Evernote Process Question

[dwmx2005 1]

Hi,

 

I am evaluating Evernote for my needs and it looks pretty good for most of what I need to do. Work on the assumption I purchase the Premium version of the service.

 

I will use this as an example as it demonstrates the essence my question:

 

Basic Setup

1. I have an online notebook for general stuff

2. I have a local notebook for things I do no want on the internet - this resides on my Mac

 

3. I scan a phone bill on my phone (or perhaps I email a confidential note to my Evernote account).

4. I think this then syncs with my online notebook in both cases?

5. When I get home, I move the note from the online notebook to the local one (this way my account details / confidential data is not laying around)

 

When I move the item from the online notebook to the local one, what happens to the data on Evernotes servers?

Is it:

A) immediately purged

marked for deletion (if so what is the timeframe for final deletion?)

C) A copy remains on Evernote's servers

D) Other

 

The essence of my requirement is to ensure that secret information is under my control. In reality, I could have information that is about a third party and confidential. 

 

Could you please explain how the process works.

 

Thanks for your help....Rob.

 

 

[gazumped 9,549]

Hi - the only impractical part of your use case is scanning confidential information into a synced notebook. Moving the note after it has been sent to and from the servers to your desktop does not preclude it from being intercepted en route, backed up online, or saved in one or other device in temporary storage.  If you truly wish these scans to be secure it is far better to scan directly to your desktop and into a Local Notebook which avoids transmission and cloud storage altogether.  Bear in mind that you then are in sole charge of the data and frequent local backups would be required!

[dwmx2005 1]

I agree that there are certain things that will never see the online notebooks, but I am thinking that I have instances where one could take a calculated risk. For example, emails for clients, there are cases where one email by itself has very little value to anyone else but a series of emails could tell a different story, hence why I am trying to understand how data gets stored and removed when you move from an online notebook to a local notebook. It could be useful but it comes down to whether the contents in Evernote get retained and how long for.

 

Do you know whether attached files are stored with an event database or as files on a server? Is this the same for emails?

and,

My assumption is attaching a file from a local machine to a local notebook means the file never leaves my network, can you confirm this to be true too? I guess it could be transmitted via the internet i.e leave to the internet and then come back in my machine?

 

If I understand how the pieces work, I can then develop my process and risk assess it properly.

 

Thanks very much for your help, 

   Rob.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

An interesting question would be the following: 

 

Evernote creates a Note History for synced notes, (whether accessible or not) for all users... What happens to the Note History (previous version(s) of a note created) when a note is moved to a local notebook? Is the information still on the EN servers or does one purge all Note History when a note is moved to a local notebook?

 

If purged, it would give some users peace of mind, depending... and for others, it may not, since they may at some time in the future want to access the note history, since it was a possibility before (if moving a note back to a synced notebook enables version history once more). 

 

Another thing is that unless you're doing your own OCRing, to be able to search text in scanned documents, they would have had to be previously synced. So there's a price to pay for keeping local notebooks. Seems like you can't have your cake and eat it: i.e. - the full benefit of what Evernote offers, while guaranteeing security.

[gazumped 9,549]

Actually,  there's no 'View History' option on the notes in my local notebook - that would be a function of the server backup process,  and since local notebook contents (notes,  files and attachments) are never sent to the server,  the option isn't available.  The only history you get is what is kept in your own backups.  Notes and attachments are all kept together in the one user database,  whether stored locally or online.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Actually,  there's no 'View History' option on the notes in my local notebook - that would be a function of the server backup process,  and since local notebook contents (notes,  files and attachments) are never sent to the server,  the option isn't available.  The only history you get is what is kept in your own backups.  Notes and attachments are all kept together in the one user database,  whether stored locally or online.

 

Sure... I got that part... but how about notes that had already synced before being moved to a local notebook? It would be interesting to find out what happens to the note history. Would it be purged?... and if the note is moved out of a local notebook back into a synced notebook, is the note history still gone forever. Basically, moving a note into a local notebook... does that in effect delete the previously synced note from EN servers? Or does Evernote retain the note's version history in the event that it might be re-synced? If not, they would do well to warn unsuspecting people like myself 

 

EDIT: OK... Just answered my own question by moving a note with literally hundreds of previous note history versions (I update this note daily) to a local notebook and back again after a sync... the note history is lost. As I suspected. I don't need to access any previous versions for this note, so no worries. The moral of the story: be careful where you drag and drop a note to! 

[JMichaelTX 4,104]

EDIT: OK... Just answered my own question by moving a note with literally hundreds of previous note history versions (I update this note daily) to a local notebook and back again after a sync... the note history is lost. As I suspected. I don't need to access any previous versions for this note, so no worries.  

 

Well, we still don't know how long Evernote might maintain backups of Notes removed from sync'd notebooks, or of histories for those Notes.  

 

I don't know, I'm just guessing, but from an operational perspective I would guess that Evernote takes no action on its backups when notes are deleted.  The backups are likely in a highly compressed format which would make getting to an individual note difficult, if not impossible.  The backup would have an expiration date, and all of your Notes in that backup would be deleted at that point.

 

When you moved the Note from a sync'd NB to Local NB back to the sync'd NB, it is really, from EN's perspective, a NEW note in the sync'd NB.  It has a new GUID.  At that point the EN Cloud doesn't know it is the same Note, from a content perspective.