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Way too easy to accidentally delete attachments


Holmes245

Idea

I find it way too easy to accidentally delete attachments in Evernote. All it takes is an accidental tap on the backspace key and poof! - your attachment is gone. I was going to use Evernote for my job search where I would need to use attachments pretty heavily but now that I've realized that's far too easy to accidentally delete attachments, I've decided against it. Is there any way to lock attachments in Evernote? If not, this needs to be changed somehow in future versions. I don't trust it in its current state with incidents like this occurring. 

 

Joel

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On 5/12/2018 at 6:49 AM, deantayloruser said:

I then open up the history, and still, there was nothing. 

The Evernote History backup runs multiple times a day; it's unlikely to capture data created and imediately deleted.

We're all in agreement the accidental deletion is a concern, which is the reason for the request.  Please indicate your support using the voting buttons in the top left corner of the discussion.

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Agreed, WAY too easy to delete an attachment - I can delete an attachment as easily as deleting text??  With the tap of the backspace button?  If I happen to catch it right away before I leave the note, I can try to Undo but this is not always the case...

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2 hours ago, dorothea said:

Agreed, WAY too easy to delete an attachment - I can delete an attachment as easily as deleting text??  With the tap of the backspace button?  If I happen to catch it right away before I leave the note, I can try to Undo but this is not always the case...

Or you could keep a backup system,  or step back with Note History...

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Backups don't always solve this.  I just finished annotating a PDF and was typing a few notes to myself and noticed the PDF disappeared from my note, and I couldn't undo to get it to re-appear.  Since I just modified the PDF, there'd be no backup for it (and I don't know if the premium note history feature is based on server side backups, or built into the database, so it might not help here)

[Well, I lucked out that the attachment was still in  the folder Evernote\Databases\Attachments under a .backup filename, not sure if this was created by Evernote or Foxit reader, but I might try adding a bit of "safety" by turning on Windows 10 File History and see if it keeps files in this temporary folder, so at least my annotated versions won't get lost.]

 

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2 hours ago, CraigZ said:

the attachment was still in  the folder Evernote\Databases\Attachments under a .backup filename

It's a Windows compliance thing for Evernote.  For any app (Word,  Excel,  Adobe) to open an attachment to a note on the installed desktop version,  there has to be a separate Windows file with the appropriate extension - DOCX / XSLX / PDF etc.  So if you open an attachment,  that file is created and added to the Attachments folder. 

The app then opens it,  creates whatever temporary copy is required while you're working on it,  and (theoretically) saves the finished version back to your note when you close the file. 

However the system doesn't know whether you just saved a working copy and want to continue to edit the same file,  or you just went to bed;  so the copy attachment stays in the Attachments folder just in case.  If you don't need that copy again,  you can open the folder from time to time and delete all the contents.  (With Evernote closed,  just in case...)

If you lose an attachment,  then what you find in that folder will be a copy of that file at some recent point - don't automatically assume it will be fully up to date!  If there's a backup extension on the file,  it's probably from your last session - but again it depends what killed the original;  it might be a backup from a previous session that didn't get cleaned up.

Evernote's Note History is server-based and taken a couple of times each day,  so a recent edit won't be there.

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On 2018-03-20 at 3:22 PM, laverne2003@hotmail.com said:

I have deleted an important document to never be found.  I have premium edition and I can't seem to find the document anywhere.   

I have personal backups and also make use Evernote Note History5ab409cde63bf_ScreenShot2018-03-22at12_52_49.png.4824b202f20e3619db27965bcbfe1d5d.png

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313858-How-to-access-and-use-note-history

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I agree that this is a problem. I found this discussion because I was searching for an answer to this problem. Let me give you an example of how this is a problem for me. 

My wife wants to put a section on our Evernote account simply called "recipes." So, on this notebook, she is taking pictures of a lot of her favorite recipes and then dragging the images over to this notebook. Once there, she is labeling each recipe so she can quickly find it.   Sounds like a nice idea... but.... as she later brings up that recipe which is attached to a file all she has to do is accidentally hit the backspace and the recipe is gone. The "file" will still be there, but it will be empty. 

Now several of you mentioned the premium account fixes this. I'm not sure it does. I have a premium account and I just conducted an experiment on my account. I pulled an image over to a notebook which automatically created a file. I then opened that file and hit the backspace,  and the picture was gone. I looked in the trash...nothing. I then open up the history, and still, there was nothing. 

Does everyone understand this problem? I agree that this should be an easy fix. If I could somehow put a "lock" on a file... that alone would fix it.

I'm loving my Evernote. I am already transferring tons of my medical and academic records to my account, and I must say that I have really enjoyed the feeling of organization it is giving me.  However, this one issue gives me a real sense of insecurity that my important records will stay where they need to be. 

And before someone just says, "make sure you back up everything." May I say that one of the nicest things about Evernote is that Evernote  *IS* a backup for disorganized guys like me. The whole reason I use Evernote is to backup files in an attempt to try to organize my records. So for some "smarty- pants" (sorry)  to just say "make sure you back up your files" might be the current, obvious solution ....but for someone like me, it takes away from the whole reason I use Evernote in the first place. If I were one of those organized guys that had nifty little internet cloud files with all my stuff backed up then i would not need Evernote. 

Does that make sense? So..in conclusion if there could be a way to drag a picture to Evernote and then "Lock it" i personally think it would be great. 

Thanks

 

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Well, here we are nearly a year and a half since this request was started and even longer since I first raised this as an issue.  I wonder how many notes have been deleted accidentally just because there isn't an Option to have an "Are you sure" flag when deleting a note.  Yes, I know you can check Trash but if you haven't realised that you caught the Delete key accidentally when going for, say, the Home key then you wouldn't know to check the Trash.

Personally, every couple of weeks, I sort the Trash by Delete Date and check through it.

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On 5/12/2018 at 9:49 AM, deantayloruser said:

I then opened that file and hit the backspace,  and the picture was gone. I looked in the trash...nothing. I then open up the history, and still, there was nothing. 

You didn't delete the note, so it's not going to be in the trash. You did delete note content (the picture), and the fix for that is to use Undo (Ctrl+Z) to restore it, just as it would be for, e.g., MS Word.

I agree that a "lock note" operation would help both of these cases, though.

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On 5/12/2018 at 3:49 PM, deantayloruser said:

I agree that this is a problem. I found this discussion because I was searching for an answer to this problem. Let me give you an example of how this is a problem for me. 

My wife wants to put a section on our Evernote account simply called "recipes." So, on this notebook, she is taking pictures of a lot of her favorite recipes and then dragging the images over to this notebook. Once there, she is labeling each recipe so she can quickly find it.   Sounds like a nice idea... but.... as she later brings up that recipe which is attached to a file all she has to do is accidentally hit the backspace and the recipe is gone. The "file" will still be there, but it will be empty. 

Now several of you mentioned the premium account fixes this. I'm not sure it does. I have a premium account and I just conducted an experiment on my account. I pulled an image over to a notebook which automatically created a file. I then opened that file and hit the backspace,  and the picture was gone. I looked in the trash...nothing. I then open up the history, and still, there was nothing. 

Does everyone understand this problem? I agree that this should be an easy fix. If I could somehow put a "lock" on a file... that alone would fix it.

I'm loving my Evernote. I am already transferring tons of my medical and academic records to my account, and I must say that I have really enjoyed the feeling of organization it is giving me.  However, this one issue gives me a real sense of insecurity that my important records will stay where they need to be. 

And before someone just says, "make sure you back up everything." May I say that one of the nicest things about Evernote is that Evernote  *IS* a backup for disorganized guys like me. The whole reason I use Evernote is to backup files in an attempt to try to organize my records. So for some "smarty- pants" (sorry)  to just say "make sure you back up your files" might be the current, obvious solution ....but for someone like me, it takes away from the whole reason I use Evernote in the first place. If I were one of those organized guys that had nifty little internet cloud files with all my stuff backed up then i would not need Evernote. 

Does that make sense? So..in conclusion if there could be a way to drag a picture to Evernote and then "Lock it" i personally think it would be great. 

Thanks

 

Have a look at my AutoHotKey script to protect your notes against accidental deletion:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/104215-autohotkey-scripts-for-evernote/?do=findComment&comment=487691

It's very easy to adapt to your needs, or just let me know how it might be improved

Eric

 

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On 5/12/2018 at 3:49 PM, deantayloruser said:

I agree that this is a problem. I found this discussion because I was searching for an answer to this problem. Let me give you an example of how this is a problem for me. 

My wife wants to put a section on our Evernote account simply called "recipes." So, on this notebook, she is taking pictures of a lot of her favorite recipes and then dragging the images over to this notebook. Once there, she is labeling each recipe so she can quickly find it.   Sounds like a nice idea... but.... as she later brings up that recipe which is attached to a file all she has to do is accidentally hit the backspace and the recipe is gone. The "file" will still be there, but it will be empty. 

Now several of you mentioned the premium account fixes this. I'm not sure it does. I have a premium account and I just conducted an experiment on my account. I pulled an image over to a notebook which automatically created a file. I then opened that file and hit the backspace,  and the picture was gone. I looked in the trash...nothing. I then open up the history, and still, there was nothing. 

Does everyone understand this problem? I agree that this should be an easy fix. If I could somehow put a "lock" on a file... that alone would fix it.

I'm loving my Evernote. I am already transferring tons of my medical and academic records to my account, and I must say that I have really enjoyed the feeling of organization it is giving me.  However, this one issue gives me a real sense of insecurity that my important records will stay where they need to be. 

And before someone just says, "make sure you back up everything." May I say that one of the nicest things about Evernote is that Evernote  *IS* a backup for disorganized guys like me. The whole reason I use Evernote is to backup files in an attempt to try to organize my records. So for some "smarty- pants" (sorry)  to just say "make sure you back up your files" might be the current, obvious solution ....but for someone like me, it takes away from the whole reason I use Evernote in the first place. If I were one of those organized guys that had nifty little internet cloud files with all my stuff backed up then i would not need Evernote. 

Does that make sense? So..in conclusion if there could be a way to drag a picture to Evernote and then "Lock it" i personally think it would be great. 

Thanks

 

It must be nearly 3 years since I first commented on this and still Evernote has done nothing to address either the inadvertent deletion of a note or the inadvertent deletion of an attachment.  Surely it can't be an enormous job to add an item in the Tools>Options section to make options to have an "Are you sure" when deleting either a note or an attachment.  Then users could decide for themselves whether they want the extra check or not.  Personally I would keep the check on but if doing "housework" on my notes, and not wanting the extra process in deleting, I could turn off the option temporarily.  I have seen all the comments about having backups (I have two parallel backups) and note history and all that but my own initial point, and it's still valid, was that it is possible to accidentally delete a note and not know you have done it.  On my keyboard the Home key, which I use a lot, is right next to the Delete key and if you are speeding about the database it's possible to just brush the Delete key without noticing.  A check of the Evernote Trash bin can reveal the occasional surprise "how did that get there?".

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10 hours ago, Tractorman said:

  On my keyboard the Home key, which I use a lot, is right next to the Delete key and if you are speeding about the database it's possible to just brush the Delete key without noticing.  A check of the Evernote Trash bin can reveal the occasional surprise "how did that get there?".

That is exactly the reason that I disabled in my AHK script the delete button for deleting notes. I delete them with the speed-menu "Move note to trash" which is much safer against accidental deletion.

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On 5/15/2018 at 3:36 AM, Tractorman said:

It must be nearly 3 years since I first commented on this and still Evernote has done nothing to address either the inadvertent deletion of a note or the inadvertent deletion of an attachment.  Surely it can't be an enormous job to add an item in the Tools>Options section to make options to have an "Are you sure" when deleting either a note or an attachment.  Then users could decide for themselves whether they want the extra check or not.  Personally I would keep the check on but if doing "housework" on my notes, and not wanting the extra process in deleting, I could turn off the option temporarily.  I have seen all the comments about having backups (I have two parallel backups) and note history and all that but my own initial point, and it's still valid, was that it is possible to accidentally delete a note and not know you have done it.  On my keyboard the Home key, which I use a lot, is right next to the Delete key and if you are speeding about the database it's possible to just brush the Delete key without noticing.  A check of the Evernote Trash bin can reveal the occasional surprise "how did that get there?".

While I'm suprised that something that is marketted as a digital filing cabinet doesn't allow you to "lock" files to prevent accidentally changing them, have some kind of checksum or self-validation that content hasn't corrupted itself (that I know of), or any other way of notifying you (and automatically fixing) of an unexpected change to historical notes (when people have 10's of thousands of files and attachments, impossible to monitor)...

I'm also not surprised... because they have a backup system online and a premium membership to access the old versions of notes -- they need something to encourage people to actually pay for the product.

 

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10 minutes ago, CraigZ said:

because they have a backup system online and a premium membership to access the old versions of notes

I also have personal backups for access to previous note versions.

The trick is to recognize when I've accidently deleted data.  

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11 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I also have personal backups for access to previous note versions.

The trick is to recognize when you've accidently deleted data.

Well, you'll probably only recognize it's missing when you go looking for it.  So one would need to have more thorough than 1-2 backups  because it could be years before you recognize something important is missing (might even suggest having backups of the Evernote install program as well, just in case it's needed to access that data... depends how paranoid you are)

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3 hours ago, CraigZ said:

So one would need to have more thorough than 1-2 backups  because it could be years before you recognize something important is missing (might even suggest having backups of the Evernote install program as well, just in case it's needed to access that data... depends how paranoid you are)

It depends how you've structured your backups.

I use incremental backups (changed notes) in html format, with no delete  i.e. all note versions are stored.
I search my backup folder using the note title, and select the required date.

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Hi.  I have 20,000+ notes,  a sizeable portion of which have attachments.  I have never,  to my knowledge,  'accidentally' deleted one.  There's no way to 'lock' a note against editing,  though if you subscribe to the premium tier you will have a note history function which would allow you to recover from such errors.  I also recommend that you back up your database regularly just in case of data (or device) loss.

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I have posted before about how easy it is to delete a note. It's ok if you notice but my delete key is right alongside the Home key which I use regularly to go to the top of a list. Granted you can rescue a note easily from trash but you have to realise it's happened.

All it needs is a confirmation message each time a note is deleted. I can't think why this is too difficult to organise. It's a pretty standard thing in most software.

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Deleted attachments don't go to the trash. I accidentally deleted a Word document I had attached but caught it. One can undo it if caught in time but even if it did go to the trash, it would just make me feel better if it weren't so easy to do it. I wish there was something implemented like a double-click in the note to edit. The Android app has the edit button you need to click to edit the note. For me, this would be ideal or perhaps implement something that would lock the attachment and unlock it. This has happened a couple of times to me.

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It might be a version (or an OS) issue,  but my current Win 8.1 / EN 5.9.1 combination puts both note and attachment into the Trash - at least is just did so with a test note and a small 32KB attached file - and restores them perfectly.

 

On balance I'd be annoyed by too many "are you sure?" warnings - and two keypresses - to actually delete a note I want to remove on the desktop.  On a mobile it's sensible to cover the editing function with a button-tap - you're always touching the screen anyway.  (Even so - some users have complained;  "why does it take an extra step to edit my notes...").

 

Maybe an option to have belt-and-braces* warnings if you require them?  - I may have fewer than most,  because last time I used EnRegEd I think I chose an option to disable some warnings...

 

'Safe' and 'Super Safe' levels might be a good idea though for some users - definitely for newbies and maybe for those who have specific keyboard layout issues...

 

 

*(elderly) UK slang for super-careful.

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It might be a version (or an OS) issue,  but my current Win 8.1 / EN 5.9.1 combination puts both note and attachment into the Trash - at least is just did so with a test note and a small 32KB attached file - and restores them perfectly.

That's because you're deleting the note that the document is attached to. I would fully expect to see the note with the attachment in the trash as well. If you place the cursor after the attachment in the note and hit backspace to delete it, the attachment will disappear but won't appear in the trash itself. It would need to be attached to the note to show up there.

 

I have a note that contains my resume and different forms of it depending on where I'm applying. I copy and paste a lot from the resumes saved in this note, one resume per job posting that I save in EN and apply to in order to record which resume I sent to any particular job posting. I just don't want to accidentally delete it and not realize it. Otherwise, I won't be able to go back to retrieve it. I normally don't work with attachments this often but this is a special case. IMO a simple lock/unlock option for attachments would make me feel better. If I delete the note with the attachment, that's one thing but just uncomfortable with the ease of attachment deletion.

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Ah.  Your first post was about attachments,  then in your second you mentioned deleting notes - and I'm easily confused. 

 

On the test note that I set up earlier (and forgot to delete) I can look back on Note History,  and having now deleted the attachment,  when I go back to the history,  my attachment is sitting there waiting to be imported back...

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Unfortunately for me, note history is a premium feature. Regardless, it would just be nice not to have to note history, click the undo button or any other work around for something like this. This is all assuming that you catch in the first place.

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5 hours ago, Tractorman said:

Personally, every couple of weeks, I sort the Trash by Delete Date and check through it.

Backups are also a good idea
I maintain a complete copy of my notes, along with note versions

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Sorry to come in on this again but I now understand that the first point by Holmes245 was about accidentally deleting attachments.  I can see that this could be a danger but (as a Premium member) I can always get it back again and I think it would be obvious to me that I had deleted it in that "oops" moment.

 

My point was about accidentally deleting a note.  What prompts me to return to this is that in just checking back over my Trash Notebook today, sorted in Delete date order, I found a note that I had accidentally deleted a few days ago and had not noticed that I had done it.  It's worrying that this can happen and you wouldn't necessarily know you had done it.  In his response to my original comment gazumped said "I have never,  to my knowledge,  'accidentally' deleted one" and that's the point I'm trying to make.  You can brush against the Delete key and away goes a note and you may not notice.  Of course if you do notice what you have done I appreciate that you can get the note back simply enough.

 

If there was an "Are you sure" notice you would be warned and have a chance to stop the Delete.  For people whose requirement calls for regular deleting of notes, where this may be tedious, then a tick box to stop the warning in future would suffice.

 

Granted I am no IT expert but this doesn't seem to me to be a radical change I am suggesting.  Plenty of other software packages have warning notices (and the ability to suspend them if preferred).

 

It would be nice to get a view from Evernote on this.  If it is a big change requirement then at least I would understand and accept it may take some time to implement.  Meantime, I will continue checking my Trash notebook every two or three weeks.

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I'd hope that any 'Are you Sure?' message is a switchable option,  because it could get annoying if you're clearing out several items.  But I agree it is a reasonable feature request.  Evernote don't (usually) comment on stuff like this unless there is something in the pipeline and due for imminent release. 

 

Although it might 'just' be a matter of adding a few lines of code to an existing process,  the rules for messing with software that's in daily use by 150M people on thousands of different platforms - none of whom would have a sense of humour if something stopped working because of a mistake in the translation from one OS to another - are normally pretty strict.  Developments are approved and scheduled for months or years ahead,  and there are limited windows for last-minute changes which are often taken up with bug fixes rather than usability changes.

 

Truth is though that no-one knows when or whether Evernote will make any changes,  and as noted they don't (usually) share.  So having made a reasonable case for this safety feature,  all you can really do is wait.... 

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Thanks to gazumped for the comment and advice.  I appreciate from my previous life in business that even little tweaks can have ramifications in software so your point is well taken.  We'll just have to wait and see.  I am now pretty "committed" to Evernote with almost 5,000 notes and rising, so all developments are keenly awaited.

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Well, a year and a half later, I just accidentally deleted an attachment off a note I had just explicitly dug out of the trash to rescue!  I was going to add some reminder notes to it when, sure enough, I accidentally hit the backspace and poof! It was gone, nowhere to be found. That's what brought me here looking for a solution. I AGREE WITH THE STATEMENT THAT ATTACHMENTS ARE TOO EASY TO LOSE!  That said, I am using the web version but I a a premium user so hopefully when I get back to my Windows machine all will be right with the world. That does not change my view, however, that this was just a little too easy to do accidentally. We don't need an 'are you sure' - just putting it in the trash where it can be recovered would be enough.

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57 minutes ago, gazumped said:

As a premium subscriber can't you use Note History to step back to a previous version of the note which included the attachment?

Works for me, but I'd still like better control of this.

This request has my vote.  Voting buttons are in the upper left corner of the discussion
The vote count is currently589e596dc2366_ScreenShot2017-02-10at4_22_57PM.png.b79f4293e84bd999cc0ab11f591977e4.png

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