Where does Evernote save your notes and how can I back them up?

[kuurt 0]

I'm using the evernote progam on my computer.   Does evernote save my notes on my computer some where in addition to on their server/website?  Or are all my notes saved on their website and downloaded as I use them?  If that's the case, is there some way that I can back up my notes to my computer as well?  

[CalS 5,280]

Yes your notes are stored on your computer.  Backup options can vary depending upon which desktop version you are using.  Search the forums and you will find many posts on this topic and you can pick what works best for you.  FWIW, I use the ENEX export capability.

[DTLow 5,736]

22 hours ago, kuurt said:

Does evernote save my notes on my computer some where in addition to on their server/website?

Yes, notes are saved in a proprietary format on the desktop platforms.
In Windows, its a .EXB file; on Mac its much more complicated
On my Mac, I can get the exact location by clicking on Evernote > About Evernote and pressing the Option key.
I also keep a copy of my notes on my iPad 

You can also export your notes; File > Export 
It works fairly quickly; you have a choice of formats that have advantages/disadvantages

[kuurt 0]

I'm not really worried about backing up my notes if they are indeed stored on both my computer and on the Evernote website/server.  But, it doesn't look to me like they're stored on my computer.  Anybody know what the file path would be to these stored notes on Windows 7?  

I can go to Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Program Files > Evernote, and I don't see anything in there that could be my stored notes.  I can also go to Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Users > Me > AppData > Local, and there's two Evernote folders in there (Evernote and Evernote NW).  Nothing that looks like it could be a backup of my notes.  If you go to that Evernote folder - Evernote > Evernote > Databases, there is a .EXB file in there that has my name with a number attached to it.  It is also a bigger file than a lot of the others, so it could be a backup of my notes, but there's no way to tell. 

If I open it in Wordpad it does not look like my notes.  But, then again Wordpad probably doesn't read .EXB files correctly.  And if I open it with Evernote, it looks the same as any other time I open Evernote, so how do I know it didn't just open the program and download the files to my computer instead of from that file?  There's no way to tell.  It could be doing that every time for all I know, after all, it does show that I'm signed in. 

If I log out of Evernote first and close the program completely, the next time I open Evernote it won't show my notes without me logging in first.  If I try to open that .EXB file while logged out, it will  not open it.  So I kind of doubt it's a back up.  It seems like to me it must be downloading my notes from the Evernote Website/server. 

Is there some other program that can read a .EXB files other than Evernote?  If I could open it with another program and see my notes, then I could know for sure if that is indeed a backup of my notes.  But, if it is, I'm not sure why it won't open in Evernote without me being logged in. 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

On February 7, 2016 at 2:12 PM, kuurt said:

Is there some other program that can read a .EXB files other than Evernote? 

It might be possible with an SQL program, but it's not adviseable; it's too easy to corrupt your data.  
This is a proprietary format used by Evernote to store your notes.

[CalS 5,280]

Got to Tools - Options - General and you should see the file path to your data base in the box under Evernote local files.  Files with an EXB extension are EN data bases, in EN's proprietary format.  It is your local version of your data base, a copy of the server, but not a backup per se.  That EXB file will be updated after syncing any changes you may make on other platforms like the web, phone, whatever.

You might reconsider a backup strategy of some sort in case you accidentally delete some notes.  No way to get them back if you don't have your own backup.

[kuurt 0]

My EXB file is around 25,000 kb.  I figured I'd test it to see if it goes up when I create a new note.  So I created a temporary test note and it did go up a few hundred kilobites.  But, oddly, when I deleted the note it didn't go back to the same number of kb that I started with.  It went back down, but not that far back down.  I did this a few more times and each time the file got bigger and bigger even though I deleted each temporary note that I created.  So that is weird that the file gets bigger when you're not actually adding anything.  It's also weird that the EXB file won't open when you're logged out.  I'm curious to understand how that works if anybody understands that craziness. 

I guess I'll just have to take your guys word for it that that is a copy of my notes.  If I copy that file to my external hard drive once a week, will I be able to restore a note with it if I were to accidentally delete a note?  Assuming that the note wasn't created after the last backup.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 minute ago, kuurt said:

file got bigger and bigger even though I deleted each temporary note that I created.

Did you empty the trash?

[DTLow 5,736]

1 minute ago, kuurt said:

If I copy that file to my external hard drive once a week, will I be able to restore a note with it if I were to accidentally delete a note?

Its a backup solution.  I have time machine running on my Mac; however I tend to not use this in recovery.
At least you only have one single .exb file to work with.
For the most part, I rely on the Evernote servers to restore my data.
There's also note history.

I also do a weekly export in both enex and html format.
The enex format keeps tag information.
The html format can be viewed directly outside of Evernote.

[CalS 5,280]

10 minutes ago, kuurt said:

If I copy that file to my external hard drive once a week, will I be able to restore a note with it if I were to accidentally delete a note?  Assuming that the note wasn't created after the last backup

That's one way, but it would be the hard way, IMO.  Search the forum for backing up your notes using the export to ENEX functionality, in the File menu.  Much easier to recover just one note that way.

[kuurt 0]

Quote

Did you empty the trash?

No, but I tried it again today and deleted the note from the trash also, and the file size was still larger than it was before creating the temporary note.  Not sure why it does that.  I guess it doesn't really matter, there's probably some reason. 

Quote

Search the forum for backing up your notes using the export to ENEX functionality, in the File menu.  Much easier to recover just one note that way.

I found instructions for how to do that, but I'm not sure if it's backing up all of my notes or not because it doesn't say.  The instructions say to go to FILE > EXPORT NOTES, but mine doesn't have an "Export Notes".  It just has an "Export", and when you click on it, the dialog window says "Export 1 Note", and "choose an action to perform".  I know I want to select the .anex one, but I don't want to export just 1 note, I want to export all of them.  Don't see that as an option.  I don't have any of my notes selected when I do this either so I'm not sure why it says "export 1 note".

[CalS 5,280]

@kuurt

Right click on a notebook in the left panel and you should see an Export Notes option.  Select it and then click on options in the lower right and be sure that Tags is checked.  Click OK and then select the ENEX option and click export.  I would recommend doing this export by notebook using the notebook name as the file name and saving the files in a folder named ENEX BU 2016.02.09 or whatever suits your fancy.

[kuurt 0]

Ah ok, when i do it that way I do get a "export notes" option.  Awesome, thanks.  That is a good idea to add the date. 

[CalS 5,280]

You are welcome.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

On 2/7/2016 at 4:12 PM, kuurt said:

is there some way that I can back up my notes to my computer as well?

As others have mentioned, the EN Win and EN Mac apps maintain a local database of your notes.  The EN apps operate using this local database, and then occasionally sync changes with the EN Cloud.  But there is one major exception:  Local Notebooks are NOT sync'd to the EN Cloud.

However, your local database is NOT a backup.  You should do your own backups, and not rely on Evernote.

See Backing up and restoring Evernote data 

[LBTHomes 0]

When using the "classic" Web version - I right click on the notebook I do not get an Export Notes option. Screenshot attached

 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

22 minutes ago, LBTHomes said:

When using the "classic" Web version - I right click on the notebook I do not get an Export Notes option. Screenshot attached

If you're using the Web or Mobile platforms you have limited IOS ions for backing up your data.  The Export feature only exists on the Windows/Mac platforms

cloudHQ is the only option I'm aware of for the Web and Mobile platforms

[jefito 5,589]

On 2/8/2016 at 7:37 PM, kuurt said:

Is there some other program that can read a .EXB files other than Evernote?

Yes, in a fashion. An Evernote EXB file is actually a SQlite database, and you can open it using the SQlite Browser (http://sqlitebrowser.org/). But you'd have to be an experienced database programmer to make much sense of it as is, or do much with it, like making backups. Not really recommended for this use case.