ScottLougheed

 

I have EN installed at home and my office. What freaks me out is that someone at work can easily dismount the hard drive, attach it to another PC and just copy the whole EN database, or just reboot the machine from a USB stick and copy all the EN data.

 

I could maybe use something like bitlocker or other hard drive encryption but in reality this would be overkill. Most of the time it is also impossible to use hard drive encryption due to work policy where you don't have authorization or control over these kind of changes.

 

An option to encrypt a notebook would be extremely welcome in this cases. LastPass encrypts the whole local database and is also fully searchable so I really don't understand why cannot Evernote do something like this. I will gladly pay for premium access just for this feature.

 

I will be contacting support for letting them know. There are many users that want this.

 

There is a third-party application that should be available soon to help alleviate the problem.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/81336-saferoom-zero-knowledge-encryption-for-evernote-and-more/

 

I've been beta-testing Saferoom for Mac and iOS, and it seems to do an admirable job of encrypting, though it comes with some MASSIVE trade-offs, and it is not exactly a simple application to use. 

The trade-offs largely are a result not of Saferoom's shortcomings, but because Evernote was simply not designed to have fully zero-knowledge-encrypted data within it. 

That being said, for people who desperately need to store confidential information in Evernote and are unable to use other options that exist because of finances or workflow constraints, Saferoom is deficiently a great option. 

I store my confidential information (well, its actually other people's confidential information), in a different program, Everything I store in Evernote is largely inconsequential if it leaks, so I'm not sure if I will have to rely on Saferoom a great deal, but it has definitely been fun to beta test. 

Scott and JMichael, I AM actually using suggestion #2 now as a workaround, and it's...better.   Thanks.

But I concur with what lykoz said.   Most other similar apps (dropbox, CloudON, MSWord & Excel with their Search bars, etc.) have a sidebar that can disappear or be minimized, so much so that I have wasted much time trying to find such a feature on EN,  assuming it must exist.

I think the new Web Beta demonstrates that Evernote is into experimenting with these types of dynamic interface elements. Lots of things are fading/sliding in and out of view based on user input. Applied smartly (I think it is applied a bit heavy-handedly in the Web Beta), such as you are suggesting, it could be really good and help free up some space, especially for users on small displays or who split screen. 

That being said, Evernote has done little more than add a few buttons and coats of paint to the Mac interface in the last several years. I suspect if anything like you are suggesting will be implemented, it won't be until they do a massive interface overhaul (arguably v. 6 brought such an overhaul, but I don't think it did really. They changed the paint, but didn't knock down any walls).

Only time will tell! It is a good suggestion IMO.

There is no need to install any additional software to clip to Evernote in Safari. You only need to install the latest version of Evernote for iOS and then follow the directions here:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/67298-new-clip-web-pages-on-ios-8/

So this feature has been revoked again? For good?

Just attempted to share a notebook publicly without issue. This feature still seems to be around. 

Here's my attempt to do so just a second ago:

https://www.evernote.com/l/ABnVvugURN9NvK6gYr5znL5MzwG86OMVqWE

Presumably that is correct. And presumably your local notebooks should show up as destinations for your clippings so you should be able to clip directly to them (there should be more discussion on this in the threads I have linked to earlier in our discussion). 

So for now, unless something changes with Firefox/Evernote's clipper, you should be in the clear if you choose to switch. 

The only way to 100% guarantee forever that you'll always be able to get directly into a local notebook would be to do the print to pdf method. This also safeguards against possible mis-clicks in which you tell the clipper to clip to a synced notebook accidentally. The print-to-pdf method would decrease the likelihood that something like this could happen. 

Well... that depends on what you want to accomplish... 

When you clip something, it is placed first on Evernote's servers (and subject to whatever goes on there in terms of server snapshots, backups, caching, mirroring etc). Only when it is on Evernote's servers does it sync down to your desktop client. Turning on manual sync won't do anything except prohibit your desktop application from fetching the clipped note from Evernote's servers. The only way that manual sync would help would be if you accidentally added 

Now, when you remove it from the synced notebook, no further server side activity will occur, but it will not undo anything that previously occurred. So if that note got cached, mirrored, or caught in a snapshot, it will stay there until it gets purged (I have no idea which, if any, of these things Evernote does, and if it does any of them, how specifically they are handled in terms of retaining caches etc). (Additionally: This is not unusual for most cloud services, a lot of this has to do with ensuring that data is available to users quickly, and that users' data aren't lost, and to protect against corruption or hardware failures on the service provider's end.)

Now, since we are talking about the web clipper, presumably anything you are clipping was already on the world wide web, and thus, publicly available. So the serious concern over the privacy of that content is unclear. 
The exception would be if you are using the clipper to clip personal data from something like your bank's website or something along those lines. That, of course, is private data that a person may not want in anybody's cloud (except, of course, their bank's cloud...). If this is the case, for this particularly sensitive content, you might want to use your browser to print the relevant content to a PDF that is saved to your computer's hard drive, then add the PDF directly to a local notebook. This would prevent it from ever having to hit Evernote's servers. 

Not as elegant as the clipper, but it ensures your privacy and it isn't a terribly onerous process.

It is not possible to save directly to the local Evernote client using the Clipper in Chrome. Aside from IE and I believe Firefox, Chrome and other browsers do not allow their extensions to have such deep access to local files, so the clipper can only work via Evernote's servers FIRST, then sync down to your client. More, including a word from Evernote Staff:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/54415-send-clips-to-desktop-evernote/

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/35268-save-clip-in-local-notebook/

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/67029-web-clipping-to-offline-notebook/

Since you are clipping things already on the web, it probably isn't terrible if they are in a synced notebook briefly. As such, a workaround (I stress the word Workaround, because there is no solution to this problem), would be to clip them into your default notebook, perhaps tagging them in such a way as to draw your attention to them as needing to be moved to a local notebook. Once you are done clipping, say, once a day, just move all those clippings to the appropriate offline notebook. 

Ah, I see your issue. You have a note open in its own window, and it is being covered by the main window when resorting from a minimized state because the main window arrives later. 

That does sound like a pain... Not sure of a solution!

I don't observe this behaviour when minimizing (using cmd-m or the yellow button). I do observe this when closing the evernote window with cmd-w or the red X. Can you clarify whether you are closing (cmd-w/red) or minimizing (cmd-m/yellow) the window?

It isn't entirely inconsistent with other applications. There is some variance in how applications behave when windows are closed.

For example, when you close your browser window (cmd-w), then open the browser window again, you aren't returned to the exact location you were at before pressing cmd-w (unless you have "restore previous session" or an equivalent setting set up). Likewise with a Finder window. Cmd-w a finder window, and open finder again, you are taken to some default window state, not the previous state of the finder window you just closed. There are others. 

HOWEVER, Calendar and Mail, among others, when closed with cmd-w, will always return you to your previous state... 

But I'm being nit-picky about details (sorry, it's my nature....). Ultimately the request to have Evernote return you to your previous view when opening a new window seems very reasonable. 

But the current state, frustrating though it may be), is not necessarily inconsistent with other applications, and not about minimizing. 

It doesn't seem that iftt allows for Evernote to be a trigger anymore. Am I missing something?

You seem to be correct. 

If you need evernote to trigger actions I recommend checking out Zapier. For example:

Just thought I'd climb back into this boat. 

Again, not debating the request in the slightest, but I wonder if sharing stacks is really the best way to solve some of the shortcomings with sharing. 

For example, the idea behind sharing stacks, as I see it, is to share multiple notebooks in a single pass. For both technical and practical reasons I wonder whether this is ideal. Perhaps a revamped sharing mechanism not based on stacks would be ideal.

Stack-based sharing means that the sharer is limited in their organization according to where/how notebooks are shared. This could be frustrating if, for example, you have a stack that has a combination of notebooks to be shared, and not to be shared, or where permissions differ for some of the notebooks within the stack. 

It also makes it hard if many notebooks need to be shared with the same people bet exist in several different stacks because that is how the are best organized conceptually. Then you have to re-organize your notebooks simply for the sake of being able to share them easier. To me this is not a worthwhile tradeoff. 

Thus, rather than sharing stacks, I would argue that some bulk sharing mechanism would be ideal. It solves, essentially, the same issue, which is sharing large numbers of notebooks simultaneously. It also means that stacks remain purely organizational, so you could have a scheme in which stacks are created based on how notebooks are shared (so a stack that contains all notebooks shared with X and another for those shared with y), or you could use stacks for your own organizational needs not related to sharing. 

It also deals with the conceptual complexity of sharing a "stack". With sharing a stack, on the recipients end, should it appear as a stack or a bunch of discrete notebooks? Is this bunch of notebooks something they can then organize how they like? Or is the organization of these notebooks within a stack imposed by the owner?

Bulk sharing does away with any of these complexities.

Long story short:

I understand the need for mass-sharing. I think mass-sharing by stack is misguided. I think mass sharing shouldn't be tied to stacks, it needs to be its own mechanism. 

 

 

An encrypted note would presumably have the following parts of its content encrypted:

* The note contents itself

* The note's resources (attachments)

* At least some of its attributes (tags? location? sourceURL? date fields?) There's a pretty good gang of them.

* Its recognition text (text produced via OCR)

 

 

This is a tricky one. Technically any note encrypted from the get-go could never be OCR'd because that's completed server-side. A properly (effectively) encrypted note should not be accessible to the servers. 

What this means is that some notes will be created without encryption, OCR'd, then encrypted.... which means you'd have OCR data to potentially encrypt. But then you'd have a new class of notes, those which were encrypted upon creation which could never be OCR'd and would have no OCR data to encrypt. 

Maybe this isn't a big deal at all but it does add to the complexity, and of course, may be infuriating to users as they try and figure out why text in some images don't return results while others do.

Again, I'm all for this. I have a lot of data I do not store in Evernote because of the limited encryption. I'd welcome great, note- or notebook-level encryption with open arms. I think Evernote should work VERY hard to make this happen. That being said, on the face of it it seems immensely challenging. 

I would like this feature, too and would consider upgrading to premium for it. For example, if I scan a business card and later want to call that person. It would be nice to be able to find the business card by the OCR of the name and then click on the phone number without having to ever manually type it out again. Small time savings but a good feature. There would be many other use cases, I'm sure. Any other ways to solve that use case?

The business card example, specifically, is already implemented. Premium members can scan business cards using their iPhone or iPad or Fujitsu ScanSnap Evernote Edition (apparently Android is getting this "soon" as of last fall....), and Evernote will parse the information into clickable phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. (Free users can do up to 5 cards, I believe, to get a sample of the capabilities). More details here:

http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/05/07/evernote-linkedin-perfect-business-card/     (Note that you don't NEED LinkedIn for this to work, but if you are a LinkedIn member it can pull additional information that might not be present on the business card)

One reason I suspect extracting text from images in general hasn't been implemented is that the method that Evernote uses for OCR's images, including images of hand writing, involves creating a tree of potential matches for a given character or word. That is, each character or word that the processor identifies gets a list of fuzzy, potential matches. If you "extracted" this, it wouldn't be terribly readable. Maybe with a VERY good scan of very clear, typed text, the list of matches for each word could be relatively small... business cards are ideal for this because the context of the business card leaves very little room for alternative interpretations of near-matches. If you know it is a business card, and you see a word that could likely be "phone" or "p" or "t" followed by a series of digits, it can be reasonably assumed to actually be the word PHONE followed by a phone number. 

But for generic images of text, there's no way to know what partial match makes sense and which partial matches are nonsense. 

Even for much more sophisticated methods of text identification, such as Adobe's Clear Text available in Acrobat for analyzing PDFs, only VERY high quality scans of very clear text will produce usable (that is, not perfect, but not terrible) results.

Rarely are the "high quality, very clear" criteria met when using a cellphone camera on an image in a random room, such as is likely the case for the majority of text images being put into Evernote. As such, the extracted text would probably look like nonsense. 

That being said, of course were it not technically very difficult, this would be an amazing feature. I don't know that anyone has really got this right often enough to make it worthwhile. 

In my post immediately above yours, I link to the discussion with the application:

This has been elaborated on in great detail in another thread:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/39110-how-do-i-become-an-evernote-ambassador/

 

See some of the more recent posts for more specific, up to date details. 

Specifically this post:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/39110-how-do-i-become-an-evernote-ambassador/?p=257148

Personally I like this feature a lot. It's a real dream for some of the major editing I do. But I'm glad to have the option because I don't always need it. 

Yeah between what Boatguy is reporting and all of the "old version overwrote new version" problems, it seems like sync is having some big issues.

This is very troubling indeed. I suspect it might really get bogged down when dealing with a large number of notes. My offline notebooks are generally small (usually 3-15 notes) and I don't encounter issues with one or two notebooks like that. It seems that at a certain point, Evernote gets clogged up... That needs some fixin'

I think it's interesting that the users formerly known as Evangelists have added no useful content to this thread, only comments about comments and most recently a not so veiled threat to shutdown the thread. So ignoring those users, here is some actual content:

I ran a test and here are the results:

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.2, EN 7.4.2.310718

EN storage usage before deletion: 876MB

Deleted EN

Rebooted iPhone

Reinstalled EN from App Store

Logged in

Premium > Offline Notebooks > Download all Notes

Connected to Power and WiFi

Completed sync - Offline progress bar is not showing

Forced Manual Sync which completed immediately

Storage usage: 1.5GB

Set phone to “Airplane Mode"

In my inspection of random notes with attachments (virtually all are PDFs), all of the attachments were accessible. So after a clean install EN appears to have properly downloaded all notes and attachments. However, this begs a few questions:

1) Why were some attachments not previously available?

2) Why did the storage used jump by 600+ MB?

This goes to my point of the syncing of attachments being unreliable and the problem experienced by the OP. Clearly not all attachments were on my iPhone, about 600+ MB worth. Presumably attachments which were added piecemeal since the last install of EN.

Yes, there is a ticket on this so it needs no further comment from the users formerly known as Evangelists (who for the sake of users looking to solve a problem should consider deleting their posts to reduce the "noise" in this thread. This posting is for the benefit of users who may have a similar problem so that they can know they are not "holding it wrong" per Mr. Jobs.

** Update

On my iPad Air, iOS 7.1.2 and EN 7.4.2.310718

Evernote usage is 1.9GB

So something is still not right...

If we are going to dwell on what is on or off topic.... The OP hasn't mentioned offline notebooks, so it isn't clear that they were the issue, thus it isn't clear your rant about them is ON topic.

But, let's put that aside.

You have posted an interesting test here (if only you had done that at the outset instead of an unclear rant...). This is somewhat troubling.

To me it sounds like a feature is broken, not that Evernote is being misleading.... I don't know which one is worse, though I'd like to think that Evernote being broken is at least an honest mistake. This definitely needs to be fixed.

Cwb, god forbid you should ever be a little left of the mark when trying to be helpful, or ever.

I'm sorry, I am just not willing to clear several gigabytes of free space, download my Evernote database and run it brought the paces as a volunteer. My goodwill does not stretch that far. Instead I relied on my experience with a SIMILAR context, that is, several notebooks set to "offline", and based on that, made my attempt to help.

It seems that two users had different experiences (not surprising, though it shouldn't be this way). It also seems that downloading "all notes" seems to be prone to problems compared to downloading individual notebooks.

And just because my post wasn't entirely correct doesn't entitle a user to respond aggressively. The tone of my initial response to Boatguy was not argumentative or pedantic, at least it wasn't supposed to be, and honestly, Boatguy's post wasn't entirely clear and was a bit vague (which isn't a problem, but it might produce unexpected responses), so I worked with what I had.

Since I am unwilling to exactly reproduce what a fellow user is doing, I will be leaving this thread due to my woeful degree of ignorance.

A note: no user can delete posts, so I couldn't delete my inept responses if I wanted to, though I suppose someone with over 300 posts could hide then with th "remove spam" function. I'll let the community of 300+ers decide the fate of those posts. Oops, looks like I can delete my own posts.... still getting used to these different moderator powers. Nevertheless, I'll let the community decide if my bouts of ignorance should be removed or not. 

Regardless of the significance of the feature to one group of users or another, I think it is poor form to remove features without making the change publicly known. If Customer Support is experiencing some significant belt-tightening, as the recent CS changes imply, why let users submit support tickets only to find out it was an intentional change made by EN? As I see it, announcing the change would save those precious CS resources. But I also don't run a tech company so... what do I know.

The problem was that I wasn't looking at anything

Indeed that wording is there. I don't see any reason why that shouldn't work as described, except if the user doesn't give the application adequate time to download the notes, doesn't have adequate space for the notes on their device, or a glitch occurred.

I use a couple of offline notebooks regularly and have never encountered an issue. While only an anecdote versus an anecdote, my impression of the feature is in line with how the feature is described.... Granted I've never used the "download all notes" setting because doing so would obliterate my phone's storage, so I can't speak to how that exact feature works, though from the looks of it, that feature is identical to individually enabling all notebooks to be offline, so it can't really be that different, can it?

Denying the feature exists only undermines your credibility. If you can't speak to the feature, then don't. Being an "evangelist" (definition: • a zealous advocate of something: he is an evangelist of junk bonds.) is not the same as being an expert.

The feature does exist, it's reasonable to expect it to download all notes AND their attachments. I have 20GB Of free storage and the phone has spent numerous nights plugged in and connected to WiFi. Perhaps as you suggest a "glitch" occurred, also known as a BUG and part EN's notoriously poor QA.

1) I never claimed to be an expert, and the evangelist badge (which will disappear this week from all of us evangelists) doesn't imply being an expert either. The only thing it implied (because it is no longer true) was that I had some special moderation powers (most of which are now available to most regular forum contributors). THat means I am free (and have always been free) to be wrong and shoot my own mouth off as much as I wish. The badge isn't itself a sign of credibility. The only credibility I have, if I have any at all, is to be gleaned from whatever the contributions I make in these forums.

NOTE: There are no more evangelists. These badges are a relic of the past and will disappear soon.

2) The original poster did not make any mention of Offline Notebooks or the Download All Notes feature. Quite abruptly you barged in here and brought those features up, even though they did not pertain to the original topic. You said they were mis-represented, but you didn't describe specifically the problem you experienced. In addition, your post contained some misinformation. Headers are always already downloaded by default for all users. The download all notes feature or offline notebooks is not required for headers to be downloaded, they are INTENDED to retrieve note contents and store them locally. If that isn't occurring, that is because there is a problem (a bug, user error, a random glitch...) not because it has been mis-represented.

Something being described incorrectly or misleadingly, as you are claiming is the case here, is very different from something going awry and not working as it was intended.

How about some troubleshooting. What happens if you select one or two notebooks to be available offline? Do those notebooks behave as expected? That is, are the contents of that notebook or two available offline? If they are, it suggests that there may be a problem with the "download all notes" setting in particular.

The problem was that I wasn't looking at anything

Indeed that wording is there. I don't see any reason why that shouldn't work as described, except if the user doesn't give the application adequate time to download the notes, doesn't have adequate space for the notes on their device, or a glitch occurred.

I use a couple of offline notebooks regularly and have never encountered an issue. While only an anecdote versus an anecdote, my impression of the feature is in line with how the feature is described.... Granted I've never used the "download all notes" setting because doing so would obliterate my phone's storage, so I can't speak to how that exact feature works, though from the looks of it, that feature is identical to individually enabling all notebooks to be offline, so it can't really be that different, can it?

No problem and good luck. Playing around really is the best way to go with EN. I've found the best and the worst thing about EN is its flexibility. It can do a lot and then some, but none of it is handed to you on a platter. 

 

Yes, it happened again. And this time it really screwed things up for me. I was going to a concert. Had bought ticket online in advance. HAd ticket as a Note in Evernote. Coming to the entrance to show my ticket from my iPhone and… zas! The note is there but its content is something completely different. Anotehre note is showing. No ticket!! Restart Evernote. Restart iPhone. Nothing helps. The concert will start anytime….. I bought another ticket. And lost my reserved place. And my dining table. 

 

This is a very real problem.

 

The "Download All Notes" feature for Premium users seriously mis-represents the actual functionality (a common theme at EN - over promise and under deliver).  It stores offline anything that you have accessed on your device, beyond that you just get headers.  The setting should be named "Download All Notes Headers" and there should be another setting that actually downloads all the notes AND the attachments.  Further, I'd like to see those attachments pushed to my remote device, perhaps with a "WiFi Only" option.

 

I frequently have large attachments that I share with others and want to access when I'm away from WiFi.  I don't want to wait while a 30MB drawing is downloaded over LTE, or worse when I don't have a good data connect at all.

 

It's time that EN delivered on "Download All Notes".

 

I think there is a misunderstanding here. 

There is no premium feature called "download all notes", and the feature you are actually referring to doesn't misrepresent itself in the slighted. Premium users have the ability to specify certain notebooks to be available on their mobile devices without a network connection. The user must manually choose WHICH notebooks. They are all OFF by default. 

For any notebook the users chooses to make available offline, the entire contents of that notebook, headers, contents, and attachments, are downloaded to the device storage permanently. Meanwhile, all other content that was not in that specific notebook defined by the user, will maintain the usual behaviour: download headers, cache entire contents of recently viewed notes. 

you can specify whether your device syncs on both a cellular and a wifi connection, or just on wifi. Premium users will have their content automatically refreshed in the background periodically. 

nowhere does the "offline notebooks" features promise anything about "downloading all notes", only the notes you specify (which, of course, could be all notes by selecting all notebooks). If you select all notebooks, it may be possible your device lacks sufficient space to accommodate your entire database, in which case I imagine errors and bad behaviour will ensue. 

This is an unfortunate change. I used public notebooks frequently for various important tasks.... This is a big hit.

I also loved viewing some public notebooks created by several EN Ambassadors. The public notebook was a great feature.

I wish I had known it had been removed so that I could anticipate the change and modify my workflow appropriately in advance, rather than scramble to change things around and tell my collaborators in the last minute.

We are moving into a more collaborative environment. Where sharing notebooks with individuals is a better collaborative approach when using Evernote as your workspace. We hope that this does not prevent you using Evernote!

No, it certainly won't prevent me from using Evernote, but it has put an end to ONE important way I had been using Evernote until this point. As a result, I will no longer be able to use Evernote for tasks involving these collaborators.

Always more than one way to do something, though, and I will undoubtably find an alternative method to collaborate in the context specifically affected by this change.

In some respects I think this could be useful, however, the various possible workarounds have worked so well for me I'm not really wishing all that hard....

Two workarounds:

1) Create a reminder for a note you want to pin, but do not choose a date. This way that note will always show up in the reminders list which is always at the top of a given notebook.

2) If you are sorting by Date Updated, CHANGE the date updated to be in the year 2100 or something along those lines. This will pin it to the top as long as you are sorted by date updated. This is typically my strategy. 

If you have several, related notes you want to pin (I find this to be the case with travel itineraries, where you have a hotel confirmation, airline ticket, and some ground transport, or whatever) I often create a table of contents note and pin only that one note, rather than the three, four, or five that make up the entire itinerary all taking up space at the top. That way it doesn't matter where the actual note with my plane ticket is, since the TOC note is always at the top and in two clicks or taps, I'm at the desired itinerary document.