace to give up your privacy in exchange for ads and free email or social.  But Evernote is paid.  And I don't have the patience to parse through future changes to their terms of service regarding what information Evernote scans and sells.

To make it worse, the one feature Evernote has for encryption is useless.  If you have bullet text for example in the content you want to encrypt, you can no longer encrypt it.  That hasn't changed for years.

And yes I would lose searching across any notes that are encrypted. That's fine.

I will continue to use Evernote for the existing notes I have, but new content needs to go elsewhere.  Thanks for the years of paid service however.

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13 minutes ago, #pacman said:

I finally cancelled my subscription over the lack of zero knowledge encryption for my notes    
...
Thanks for the years of paid service however.

At what point in the "years" did you realize this deficiency

My solution to protect sensitive data is to use the native encryption of note attachment files; pdfs, office/iWork documents, ...

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5 minutes ago, #pacman said:

Since you are mod here, ridiculing long time customers is not a good look for the brand.  It doesn't make these forums a helpful place for discussion.

To answer your question, I was hoping Evernote would add zero knowledge encryption at some point.  I knew it wasn't there but liked other aspects of EN.  I am paying more attention than I had in the past to privacy aspects of services I pay for.  I switched to a zero knowledge encrypted backup for my PC for example,   I switched to Signal for messaging as it has better privacy.  A new note taking app is another step.

The suggestion of using other products encryption and attach it completely defeats the purpose of using Evernote.  That's not a good solution for me, just a workaround.

Be kind.  Rewind.

Plus one for #pacman here. Smarmy jabs when people are expressing their concerns and needs on a forum that's...ummm...built exactly for those purposes, well it can get exhausting. The solutions you suggest (native encryption of outside apps/docs) isn't a solution that suits me (nor many others as far as I can tell), which is why we're on here requesting a different approach. 

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I am brand new to Evernote and was disappointed to see that you cannot password protect/encrypt a notebook. I was thinking of keeping a journal of sorts but those are obviously private thoughts that I wouldn't want anyone being able to access.

Is there a way to set a password on the actual Windows application, though? I was able to for my iPad but I can't seem to find the option here.

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1 hour ago, cinbeano said:

Is there a way to set a password on the actual Windows application

Evernote accounts are password protected    
Log out and no one can access your notes

Your device is also password protected

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Just a little caution with logging out:

  1. If you have any notebooks downloaded for offline use on mobile, it will be removed once you log out. Loading them anew is a first class PITA.
  2. If you logged out, and then go offline, you will not be able to log in again without an internet connection.

My solution is much simpler: Don't store any sensible data in EN. For critical documents I use my password manager, that has the ability to store confidential notes.

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1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

If you have any notebooks downloaded for offline use on mobile, it will be removed once you log out. Loading them anew is a first class PITA.

Are you sure about this?     
I just tested and didn't lose my offline content

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Completely gone, EN 10.16, iOS 14.7.1, iPhone 11 Pro Max, after just logging out. 

It still shows the GB occupied in the iPhones memory. But if I look to offline notebooks, it started a complete new download, this went with the usual "speed" 🐌 and had not even reached 1/4th after a day. So I cut it off.

Decided not to download again. Most of my stuff is saved as OCRed pdf. Support has confirmed that search in pdfs does not work when offline. This practically removes the need (and usability) of offline content for me.

👎

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I can't believe e2e encryption of a note isn't available. The 'encrypt text' feature currently on evernote desktop is essentially useless because it's only available on plain text - even if you have a bulleted list in your text it's not available, not available for images, etc. It is NOT a viable feature.

The ability to locally encrypt a notebook and/or note is critical in order for me to feel safe/comfortable with using evernote for any sensitive information. It's 2021 - encryption should be the default, not the exception.

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What ever happened to the customer is right?  People would like this capability for a myriad of reasons and personal choice/preference around ways of working is equally as valid as others. 

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22 minutes ago, JKST said:

What ever happened to the customer is right?

There's a quote from Henry Ford   
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

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