Control Which Image Shown in a Note's Thumbnail/Snippet View

[marcelo 85]

I do like the new layout with larger thumbnails, except for one thing: Evernote seems to choose as thumbnail the largest image within a note. But it is rather annoying, for it seldom coincides with the image which would enable me to recognize a note at once. Can I somehow force Evernote to use a specific image as thumbail?

Marcelo

[brookslu 1]

YES! This would be so helpful.  I use Evernote as a database to keep track of my sewing patterns.  Each note has a image of the front of the pattern (completed item picture), and the back of the pattern (words/numbers).  When the back of the pattern ends up as the thumbnail, it's pretty useless as a way to quickly browse through to see what I have.  Hopefully that explanation made sense.  It would be a lot easier to just pick which picture to have as a thumbnail than to have to manually go and resize images. 

[matthieu. 4]

I also need this feature, please.

 

And to avoid this kind of thread, with a lot of misunderstanding, I think Evernote should publish their roadmap, so we can estimate what will be available in near future. And perhaps also add a votebox like Dropbox had before, to allow users to prioritize new features.

 

I'm now a paying customer, and as I really LOVE Evernote, I want it better, and I want to use it for more task than now 

[RJRJ 5]

please do it!
I even interrupted  my paid subscription this year because of this problem.
I have 800 notes, and thumbnails for each of them are different on all my devices.
I'm tired, it's very difficult to perception!

[Inspector Gadget 2]

This is a seriously overdue fix and a big design limitation.  

 

People have been complaining about this topic on this thread since 2011.  

 

What is taking Evernote so long?  How complex can this be?

[HuggyTheBear 4]

I guess that the guy who wrote the selection algorithm is so pissed off that people hate it that he blocks any change. Or he has left and the others have no clue how to fix it. Or they are lazy. Or they are stupid. Or they don't care. Or they are busy playing online games or having ***** in the office. Or they are watching Breaking Bad all day long. Or (well, make up your own reason).

 

Anyway, hell will freeze over before we will get that feature...

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@HuggyTheBear, I'm not sure if you intended it this way, but your post brought a smile to my face.  A little humor goes a long way.  

[jefito 5,589]

I guess that the guy who wrote the selection algorithm is so pissed off that people hate it that he blocks any change. Or he has left and the others have no clue how to fix it. Or they are lazy. Or they are stupid. Or they don't care. Or they are busy playing online games or having ***** in the office. Or they are watching Breaking Bad all day long. Or (well, make up your own reason).

Cute, but the usual answer in the real world is that the folks who make decisions about what to implement don't see it as a high priority item. I suppose that could count as "they don't care" or "they don't care enough about the issue to change the behavior".

[HuggyTheBear 4]

 

Cute, but the usual answer in the real world is that the folks who make decisions about what to implement don't see it as a high priority item. 

 

In that case they are stupid since it is such an important and obvious feature and it beggars believe that it wasn't implemented from day one.

 

BTW, since when is listening to your customers a bad idea? Companies like Salesforce grow like gangbusters because they do exactly that. Others fall by the wayside...

 

Finally, I have never encountered a user forum where so called "Evangelists" defend each and every stupidity of a company. Really strange sect-like behavior here that even Apple can't match.

[Inspector Gadget 2]

 

Cute, but the usual answer in the real world is that the folks who make decisions about what to implement don't see it as a high priority item. I suppose that could count as "they don't care" or "they don't care enough about the issue to change the behavior".

 

 

Ah, yes, asking users is so tedious. 

 

My favorite response to this thread was early one when an apparent developer explained that Evernote selects the image with the "biggest smallest dimension."  HAHAHAHA.  

 

I plan to use that as a fantastic example of exceptionally poor human design. The analogy for bad machine programming would be writing code instructing the system to select the "coolest image."  

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

 

Cute, but the usual answer in the real world is that the folks who make decisions about what to implement don't see it as a high priority item. I suppose that could count as "they don't care" or "they don't care enough about the issue to change the behavior".

 

 

Ah, yes, asking users is so tedious. 

 

My favorite response to this thread was early one when an apparent developer explained that Evernote selects the image with the "biggest smallest dimension."  HAHAHAHA.  

 

I plan to use that as a fantastic example of exceptionally poor human design. The analogy for bad machine programming would be writing code instructing the system to select the "coolest image."  

 

 

I don't recall 'tedious' being stated as to why they don't ask their users.  But clearly, EN does not see this as a high priority.  Debating why is pointless. 

[jefito 5,589]

In that case they are stupid since it is such an important and obvious feature and it beggars believe that it wasn't implemented from day one.

 

BTW, since when is listening to your customers a bad idea? Companies like Salesforce grow like gangbusters because they do exactly that. Others fall by the wayside...

 

Finally, I have never encountered a user forum where so called "Evangelists" defend each and every stupidity of a company. Really strange sect-like behavior here that even Apple can't match.

I'm not defending Evernote at all, I'm just pointing out a reality of software development, or indeed, development of any product or service. You take request, mix them in with your own ideas, try to figure out level-of-effort vs perceived benefit, sort against other features, and lay them out against available resources. This article is an interesting read in that light, at least to me.  Please point out where I say that it's a bad idea to listen to your customers. It's always fair for users to make requests (and I believe that does Evernote listen), but those requests compete for resources with other users' requests, and Evernote's internal plans for their products.

 

For what it's worth, I see this feature as a nice-to-have for my use case, as opposed to "important and obvious", but that's independent of what I was saying when I replied to you.

[HuggyTheBear 4]

Here can read what Evernote is up to: http://www.fastcompany.com/3034378/most-innovative-companies/evernotes-secret-to-getting-free-users-to-pony-up

 

Talking about getting your priorities wrong...

[Metrodon 2,184]

Here can read what Evernote is up to: http://www.fastcompany.com/3034378/most-innovative-companies/evernotes-secret-to-getting-free-users-to-pony-up

 

Talking about getting your priorities wrong...

The Market is hardly a secret, in fact it's a very profitable product line.

I don't understand why this is them getting their priorities wrong? For Evernote to be around for a long time, to continue making useful software it has to be profitable, Market contributes to this.

It's not like the Xcode developers are whittling the pen pots is it?

Whether you think the products are any good or decent value for money is a personal thing, but I very much doubt that the technical team are in any way affected by the Market with the exception of products like the scanner and moleskine that have proved to be very successful.

[LukVL 17]

Hello,

 

I had a lot of notes about "people", say an employee-database or the members of an organisation.

One picture and a lot of other data (birthday, telephone-number...)

I loved it, I had the data everywhere, on my Iphone, Ipad, PC..

One look at Evernote, and I saw the picture of the person, and his name in the thumnail form.

 

Yesterday, I added for every person a scanned report, and I can't see the pictures of the people, but a completely unnessesary report that is downsized to thumbnail format so that every report looks the same. 

Do I really have to resize all my pictures to get them on the thumbnail?

What a waste of time AND a waste of server-space.

I don't like that anymore. I'll search for an other program, bye bye Evernote.

 

How can smart people come to such an algorithm?

How does it come that it takes so much time (years) to "repair" such an obvious mistake??

 

I think it is time to write a few comments in IT-literature about this.

 

Best regards

[cbits 12]

I'm with Yahenda on this point.

I've been watching this topic for over a year, with debates about "largest, smallest sides" etc. how anal can you get?

 

The issue here isn't complex; "set featured image", Wordpress can do it, Google+ can do it, FB can do it Twitter can do it, I can do it in an email, but EVERNOTE can't manage it??

 

Cumon guys you do unending updates for differences I cannot see, but something many customers want and no-one is going to argue against,?

Use whatever algorithms you want, it's hugely unimportant, BUT let me override them to say "I want to use this image"

 

Or do you really think so little of your customers?

[HuggyTheBear 4]

 

Or do you really think so little of your customers?

 

Dude, they are currently working on an algorithm that deletes all the nude pictures of Jennifer Lawrence that people have saved. That's more important than solving the thumbnail issue ;-)

[cbits 12]

Jennifer Lawrence ?? who is Jennifer Lawrence ??

My nude piccies are of Bill Gates, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and some guy called Obama something, or other,

but don't worry Evernote will never find them cos I cant set them as "featured image"

[atodwe 3]

This has been my main issue with Evernote since becoming a very early adopter. I am an artist and a designer and Evernote's visual aspect is part of what makes Evernote work for me over other solutions. Yet the inability to choose the thumbnail is completely at odds with this core nature of the app. In my experience, and from what I have read in how-to recommendations, using Evernote as frequently and deeply as possible is the way to get the most out of it. With a high volume of notes, trying to think about algorithms about "largest of smallest dimensions" of the images in the note is not possible. It is too confusing and and to open and resize all one's images, calculating a dimension strategy, would just take too much time.

 

I love TheBrain software; I think the system of forming relationships between notes/thoughts is very compelling and useful, and it has many capabilities and features. I also love the look of it. But the one reason I have a hard time using it as my primary note/thought repository is that the interface is, ultimately, not visual enough for me. I want to scan through my notes and see a visual representation, not just a title. Evernote is better on this score, even without the ability to choose thumbnails. But Evernote would be so much more successful with that feature.

 

Evernote, is there any chance you are working on the addition of this feature? I throw in my strong request that you do.

 

Please!

 

Thanks!! 

[Spectrablue 2]

I too need to select which of two images in my note are the thumbnail. I would also like to see the image chosen shrunk to fit the default thumbnail image and not see evidence of cropping. Or let me choose to crop or not to crop as long as you care about giving me thumbnail edit experiences. 

 

I have bought the evernote scanner... I'll be scanning over 13,000 art cards from FPG, Comic Images and the like. I've scanned about 6500 so far. Each card has a front and back image. In theory the size of the images should be the same as its just front and back of the same physical card as it rolls through the Evernote (Fujitsu) scanner. The outcome of which image is selected for the thumbnail in my experience with ties is just bizarre. The front of the card typically is the first image (assuming I correctly inserted the card stack in the scanner) and has an artistic image on it. The back image is text describing the image on the front along with a numbering schema. Obviously I would like the first art image to be the thumbnail. Alas, I'm stuck with all the other users who look at this situation in total bewilderment. Frankly all these images are also uploaded to Google drive and presented via Google plus and managed via Google picasa. Ultimately the tools in Picasa and Google Plus photos allow me to do what I need. Yet Evernote was so close yet so far away due to this feature. Presentation mode almost allowed me to do what I wanted but they insisted upon the header showing up when I don't want it to be part of the experience. Instead I rely upon the "Highlights" and "Show all" in Google Photo's to manage my presentations with or without the 2nd back side images. Weirdly I have to use Google Picasa to sort them the way I want them. Google drive itself is fubaring its thumbnail images soon with an update to default drive viewer experience that reduces the footprint(CROP) of the thumbnail somewhat similar to what Evernote does in cropping its "randomly" chosen thumbnail. The write answer is to shrink the users selected image to fit the predefined thumbnail size. Both Evernote and Google appear to be thwarting the ideal use of images for those who store artwork on their cloud depositories. Mainly I use evernote to tag my images for managing my collection rather than view it in Evernote due to these issues. 

Evernote, if you take presentation so seriously as to provide Premium with presentation mode then please for the love of the cosmos give us thumbnail control.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

How about Evernote's new Mac feature – that of being able to resize images inline… Could that affect the largest smallest dimension in any way?

[Jens Schriver 2]

It's getting increasingly frustrating that this is not an option. I use images extensively for art projects and the thumbnails are the quickest way to visually identify notes - however, as reference photos are added the thumbnail changes and identification becomes confusing.

 

Definitely a +1 from me!

[AdrianBrancato 6]

"Thumbnail override option" is definitely a LONG OVERDUE request.  

I am amazed (and frustrated) that apparently EN hasn't done a thing to address this obvious oversight.

 

[Frank.dg 1,385]

"Thumbnail override option" is definitely a LONG OVERDUE request.  

I am amazed (and frustrated) that apparently EN hasn't done a thing to address this obvious oversight.

 

I'm curious... perhaps Mac users on the forum could report back on whether the largest-smallest dimension can in any way be affected when one re-sizes  images inline. If so, would that not resolve this situation when the common editor rolls out to all platforms (if inline-image re-sizing is in fact part of the standardization)?

[AdrianBrancato 6]

I am a Mac user, latest OS X and latest Evernote.  I tried just that: resizing images inline in the note.  No amount of resizing seemed to have any effect on the selection of thumbnail image.

[KevinRC5 2]

I'm adding my two cents to this one, too.  I would LOVE to be able to choose the thumbnail.  As it stands, Evernote almost never chooses the thumbnail I would choose.  Which means the thumbnails are a DISTRACTION to finding the note I want, not a HELP.

 

If I could choose the thumbnail, when needed, it would be a HUGE HELP.

 

This exactly is what kept me from committing to Evernote as a premium subscriber.  The thumbnail selection is a distraction that can make it HARDER --not easier-- to find what I want.

 

This particular discussion has been going on for 3 years, so how has it not been a priority to come up with a way to override the automatic thumbnail selection with manual choice of thumbnail image that would actually let us associate images that we know will work for us with our notes?  Overall, Evernote is a great application, so I can't imagine incompetence is the reason... so I can only guess that its a continued, willful choice to force the built in algorithm to choose for us.

 

VERY amateurish effort in that regard, guys.  Please try to fix this. 

[mptpro 2]

Why not 1) select the first image in a note as the thumbnail

2) also let the user override this by selecting a specific image as the thumbnail?

[icebox 0]

+1 For letting allowing us to change the thumbnail.

 

Second issue, has the algorithm changed ? I was scrapping some webpages and I always get a thumbnail of the "unknown" face of the avatars instead of pictures from the article. I'm using the beta clipper for Firefox. Here is an example site where this happends: http://www.mash4077tv.com/2014/12/08/episode-spotlight-mail-call-again/

 

I even tried removing all avatar images from the note but the thumbnail remains.

[Natalie 10]

I'm a Mac user as well. I've tried too, doesn't seem to work for me either. 

 

Any word from Evernote on whether they are working on this? I'm debating finding another program to use as this is becoming too frustrating to deal with. 

[AntonioXeira 1]

Its a must. I keep coming back looking for this.

[KevinRC5 2]

+1 For letting allowing us to change the thumbnail.

 

Second issue, has the algorithm changed ? I was scrapping some webpages and I always get a thumbnail of the "unknown" face of the avatars instead of pictures from the article. I'm using the beta clipper for Firefox. Here is an example site where this happends: http://www.mash4077tv.com/2014/12/08/episode-spotlight-mail-call-again/

 

I even tried removing all avatar images from the note but the thumbnail remains.

Just one more reason why a manual override selection should be possible.

[Scott-W 9]

It's been 3.5 years since this problem was identified.  No action from Evernote.

 

I'm willing to sign any formal petitions.

 

I'm open to alternative applications.

[DrunkenCyclist 21]

WOW!!!!

I decided to try Evernote after having abandoned the idea several years ago.

Within 15 minutes of starting to use it I began to wonder how I can change the thumbnail image represented on notes -- because web clippings are pulling in BANNER ADS to append to the note thumbnails.

Then I started reading all these threads about how people have been requesting this feature for several years and being ignored.

I'm done with Evernote now for good -- after a single hour of playing around with it.

 

Just thought I'd throw that in there. It typically doesn't take me long to reject apps based on completely stupid UI decisions -- and this is just another example.

I'm beyond shocked that the whole point of Evernote is to organize your notes -- and it doesn't even let you choose a thumbnail image???

I am a UI developer who maintains a very large web app. One of the features of this app is the ability to scrape content such as articles from sites and pull it into our system. We give our users a left / right arrow to CHOOSE which image represents their content instead of doing all this hogwash to have a ROBOT try and figure out what the user wants.

How about just let the USER choose what the USER wants to do? It is much simpler from a development standpoint AND makes the users happy too. We even let them CROP the damn images before they are imported into our system. I mean, this is standard fare, considering that's also how FACEBOOK works.

How the imbiciles who threw this app together can't figure THAT out just shows me this app will get on my nerves even more if I tried to use it for a week.

[DrunkenCyclist 21]

Well, after looking at explanation of how the "largest smallest" dimensions determine which image becomes the thumbnail, it makes more sense from a development standpoint as that is a simpler approach than letting the user choose their image -- but from a usability standpoint -- who really wants to see a bunch of banner ads attached to their notes in the list views -- images that have nothing to do whatsoever with the content of the note?

I am still shocked that nobody has addressed this with users for the last 3 years people seem to have been asking for it.

[AdrianBrancato 6]

Whoa!  That was quite a leap, from irritation to outright rejection!  ;-)

 

I have accumulated nearly 9,000 notes, from 1997 when I started collecting digital notes on my Palm PDA.  Through those years I have been forced to use some pretty sorry software from major vendors.  Then I "went over to the white side".  I've used EN since 2011 and I've seen no reason to switch.  It has handled the heavy volume of data without a hiccup.

[DrunkenCyclist 21]

LOL -- I guess I am passionate about good UI experiences. I am going to give it an honest try because I think the benefits outweigh the things that "irritate" me before I slam the door shut. There is no such thing as a perfect system that makes EVERYONE happy in every way, and developer should make that his/her goal either.

 

I'm a visual person and can agree with people in here who say being able to choose which image they'd like for the note will help them spot it in a list view (which is the whole point of having one).

It would not be hard, since they already scrape the content to find all the images in the first place -- to create an easy way for a user to simply choose which one to use, or disable it.

I know the goal of the "everything bucket" concept of having a place for "digital hoarders" to keep their stuff somewhat organized isn't to make eveything "pretty" -- but I think there's a wider benefit than being able to choose "eye candy" for your notes here.

[AdrianBrancato 6]

Oh, I agree completely.  This seemingly simple feature has been overlooked for too long.

 

Digital Hoarder?  Did you really say, "Digital Hoarder"??    Guilty as charged!   LOL 

 

Another peeve of mine is EN's inability to accept punctuation marks as valid characters in a search string, but that should be a different post.

[DrunkenCyclist 21]

Yeah, the danger I see with this already is that while the desktops of several computers I use shall be clean, and my google drive less messy -- I'll end up with a digital closet that looks like an episode of "Hoaders" with this.

I ran into one glitch with copy / pasting some notes from a plain text file into an ever-note already but then on the plus side, I can already think of one scenario that would have been useful to me recently in regards to having quick access to some PDF files I typically need to find on their source web site(s) whenever I need to reference them, so I can see this being useful. I already keep most of my "notes" for things in a google drive, but this seems to be a step up from that.

 

I read a couple of lifehacker articles about things people are doing with EN that were a little bit outside of the box and it inspired me to give it another shot. I tried it a few years back and just couldn't get into it.

[AdrianBrancato 6]

I didn't take to it at first either, but on import EN swallowed my entire 8K note hoard quickly and smoothly.  Some others I tried, like SimpleNote, literally choked part way through.  Apple's Notes accepted all of my data but then the web interface would crash each time I tried to do a search.  EN is tough, and from what I've seen very careful with my precious data.

[RightPaddock 34]

Is there someway I can control which image is displayed as a thumbnail in the snippet note list view

 

I can't work out what the basis is for which image is shown, its not the first, its not the last, and I don't think its the biggest byte-wise or largest pixel-wise.

 

tia - RP

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Hi @RightPaddock,

 

Yes and no. It has to do with the "largest smallest" dimension, explained here:

 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/18482-choosing-a-thumbnail/

 

Yes... if you modify your images according to the above criteria. No... if you don't have the inclination to tinker with image resizing and trying to wrap your brain around meeting the requirements of the "largest smallest" dimension every time you want to select one image to be the image displayed in snippet/ card view from multiple images that come from multiple sources. 

 

Take clipping web pages with multiple images, for example. Imagine trying to set a thumbnail image for each, other than the one which already matches the "largest smallest" dimension criteria. However, if this is critical to you, and in certain use cases you can establish a simple workflow that is repeatable and takes the above into account, then the "largest smallest" dimension is your guiding light. That is, until  Evernote provides a way to manually select the desired image. Who know, it may be just around the corner :-)

[Jumoke 3]

I used Springpad specifically for this reason and was very sad to move to Evernote when Springpad closed. Having thumbnails is very important to me.

 

I am a software developer and I can't understand in any programming and human logic why this much needed feature is taking so long to add!!!

[Scott-W 9]

For what it's worth, I submitted a ticket on this.

 

I received a canned answer about how Evernote cares, but they don't know anything.

 

I find this issue to be a cruel and ironic trick.  Evernote, for the most part, has made a stellar and clean app that appeals to analytic and organized minds.  Yet, when it comes to this very simple and needed organizational tool, they fall short.  Pleasure spiked with pain.

 

In some cases, I'm tempted to go to such lengths as manually re-sizing my preferred icon image to have gargantuan proportions -- thus meeting the algorithm requirements.

[jefito 5,589]

Pleasure spiked with pain.

I understand that some people like that sort of thing...

[nsmith 1]

Why aren't users allowed to pick the image they want?

[mattrazzo 8]

+1  This has been a frequent frustration.  

 

The fact that I've been a paid premium member for many years, does that make my vote any more important?

 

Please... you guys have done so much to make the application usable and responded to user feedback very effectively in the past.  This is the last thing for me (of course famous last words, but still...)

 

Thanks

[Yahenda 6]

After checking this thread periodically for almost 4 years, hoping that Evernote would come around to addressing this design flaw, I have finally built my own work-around.

Now, I'm sure there are some involved in this discussion that would object to the term "design flaw", but this thread only exists because this many Evernote users agree with me; that software purported to keep and organize notes that then arbitrarily (or rather, formulaically) misrepresents the contents of those notes, has a flaw in it's design.

I don't know a lot about using Apple Automator, but I learned some just for this task... so be warned, if you have problems getting it to work, I may not be able to help so proceed with caution.

(Unfortunately, this work-around only works for the desktop Mac Evernote client, but of course, the changes you make will sync to all other platforms.)

 

These instructions seem lengthy and daunting, but they are extremely simple to follow and you should be up and running in less than 10 minutes.

1. Open Automator (located in Applications/Utilities)

 

2. Under "Choose a type for your document", select 'Service'.

 

3. In the first pulldown menu shown in the main window, beside "Service receives selected", choose 'image files'.

 

4. In the "Actions" column on the far left, choose 'Photos'

 

5. In the column immediately to the right, find the entry for 'scale images' and drag it into the main window.

 

6. In the box that just appeared in the main window, from the pulldown menu, select 'By Percentage' and type '200' in the text field to the right. (the 200 refers to enlarging the image by 200%, which usually does the trick to force the [curse word] 'largest smallest dimension' algorithm to recognize it, but you can fill in this value with whatever number suits you)

 

7. Go back to the "Actions" column on the far left and select "Utilities".

 

8. In the column immediately to the right, find the entry for 'Run AppleScript' and drag it into the main window, below the "Scale Images" item.

 

9. In the AppleScript window, select the bracketed text, including the brackets :

 

(* Your script goes here *)

 

 .... and replace that text with the following:

 

    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "o" using command down
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "a" using command down
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using command down
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "q" using command down

 

10. From the same "Utilities" column where you found the "Run AppleScript" item, grab the "Launch Application" item and drag it to the main window below the "Run AppleScript" item.

 

11. From the "Launch Application" pulldown, select 'Evernote'

 

12. Grab another "Run AppleScript" from the "Utilities" column, and select the bracketed text and replace it with:

 

    delay 1
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down

 

13. Finally, back once more to the "Utilities" column and grab "Move Finder Items to Trash" and drag it into the main window, below that last "Run AppleScript".

 

14. Save it: go to the File menu at the top, choose 'Save'... after you give it a name (I called mine "Evernote Image Embiggener") it should ask you if you want to install it as a 'Service', yes you do, so do it.

 

... if it doesn't prompt you to install it as a Service, then just save it to ~/Library/Services, then close Automator and then re-open it and cancel the template selection dialogues until you can select 'open recent' from the file menu... at this point it should offer to install it as a Service. If it still doesn't, well, move forward anyway with your fingers crossed... the worst that will happen is that it just won't work... but it won't wreck your system.
 

Now that the Automator service is in place, you can invoke it from the Finder menu under Services, but I made a keyboard shortcut for it:

 

In the System Preferences, Keyboard, Shortcuts menu... choose Services from the left, your Automator Service will appear under Pictures in the right column... assign a keyboard shortcut ... I used ⎇⌘C (Option - Command - c) ... you can use whatever you like.

 

NOW... here's the magic...

 

1. since Evernote won't let me use an Automator Service within the application (or I can't figure out what to tweak to make it work like other apps)... you have to take the image you want to use as your note's thumbnail image and drag it to your desktop (or any Finder window) to apply the service. I like to copy the image to the bottom of the note first, so that after it's enlarged, it won't disturb the formatting of the original note: right click the image, select "copy image" (not "copy) and press ⌘ - ↓ to go right to the bottom of the note and paste it.

 

2. Drag your ideal thumbnail image from the Evernote note to your desktop and make sure it's selected.

 

3. Run your keyboard shortcut or click Finder, Services and click your Service's name there.

 

DONE! You'll see Preview open for a second and then close, the image you had selected in Evernote will be %200 larger and the file you dragged to your desktop will have been moved to the trash!

 

To recap in brief:

 

1. Select thumbnail image in note

2. "Copy Image" to the end of the note

3. Drag that image to desktop

4. Run Service (either from Finder, Services menu or by shortcut)

Sigh and smile as your world starts to make sense again.

This has been "How to Train Your Elephant" by Yahenda

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Yahenda:  Thanks for sharing.

 

However, your process seems very complicated, given that you can easily scale the image (up or down) using the Mac Preview app.

Just right-click on the image in Evernote, and choose "Open" (or "Open with..." if Preview is not the default).  Then goto Tools > Adjust Size.  Choose "Percentage" in the dropdown, set to 200 (or whatever you like), click OK.  Then SAVE and CLOSE.

 

For details see http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5936

 

 

After checking this thread periodically for almost 4 years, hoping that Evernote would come around to addressing this design flaw, I have finally built my own work-around.

 

[Yahenda 6]

Hey JMichael... you are absolutely right! It is ridiculously overcomplicated to set up... I AGREE!

...But the goal was to get the process as close to what most people in the thread seem to be asking for, which is approximately 'right-click image, make thumbnail'. After the setup is done (which I wrote out in full to both expose people to the power and relative simplicity of Automator, like I just was... and to make it available to everyone without having to host it or PM it out to people)... what you end up with (depending on your personal preferences) is right-click, drag, key-combo.

I also went to all the trouble to illustrate how important I consider this feature to the usability and workflow of Evernote.

Anyone else who wants to contribute to this idea, make suggestions or just throw 2 cents in, please do... Thanks for your input too, JMichael.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Yahenda:  Maybe I misunderstood how to use your automator tool.  Are you saying that after you have created the Automator service, all one has to do is right-click on the image in Evernote, and select "Make thumbnail" ?

[Jumoke 3]

After checking this thread periodically for almost 4 years, hoping that Evernote would come around to addressing this design flaw, I have finally built my own work-around.

...

 

To recap in brief:

 

1. Select thumbnail image in note

2. "Copy Image" to the end of the note

3. Drag that image to desktop

4. Run Service (either from Finder, Services menu or by shortcut)

Sigh and smile as your world starts to make sense again.

This has been "How to Train Your Elephant" by Yahenda

Omg! So much pain and suffering   

Ultimate suicide by evernote

[MikhailV 2]

 

Yahenda, on 05 Feb 2015 - 09:20 AM, said:

After checking this thread periodically for almost 4 years, hoping that Evernote would come around to addressing this design flaw, I have finally built my own work-around.

...

 

To recap in brief:

 

1. Select thumbnail image in note

2. "Copy Image" to the end of the note

3. Drag that image to desktop

4. Run Service (either from Finder, Services menu or by shortcut)

Sigh and smile as your world starts to make sense again.

This has been "How to Train Your Elephant" by Yahenda

Omg! So much pain and suffering    

Ultimate suicide by evernote

 

...unless you're a Windows user, in which case the world (of Evernote note thumbnails) remains a profoundly disorienting place  .

[Scott-W 9]

Thanks a bunch for sharing this work around Yahenda.

 

I will dust off my failing macbook pro and give this a go over the weekend.

 

Still dumbfounded that Evernote would rather sit on their hands and have people flood their servers with gigantic images, rather than add this simple feature.

 

I'm considering setting the image size to scale 900% just for the purpose of drawing attention to the problem.  Humongous files, here I come.

[Yahenda 6]

I know, right?! What's worse... As I was tooling around working on this method, I discovered something that makes this whole ordeal even more ludicrous: you can resize the images in your notes already with a simple drag of the corner of a selected image!! ...you just can't make them bigger, only smaller! So the code for quickly resizing images already THERE! Gaah!

[jefito 5,589]

Still dumbfounded that Evernote would rather sit on their hands and have people flood their servers with gigantic images, rather than add this simple feature.

 

I'm considering setting the image size to scale 900% just for the purpose of drawing attention to the problem.  Humongous files, here I come.

People can put pretty much whatever they want in their Evernote note database. Large images, small images, whatever. I don't see the problem, nor the relation to the actual issue here (choosing your note thumbnail, in case you weren't paying attention). But go ahead and punish Evernote with large uploads if you want -- it only counts against your own upload limit. And no-one else will know about it either, or care, for that matter.

 

And no, resizing images in the Windows client is actually not much of a big deal. You can do it with MS Paint even, or your favorite image editor.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Really jefito, people are just venting their extreme frustration about an issue that should have been fixed long ago.

Posts like yours don't add anything nor help anybody.  If you don't like their frustrations, why don't you just ignore them??

[Scott-W 9]

...go ahead and punish Evernote with large uploads if you want...

 

I'm not trying to punish Evernote with large uploads.  My hope would be that Evernote is using a variety of analytics.  That (possibly) an influx of large image files, or a higher percentage of accounts maxing out their upload limits, or meta data showing significant % increases, would get the attention of a decision maker.

 

Support requests and forum requests are not getting the attention of decision makers.  It's a testament to my frustrations, that I would be excited about a long shot idea like this 

[Jumoke 3]

 

...go ahead and punish Evernote with large uploads if you want...

 

I'm not trying to punish Evernote with large uploads.  My hope would be that Evernote is using a variety of analytics.  That (possibly) an influx of large image files, or a higher percentage of accounts maxing out their upload limits, or meta data showing significant % increases, would get the attention of a decision maker.

 

Support requests and forum requests are not getting the attention of decision makers.  It's a testament to my frustrations, that I would be excited about a long shot idea like this 

 

My name is Jumoke and I approve this post! 

[jefito 5,589]

Really jefito, people are just venting their extreme frustration about an issue that should have been fixed long ago.

Posts like yours don't add anything nor help anybody.  If you don't like their frustrations, why don't you just ignore them??

And your post is helping exactly whom? If you don't like my posts, why don't you just ignore them? You don't need to be the Forum Scold, you know...

[jefito 5,589]

 

...go ahead and punish Evernote with large uploads if you want...

 

I'm not trying to punish Evernote with large uploads.  My hope would be that Evernote is using a variety of analytics.  That (possibly) an influx of large image files, or a higher percentage of accounts maxing out their upload limits, or meta data showing significant % increases, would get the attention of a decision maker.

 

Support requests and forum requests are not getting the attention of decision makers.  It's a testament to my frustrations, that I would be excited about a long shot idea like this 

 

There are certainly legitimate use cases for large-scale imagery (think aerial or satellite photography, for example). Do you really think that pumping large images into your account is going to magically make Evernote think "Gee, maybe we should offer thumbnail choice rather than our funky lest-smallest algorithm"?? I doubt that they'd make the connection, personally. Oh, the OCR might cough a little on the large files, but otherwise, I doubt that they'd take much notice -- it'd have to be a rather large influx to make much difference, with upwards of 100 million users.

 

Evernote staffers (they're often PMs) have certainly joined in the discussion here, so they're aware of the request (and I see it as a legitimate one, for the record). Buf if it's not high priority for them, it's not high priority. *shrug*

[cbits 12]

Hang on here........  Something has changed..

 

My particular gripe is a list of my pathetic attempts to loose weight, where I posted a number of "before" images in my "undies" and then a diary showing my daily weights, now obviously whenever I access the note I don't wish to see the "old me" nearly nude, especially if I'm using it in the office or the Pub!

 

I added in my Gravatar image into the note, but really to make it bigger than a camera photo was a nonsense. so I kept having to open Evernote in private!

 

Suddenly when I look today - having re-visited this forum subject due to a flurry of recent posts - I find my Gravatar is now being displayed, both on the PC I use Evernote on and on the web version that I normally use....

 

I don't have an explanation for this, does anyone else?

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Hello,

 

CHOOSING the picture that is used as a thumbnail is what we all ask.

 

NO, WE ASK TO CHOOSE THE THUMBNAIL, not to change sizes.

That's adapting our work to a program that has a fault in its design, in stead of adapting the program to make our work easier and more intelligent.

 

 

Luk

 

Well said, Luk.

[Scott-W 9]

I agree Luk.  Good synopsis of this thread.

 

I would also add...  It is common in most apps that use photos and thumbnails to also include a cropping tool.

 

I have done a lot of extra tedious work with Photoshop, cropping desired thumbnails and re-sizing these cropped images to gigantic proportions, all to trick the lame Evernote algorithm.

 

Thumbnail selection has become a user expectation.  I can't think of a single added feature more important than this.

 

Given the prevalence of these thumbnail features across all kinds of programs and apps, I figure it must be easy to implement.  It's a "low hanging fruit".  Knowing it's simple to do and that it has not been done, I conclude that Evernote has made an intentional design choice to avoid this feature.  I would really like to hear why.

[jefito 5,589]

Sure -- choosing the thumbnail is certainly the topic here, not getting sidetracked into discussions of resizing images in Evernote (the subject of other, impassioned topics elsewhere in the forums).

 

Emerick from Evernote has certainly contributed, in this thread (see https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/18482-choosing-a-thumbnail/?p=92194 and forward) information as to what's going on with respect to how Evernote automatically chooses a thumbnail (like any rule of thumb *cough*, it's not perfect), but I don't recall ever seeing any explanation as to why they haven't implemented user choice of thumbnail. I'd be curious as to whether there is a technical or philosophical reason as to why they chose that, but beyond curiosity, leaving it at "just because" is good enough for me -- thumbnails aren't a significant part of my Evernote workflow. If they were, I'd just put a single image into notes where it mattered.

[icebox 0]

In case anybody cares I think it's getting worse:

 

I'm testing the latest beta of the firefox web clipper and it prefers gravatars for the thumbnail instead of the "biggest image in the page", so now my article clips have nice blank avatars or strange faces instead of article relevant images.

 

I begin to suspect this user tormenting is part of some satanic ritual that all evernote developers are part of.

 

Though I intend to vote with my wallet, if this option will not be added I will not be renewing my subscription.

[jefito 5,589]

In case anybody cares I think it's getting worse:

 

I'm testing the latest beta of the firefox web clipper and it prefers gravatars for the thumbnail instead of the "biggest image in the page", so now my article clips have nice blank avatars or strange faces instead of article relevant images.

 

I begin to suspect this user tormenting is part of some satanic ritual that all evernote developers are part of.

 

Though I intend to vote with my wallet, if this option will not be added I will not be renewing my subscription.

The algorithm isn't the "biggest image in the page"; it's a little trickier than that, and it's all been explained in the very early part of this topic -- see the description of "largest-smallest".

 

The web clipper pulls in content, but I think that the choice of thumbnail is probably done locally by the particular client that's running on your device (I don't think that there's anything in the Evernote note format that says that image X is the thumbnail). It's probably not a web clipper problem -- the web clipper is just building a note and pushing it up to the Evernote servers.

[icebox 0]

The algorithm isn't the "biggest image in the page"; it's a little trickier than that, and it's all been explained in the very early part of this topic -- see the description of "largest-smallest".

 

The web clipper pulls in content, but I think that the choice of thumbnail is probably done locally by the particular client that's running on your device (I don't think that there's anything in the Evernote note format that says that image X is the thumbnail). It's probably not a web clipper problem -- the web clipper is just building a note and pushing it up to the Evernote servers.

 

 

I know the algorithm is more complicated than than, but the results still suck - and I see no reason for it to choose the smallest image in the page, an image coming from another server at that. In the end I really only care about the result, especially in a product I'm paying for and the result is broken.

[Matt960 5]

Please evernote, if you're listening, give us some more options to show thumbnails – for a designer like me, I use evernote primarily for idea gathering – filenames are usually irrelevant to me, I want to search visually.

 

Looking at this screenshot below, why must I have the huge filename block covering the image?

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/135388/hosted/Screen%20Shot%202015-02-24%20at%2017.30.49.png

 

 

This screenshot from ember (for mac) shows a better way of handling this.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/135388/hosted/Screen%20Shot%202015-02-24%20at%2017.33.04.png

 

 

Please give us some options to be able to show the thumbnails how we want them. The old thumbnail view would be fine – if your UI designers really would like a uniform size for a tidy grid, please go for an approach as used by ember.

 

Thanks

[jefito 5,589]

Has anyone actually ever seen a response from Evernote regarding this??

 

Seems a little disrespectful of a company who's paying customers repeatedly ask for a feature  - and for years, to be completely ignored. If there's a reason why they can't do it or if they do plan to do it in some sort of near future, why can't they at least respond?

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/18482-choosing-a-thumbnail/. Look for the replies from emerick, downthread...

[rourri 0]

The "largest-smallest" doesn't work for me as I am adding only 2 images per note, as this is being used as a "non-database-database" of sorts for my huge catalog of sewing patterns.

I need an image of both the FRONT and BACK of the pattern envelope. With this, only one image is larger than the other one...there is no "largest-smallest"...

 

What I found that worked for 'TWO image' notes is part of 3 replies here from 3 people....

 

@Post_It had the easiest procedure of resizing in MS Paint:

 

>1) Once all your images are loaded on the note right click on those you want to resize.
>2) The image will automatically be selected and a pop up menu will appear.
>3) Select "open with" option and then choose Paint
>4) The file will open in Paint and windows will read it as a temp file from memory.
>5) Choose resize and resize the picture
>6) You can then click save and windows will automatically save the file in Evernote automatically resizing the image on the note itself.

>It seems Windows has the ability to recognise the file loaded from Evernote and resize it on the fly.

 

After doing as @Post_it suggested, originally resizing it to 50% less, I realized the "largest-smallest" wasn't going to work.

 

I then found @Owen and @Emerick had discussed larger images being "more important" by pixel size, I increased the pixel size by 100 for the front of the envelope picture, and I got the front of the

envelope picture as I had needed.

 

Just incase someone else has the same idea, don't waste your time...or maybe do... perhaps you can come up with anothe solution based on my findings.

 

Hoping that this gets fixed SOON... as I still have only 70 or so sewing patterns in to this...and about a thousand to go. I can still jump to OneNote after my test drive of that today... not happy about it, but its doable. I do hate Microsoft, and will hold out as long as I can...but this is a REAL pain in the butt...  And as PatternFile (the Sewing Database Service) has gone under, lots of sewing enthusiasts are migrating to evernote... blogs abound out there for evernote in the sewing world.

 

What I loved about this is @Post_it's paint method is fast, down and dirty on a PC.

 

One other comment on something that DIDN'T work, but I thought it might ( as its not really a "photo"... but was still an image)  was to "scan" the back of the envelope with my ipad evernote app, vs taking a "photo"... That had a 75% success rate. But I still have to then change quite a few front envelope images

 

So there you have it... I hope this helps someone else.

 

 

 

 

[dominikkalvelage 1]

As reply to rourris post (maybe you have a similar situation as I do) or to anyone who has a similar situation:

 

In case all your pictures in the note have the same dimensions (mine are all coming from the same digital camera), Evernote will choose the thumbnail based on the order, in which the pictures were inserted into the note and not based on the order of the pictures within the note.

So, if you have two pictures of the same dimensions <picture1> and <picture2> and you want to create a note with the two pictures in this order (<picture1>, <picture2>), but you want <picture2> to be the thumbnail, then first add <picture2> into the note and then add <picture1> above <picture2>.

This way your not will be "some text <picture1> <picture2>", but <picture2> will be the thumbnail.

 

As soon as the two picture have different dimensions (which probably is the case when they are coming from different sources (web, photographed, scanned)), the largest-smallest algorithm will perpetrate its despicable crime....

[MHMdigital 9]

For crying out loud this request has been going on forever.  (272 replies) It is OBVIOUS it would be a great step forward for Evernote.  Why is this option so difficult to add?

[Scott-W 9]

I submitted another help ticket on this issue.  (The squeaky wheel gets the grease)

 

"I am unable to select which image to use as the thumbnail on any of my notes."

 

I encourage others to do the same.

 

If a slew of help tickets doesn't make the radar, I'm considering a "We the People" petition 

[Jumoke 3]

For crying out loud this request has been going on forever.  (272 replies) It is OBVIOUS it would be a great step forward for Evernote.  Why is this option so difficult to add?

Because evernote developers are not that awesome 

[Scott-W 9]

Jeff (Evernote Support)

Mar 30, 15:30

Hello, and thank you for contacting Evernote Support.

My name is Jeff, and I'll be happy to assist with your inquiry.

It is currently not possible to choose which contents and/or images to be displayed in your notes' preview thumbnails, as it is not a feature.

Thank you for your kind feedback and request concerning the ability to choose the thumbnail for your notes. I have relayed this information to the development team for further review. We always welcome suggestions and I think this is excellent feedback to pass along.

While I cannot guarantee the changes can be made, they are taken into consideration by the development team.

Thank you so much for your feedback and thank you for helping make Evernote a better product!

Warmly,

Jeff B.

 

 

retrospy

Mar 23, 08:35

I am not able to select which image to use as the thumbnail on any of my notes. I made sure I am running the most recent updates on all of my devices (iPads, iPhone5, MacBookPro, Windows 8.1). There are no instructions in the support pages on how to do this. Please help.

[Davidone 0]

It is Mai 2015

Has someone found a solution or workaround?

I am relatively new to EN

I received a support mail in which EN told me the choice is random...

I tried resizing, but it does not work for me, is there a trick?

Please help me, I am a painter and need to chose my thumbnail

[cheesenightmare 9]

+1 for being able to select your own thumbnail 

[Daniel Shepherd 13]

Over 4 years of people complaining about just adding a simple option to manually set a thumbnail and it still hasn't been implemented.

 

Honestly, Evernote is my most important day to day too and yet I live with this awfully limiting and flawed software, no colour coding, no pinning notes to top, no flagging, no custom thumbnails - all really really basic features that could be added in a week and would improve the Evernote software ten fold?!

[Leah MacVie 7]

2 years later... we are still asking for this feature. I also give it a thumbs up. 

[Leah MacVie 7]

2 years later... we are still asking for this feature. I also give it a thumbs up. 

[prazzi 1]

+1, bump, whatever, I want this feature too.

 

When you have hundreds or even thousands of notes, and even when you've narrowed them down with search, a visual cue really helps to find that one note you're looking for. These cues are much more useful if you can select them.

[keodark 9]

Has anyone else noticed in the last few days that the automatic thumbnail algorithm has become even worse? The last 5 recipes I've clipped have chosen the weirdest thumbnails -- the tiny portrait of the blogger in her signature, a google plus share icon, a single star gif from a 4-star rating, a little document icon that doesn't even appear on the page, etc. In all of these cases there were big, beautiful juicy photos of the food in the clipping that were ignored by the algorithm.

 

C'mon Evernote, if you had the best possible image selection algorithm, maybe we could let this slide, but this is kinda ridiculous.

 

 

[DaveIsThisTaken?Dave 0]

Another +1.  This is insane? doesn't Evernote listen to its users?  I am constantly recommending Evernote to friends and family and have upgraded my own membership, but it disappoints me that Evernote seem insistent upon supporting an automated algorithm that nobody wants.

[Leah MacVie 7]

Hello folks, 

I hope that you will join me in Tweeting and commenting on Evernote's Facebook posts about this issue. It's been 3 years, thousands of user requests and it is something very small that they can make happen today:

"Dear Evernote - why are you not listening to your thousands of users about this small issue: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/18482-choosing-a-thumbnail/page-15"

[Leah MacVie 7]

YES! Hence my last post. 

GRRR. 

 

Has anyone else noticed in the last few days that the automatic thumbnail algorithm has become even worse? The last 5 recipes I've clipped have chosen the weirdest thumbnails -- the tiny portrait of the blogger in her signature, a google plus share icon, a single star gif from a 4-star rating, a little document icon that doesn't even appear on the page, etc. In all of these cases there were big, beautiful juicy photos of the food in the clipping that were ignored by the algorithm.

 

C'mon Evernote, if you had the best possible image selection algorithm, maybe we could let this slide, but this is kinda ridiculous.

[Guest]

Has anyone else noticed in the last few days that the automatic thumbnail algorithm has become even worse? The last 5 recipes I've clipped have chosen the weirdest thumbnails -- the tiny portrait of the blogger in her signature, a google plus share icon, a single star gif from a 4-star rating, a little document icon that doesn't even appear on the page, etc. In all of these cases there were big, beautiful juicy photos of the food in the clipping that were ignored by the algorithm.

 

C'mon Evernote, if you had the best possible image selection algorithm, maybe we could let this slide, but this is kinda ridiculous.

 

Hi there -

 

Are you still experiencing this issue? This shouldn't be happening. If so, please open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number. I'm happy to escalate this issue to our technical support team. 

 

Thank you!

[Scott-W 9]

 

 

Hi there -

 

Are you still experiencing this issue? This shouldn't be happening. If so, please open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number. I'm happy to escalate this issue to our technical support team. 

 

Thank you!

 

 

One solution can solve all of the problems notes in this 288 post forum.  Allow users to choose their own thumbnails.  Please bring this to the attention of the technical support team.  Thank You.

[Jackolicious 808]

Definitely noted.

[Leah MacVie 7]

Definitely noted.

Thank you! Thank you for responding! Is someone working on this?

[keodark 9]

 

Has anyone else noticed in the last few days that the automatic thumbnail algorithm has become even worse? The last 5 recipes I've clipped have chosen the weirdest thumbnails -- the tiny portrait of the blogger in her signature, a google plus share icon, a single star gif from a 4-star rating, a little document icon that doesn't even appear on the page, etc. In all of these cases there were big, beautiful juicy photos of the food in the clipping that were ignored by the algorithm.

 

C'mon Evernote, if you had the best possible image selection algorithm, maybe we could let this slide, but this is kinda ridiculous.

 

Hi there -

 

Are you still experiencing this issue? This shouldn't be happening. If so, please open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number. I'm happy to escalate this issue to our technical support team. 

 

Thank you!

 

 

support ticket #1115049

 

Note that I also tried this in the new Evernote Web beta, but it uses the same thumbnail images.

 

Of course, I'd much rather be able to select my own thumbnails, as would the hundreds of other customers who have posted in this thread.

[Spectrablue 2]

As far as algorithms go.... I scan documents with 2 sides 1 side with art the other side with text. I want the art side to be considered for the thumbnail. My experience remains that the outcome of the existing algorithm for me is near random. Sometimes the art is first sometimes the text. I use a Evernote ScanSnap. I insert the cards in the right way... and yet I get random thumbnail selections. I don't know if the scanner sometimes produces the back and front as somehow different sizes (even though its the same document)...

but essentially a front/back situation demands that we be able to choose whether the front or back is used as the thumbnail. No algorithm is going to handle a front/backside scan from Evernote Scansnap very well. So empower us please to select our own thumbnail among all the images contained in a note.. Thanks.

[Guest]

 

 

Has anyone else noticed in the last few days that the automatic thumbnail algorithm has become even worse? The last 5 recipes I've clipped have chosen the weirdest thumbnails -- the tiny portrait of the blogger in her signature, a google plus share icon, a single star gif from a 4-star rating, a little document icon that doesn't even appear on the page, etc. In all of these cases there were big, beautiful juicy photos of the food in the clipping that were ignored by the algorithm.

 

C'mon Evernote, if you had the best possible image selection algorithm, maybe we could let this slide, but this is kinda ridiculous.

 

Hi there -

 

Are you still experiencing this issue? This shouldn't be happening. If so, please open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number. I'm happy to escalate this issue to our technical support team. 

 

Thank you!

 

 

support ticket #1115049

 

Note that I also tried this in the new Evernote Web beta, but it uses the same thumbnail images.

 

Of course, I'd much rather be able to select my own thumbnails, as would the hundreds of other customers who have posted in this thread.

 

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

[keodark 9]

...

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

 

 

Here's the reply from Evernote Support:

 

Thanks for contacting Evernote support. Thank you for your patience during this process. To clarify, I understand random thumbnail images are being associated with your notes.

Thumbnail images are created based on their size. Evernote chooses the "easiest" (usually smallest) images in the note to display in the thumbnail view. Evernote will automatically choose a random image if there are multiple images in the note. One way to prevent this is to delete these "random" images in the note.

Once the random images are deleted, the thumbnail may refresh once you click on a different note, then click back to view the note in question. This will "force" the Evernote server to recognize the images remaining in the note and will create a new thumbnail image.

 

... Seriously? That's the solution? Delete images, smallest first, until it randomly picks the right one? No thanks.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Wow!  Has the selection algorithm really changed to random?  Back in 2011 Evernote employee @emerick reported that Evernote uses this strange notion of "the largest smallest dimension".

 

 

 

I don't know how EN selects the thumbnail.

We select the image with the largest smallest dimension. There are some other rules, but that's the main one.

 

 

 

 

The largest smallest dimension?

Yeah. For example, if you have 3 images with the following dimensions:

75x100
100x400
200x300

The "smallest" dimensions are 75, 100, and 200, respectively. We're going to use the image with the largest of those "smallest" dimensions (i.e., 200).

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

 

[Guest]

 

...

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

 

 

Here's the reply from Evernote Support:

 

Thanks for contacting Evernote support. Thank you for your patience during this process. To clarify, I understand random thumbnail images are being associated with your notes.

Thumbnail images are created based on their size. Evernote chooses the "easiest" (usually smallest) images in the note to display in the thumbnail view. Evernote will automatically choose a random image if there are multiple images in the note. One way to prevent this is to delete these "random" images in the note.

Once the random images are deleted, the thumbnail may refresh once you click on a different note, then click back to view the note in question. This will "force" the Evernote server to recognize the images remaining in the note and will create a new thumbnail image.

 

... Seriously? That's the solution? Delete images, smallest first, until it randomly picks the right one? No thanks.

 

 

We've looked into the issue further and our developers would like to work on this directly. We've just sent a reply to your email with additional information. 

 

Thank you in advance for raising this issue - We're here to help.

[Leah MacVie 7]

 

...

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

 

 

Here's the reply from Evernote Support:

 

Thanks for contacting Evernote support. Thank you for your patience during this process. To clarify, I understand random thumbnail images are being associated with your notes.

Thumbnail images are created based on their size. Evernote chooses the "easiest" (usually smallest) images in the note to display in the thumbnail view. Evernote will automatically choose a random image if there are multiple images in the note. One way to prevent this is to delete these "random" images in the note.

Once the random images are deleted, the thumbnail may refresh once you click on a different note, then click back to view the note in question. This will "force" the Evernote server to recognize the images remaining in the note and will create a new thumbnail image.

 

... Seriously? That's the solution? Delete images, smallest first, until it randomly picks the right one? No thanks.

 

 

But the thing is THIS does NOT work. I've tried deleting on several notes on several instances. They have to be more specific here. Do they mean the web version, application or mobile? None of them have worked for me. Even if deleted, the note will still* keep the deleted image as a thumbnail. 

[TotheMoonAlice 16]

How hard would it be to implement the default to display the first image in a note as the thumbnail. Always

 

No user options to add.

 

Users can then just make sure the image they want is at the top (which is probably the image they want/expect to display most of the time) -- so they essentially get to choose which image displays.

 

Even if this isn't what users want in the long-run, is this not a best-case scenario in the meantime, instead of a strange algorithmic formula that users can't even work with?

[Guest]

 

 

...

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

 

 

Here's the reply from Evernote Support:

 

Thanks for contacting Evernote support. Thank you for your patience during this process. To clarify, I understand random thumbnail images are being associated with your notes.

Thumbnail images are created based on their size. Evernote chooses the "easiest" (usually smallest) images in the note to display in the thumbnail view. Evernote will automatically choose a random image if there are multiple images in the note. One way to prevent this is to delete these "random" images in the note.

Once the random images are deleted, the thumbnail may refresh once you click on a different note, then click back to view the note in question. This will "force" the Evernote server to recognize the images remaining in the note and will create a new thumbnail image.

 

... Seriously? That's the solution? Delete images, smallest first, until it randomly picks the right one? No thanks.

 

 

But the thing is THIS does NOT work. I've tried deleting on several notes on several instances. They have to be more specific here. Do they mean the web version, application or mobile? None of them have worked for me. Even if deleted, the note will still* keep the deleted image as a thumbnail. 

 

 

Leah,

 

I understand your frustration and please know that we really are here to help and want to get this working for you. Will you open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number? I'll route it to our technical team members and they'll explain the steps and see what's going on from your end. 

 

Lolitta

[Murk 8]

 

Leah,

 

I understand your frustration and please know that we really are here to help and want to get this working for you. Will you open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number? I'll route it to our technical team members and they'll explain the steps and see what's going on from your end. 

 

Lolitta

 

 

I have a solution for fixing the algorithm. It may be simplistic in concept.... but....

Perhaps you could allow the users to over-ride and choose their own thumbnail?

Please?

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I have a solution for fixing the algorithm. It may be simplistic in concept.... but....

Perhaps you could allow the users to over-ride and choose their own thumbnail?

Please?

 

What a great idea!  

 

Perhaps that's exactly what the OP had in mind 4 years ago:

 

Can I somehow force Evernote to use a specific image as thumbail?

[Leah MacVie 7]

 

 

 

...

 

Thank you! Your ticket has been escalated to our technical support team and you should receive another response via email shortly. 

 

 

Here's the reply from Evernote Support:

 

Thanks for contacting Evernote support. Thank you for your patience during this process. To clarify, I understand random thumbnail images are being associated with your notes.

Thumbnail images are created based on their size. Evernote chooses the "easiest" (usually smallest) images in the note to display in the thumbnail view. Evernote will automatically choose a random image if there are multiple images in the note. One way to prevent this is to delete these "random" images in the note.

Once the random images are deleted, the thumbnail may refresh once you click on a different note, then click back to view the note in question. This will "force" the Evernote server to recognize the images remaining in the note and will create a new thumbnail image.

 

... Seriously? That's the solution? Delete images, smallest first, until it randomly picks the right one? No thanks.

 

 

But the thing is THIS does NOT work. I've tried deleting on several notes on several instances. They have to be more specific here. Do they mean the web version, application or mobile? None of them have worked for me. Even if deleted, the note will still* keep the deleted image as a thumbnail. 

 

 

Leah,

 

I understand your frustration and please know that we really are here to help and want to get this working for you. Will you open up a support ticket via https://evernote.com/contact/support/ and let me know the number? I'll route it to our technical team members and they'll explain the steps and see what's going on from your end. 

 

Lolitta

 

 

Ticket #1130007