Vidalia

So that means every time I modify a note, in the background EN updates its database with keywords? For example, if I have just 2 notes with following content. [NOTE 1] Jill had a little lamb. [NOTE 2] Jack and Jill went up the little hill. EN search database will have values like this?

When I search for few words, does Evernote scan my notes in real time or it checks for those words in an index type database? If it is database driven, does it mean EN indexes every single word in my every note?

I think moving from one platform to another platform is not good long term strategy. Focus on your workflow and format of the notes rather than a proprietary application. Try storing your notes in RTF, HTML or DOCX so that it is effectively open and you can search using native OS commands or using 3rd party tools. RTF and HTML are both plain texts (RTF even converts the images as series of ASCII characters) and DOCX is actually a zip file and all words are inside word\document.xml file.

May be EN should stop offering free version altogether and offer paid version only? Personally I think charging users for keeping notes is no longer a profitable business model - especially when there are many other alternatives available for free.

If you want to quit EN, then another app may have same problem few years down the line. Better to think how to change your workflow so that you are not tied up to any proprietary note format. This means writing your notes in DOCX, HTML, RTF or similar. Then what you need is searching capability across all notes. There are many 3rd party apps for that. If you keep your notes in cloud (Dropbox, Onedrive, Gdrive) then you can sync across devices too. Using this route, you will never have to think about any migration.

There are several differences between a notes app vs a word processor. Word processor = good for long documents, formatting is important, printing is must, you search within a single document, mainly for sharing formally with others Notes app = good for many short documents, formatting is basic, printing not important, you search across ALL notes, mainly for your personal use Rather than using a notes app as word processor, the other way round i.e. using a word processor (like Word) as notes app is more useful. You can search inside all DOCX files at once (using many 3rd party apps) and you will get tons of features. Nowadays Word is cross platform and you can edit your files in mobile too.

Well, searching inside Office attachment is premium feature and it also creates a copy of the document inside Evernote. If your document is updated you need to remember to attach it again with Evernote!

I think some of the features you requested like nicely formatting printing, image alignment etc. are features of word processors and not necessarily key for note taking apps. Notes are meant to be quick scribbles and not meant for presenting to others - for the latter we have word processors. In fact, this is why I am using Evernote far less now. Notes which I take to present to others, I now type in Power Point or Word. It is easy to searching inside several office documents (there are several apps for that and Onedrive web can do it too) . For the other notes, I am slowing moving them to RTF - whenever I need to access it an old Evernote note, I am saving it as RTF on my local Dropbox folder. This means my notes are not only searchable but also accessible outside of Evernote at any time. It works for me - does not mean it will work for everyone though.

Being 100-yr old company was a vision by EN's 1st CEO - don't think it is still EN vision under new management. If you really worried what will happen to your notes in decades time, then I suggest you keep your notes using as simple format as possible - like text/ASCII format. If you have images, then you can use HTML or DOCX - Microsoft's format will exist for a long time due to billions of user base. If Microsoft goes bust someone else will make DOCX files readable for foreseeable future. In fact, EN is now somewhat obsolete. You can do lot more in word processor like Word and Onedrive allows you to search within Office documents. If you don't use Onedrive, there are many free 3rd party tools which offers searching inside DOCX/XLSX/PPTX/VSDX files. I am in the process of slowly converting my EN notes to DOCX or RTF formats. I can keep these files any cloud location as per my wish and can search inside them using suitable apps. Using this model, I am no longer having dependency on a single company like EN.

It is not EN's best interest to allow storing database in a cloud drive. Then would be possible to bypass EN free tier limitation to sync into multiple devices potentially having a local notes system bypassing EN server completely. EN wants your data to be in their server for a reason.

I don't understand the advantage of Markdown. It is not 1980s that we need to work with text files. WYSIWYG formats like RTF are readable by almost any word processor and you can even include tables, images etc. without being locked to any proprietary format. In fact RTF files are actually ASCII. Even DOCX format is almost universal now. My empirical observation is that Mac users are inclined to Markdown compared to Windows users.

Would it not be better to separate those sensitive notes entirely? You can either use a different EN a/c for that or use a completely separate app like Simple Note/Nimbus Note/One Note etc.

Let me explain the title of the thread first. I am using Evernote for many years. My notes are predominantly text and some embedded images. Almost no handwritten notes. The beauty of Evernote is syncing across all devices. Then 2 things happened. [1] The sync was limited to 2 devices for free users. [2] My employer blocked all cloud storage at work (this includes Evernote, Dropbox etc.) The [2] is now reality for many corporate organizations to prevent people uploading confidential documents to cloud. This meant, at work, my only option to check all my notes is via my mobile. It was not a big issue as such because I could always use my mobile among 1 of 2 free devices to sync. But I still had to be online to access my notes. Now fast forward to Corona virus pandemic. Like millions of others, I am working from home and this is going to be the norm in foreseeable future. Full 5 day work from office is very unlikely even after this whole saga ends. I now have no need to check my notes in tiny phone screen! I can always check them in my large computer screen. For multiple computers, I can always open the Evernote web version. I don't use attachments in my notes (other than embedded images). So technically I can keep all my notes as DOCX/RTF or markdown/TXT text in any cloud storage - be it Dropbox, Onedrive etc. and run a search command on them when I need to find something. The speed is much faster as all notes are in my local disk (compared to accessing everything from web for free EN users). So that means, I can choose my own cloud (which could be my own NAS drives) and my notes becomes individual documents on disk. 99% of my notes are not needed regularly. Those notes which I want to store locally in my phone (say during holidays with no access to internet - typically 5% of time in a year max) I can simply copy some files locally before travel. Now my conclusion is that (for me) it is no longer necessary to keep notes in a proprietary format in any specific cloud storage. Please note that I am not saying Evernote is bad and Onenote or something similar is better. I am saying for users like me whole business model is unattractive. Notes can be individual documents on file system. As long as those file system is in cloud and some mechanism exists to search among those files, the user need is fulfilled. For example, OneNote allows to search across all Word documents. So an Office user can simply keep multiple Word document as notes. In conclusion, I feel for users whose use cases are similar to mine, the note capturing scenario might be very different post Covid19. Off course a lot you will disagree but that is fine. Everyone has different perspective and use case.