Evernote for Mac 6.11 Beta 1 Released

Chantal Leonard · January 5, 2017

[Edit 1/18: We've updated this Beta 1 build addressing the issue some users were encountering with Apple Script, Afred, and crashes at startup. You can get the latest build here]

Hi folks,

Excited to announce Evernote for Mac, version 6.11 Beta 1! You can download it here.

This version of the app introduces support for tabs for users on the latest version of macOS. Open a new tab by selecting File > New Tab.

We've also improved the experience for user that are switching between accounts.

And, if you're a business user personal and business notes are now separated so that you only see what you need, when you need it. [Edit 1/10: if you'd like to know more about what's motivating this change, check out @Leo Gong's post on the topic here]

We're looking forwards to hearing what you think about these improvements!

Thanks,

Chantal and the rest of the Mac team

Evernote for Mac 6.11 Release Notes

New:

Support for Tabs on macOS 10.12. Reduce clutter and organize your windows using tabs instead of separate windows. Create a new tab by selecting File > New Tab. This is not supported on older versions of macOS.
Business and personal notes are now separated. You only see what you need, when you need it, making it easier to browse and search to find what you need, and create notes in the right place. Just click the user name in the toolbar, if you want to switch to another account.

DTLow · January 6, 2017

Fixed

the pdf viewer now allows text to be selected
in a list, can use shift-enter for a soft return
trailing spaces in the title are no longer removed during typing

evb · January 6, 2017

Nice - Tabs work fine and are a handy extension of the options to use EN. Great!

Stacey Harmon · January 6, 2017

Now that the separation between business and personal notebooks is so clear, I wish the process for moving notes from the default notebook to the business side of your account was easier. Since I don't have the option of making a business notebook my default notebook, often in the course of a busy day, notes get generated in my default notebook (either from outside applications that will only create notes in personal notebooks, forwarding an email to Evernote, etc) and I then have to move them to business when time permits. I find this happens a lot. Every day I'm moving notes from my default notebook to the business side of my account. A lot.

As an efficiency comparison...how I used to do it prior to this release:

Drag/drop from my default notebook to a business notebook.
Or, Command + Shift + M then type notebook name in move menu, then return to move it (never have to take my hands off the keyboard).

Both options are very efficient, intuitive, and quick.

Now:

The only way I see to do it now (please let me know of there is another way) is to use the move note command, then I have to click on a button with the mouse/trackpad to tell Evernote to access my business notebooks so I can then choose the notebook to move it to. No drag drop option, and I have to take my hands off the keyboard to click a button to then select the business notebook I want the note moved to. Much less efficient.

Remedies that would work for me and the workflows I help my Evernote Business clients with:

Make it possible to allow users to shortcut their default notebook on the business side of their account so they can move notes that get created there to the business side
Allow for the move keyboard command to include both personal and business notebooks
Be able to define your default notebook on the business side of your account

What is presented in this Beta release is going to be a huge shift in my workflows, and the workflows of my business clients. It is a huge change to efficiency to not be able to see at a glance that we have new notes that got generated in our default notebook while we are on the business side of our account.

Back when you split the views in the Windows client I noticed the same issue (when working with clients). I'm on a Mac on a day to day basis so haven't kept up with the feedback on this from the Windows side....is it something you hear about and is there a work around that is more efficient than what I'm currently seeing in this Beta?

DTLow · January 6, 2017

I seem to have an Applescript problem with this version

Evernote quits and I get the error

Error Number: -609

Evernote got an error: Connection is invalid.

Untitled.txt

edit: this has been corrected with the 1/18 build

Chantal Leonard · January 6, 2017

Thanks for reporting @DTLow - we'll look into this.

asnook · January 6, 2017

I'm really not seeing the value of these two "features." As Stacey said the forced separation of personal and business accounts really slows down and limits productivity. I would much rather see the personal/business separation as optional, rather than forced. If you really want to focus on just Business, ⌘J > Business Notes was a much faster and easier switch than the new 6.11 beta method.

Also I don't see the purpose of tabs, when the second tab is really just a duplication of the standard Evernote window. Perhaps if you could have Personal in one tab and Business in another tab, that might be useful, but I'm not really seeing the value of tabs.

Sorry to be so negative. I'm just confused about why these where priorities. So many improvements in function should be priorities over these edge-case features. Like fixing the long-title cutoff:

DTLow · January 6, 2017

17 minutes ago, asnook said:

Also I don't see the purpose of tabs

There are open requests for this feature
An example is one tab shows "All Notes", another tab shows "Hot Notes", another tab shows "Current Tasks"

I find it more useful when the tab title says something meaningful.
Unfortunately most of my tabs are titled "All Notes"

Palladion · January 6, 2017

Sorry, but the separation of Business and Personal notebooks is a productivity nightmare for me.

I frequently need to have personal and business notes open at the same time. An example: my business procedures are in the business notebooks while my daily task list and my agendas are in my personal notebook. I constantly switch between them. And this separation makes Evernote far less useful for me.

Also when I open tabs in the personal notebooks and then switch to business notebooks the tabs get lost - even when I switch back to personal.

Also it isn't possible to have 2 windows open one in Business mode and one in Personal mode.

Dear Evernote developers and designers, please don't do this to me. Listen to how your users work. It isn't necessarily only work or only personal at a time.

Don't cut the flexibility we loved so much about Evernote.

Oscar Morrison · January 6, 2017

Good work Evernote. I like the separation of Business / Personal. I think its clean, and I like that it uses the same shortcuts as slack.

Unfortunately, if you open tabs, and then switch to business, and switch back you loose all your tabs.

Larry_C · January 6, 2017

Like Asnook and to a lesser degree Palladion, I do not see why you make it an either choice? What happened to flexibility? Now I see know way of listing or looking at ALL my notes, business & personal a the same time. You have FORCED (by virtue of choosing to run the beta 6.11) me to chose an account. I think you would have been better served assist with Stacey's issue of moving notes.

The concept of tabs is a good one, but as DTLow says, more options for content of tabs would be helpful (like the recent, current tasks, etc.) Currently works well as I have all notes, tags and work chat as tabs.

Look forward to your implementing some of the suggestions made.

Larry
2017JA07 09:40 Sydney

EdH · January 6, 2017

I have not seen how this build treats business notes as I no longer am part of a business account, however:

I see a lot of references to "my notes" but technically business notes aren't yours, they are your employers.
I know when business launched, they wanted a chinese wall between the two and it worked both ways:
- Companies could never see your notes
- You should not be able to easily put company notes in your notebooks accidentally. There never was anything to stop deliberate theft, but when the service launched, it was too easy to drop into the wrong notebook. I think that was fixed by the actual release. I was in an early beta of it at the time.

So I am not justifying EN making it harder to work, but there is a balance between ease of use and employers using the service having reasonable confidence their employees are not accidentally putting company property into personal notebooks where, as stated above, they have absolutely no way to access short of physically using your computer and logging in as you.

SoftwareMarcus · January 6, 2017

As I understand it, the separation of Personal and Business is a requirement of some companies. Unless there is separation, they won't deploy Evernote. Companies don't like it when employees co-mingle their data between personal and business.

With that said, I think we would all agree it's an inconvenience. Like Stacey's comment, I would focus on providing Evernote suggestions on how to improve your specific workflow without changing the fundamental model. Separating personal and business might be something required from an Evernote business perspective to land more enterprise customers but great shortcuts or features for power users to speed their workflow between the 2 worlds is probably an area the Evernote Mac team has some leeway to add functionality.

handythinks · January 7, 2017

I'm a long-time user and ECC. The forced separation is an absolute nightmare. If I can no longer trust Evernote as my "external brain". I'll need to find another one.

javalife · January 7, 2017

I don't need any new features. I just want to type and paste. I am a user from 2008. Originally I need another feature, search. But I already gave up on that. Hope evernote does not break writing/pasting experience further.

The latest beta version still has the problem that pasted image is larger (maybe doubled) than the original size.

Every time when I copy and paste an image to evernote, I have to adjust the size manually. It has been like this for months.

jaekq · January 7, 2017

I need to agree with colleagues above. Forced separation doesn't help, it takes long time to switch between views, fact it needs to "close and open" the app is not elegant. If it would work in tabs then ok - I could live with that. I am new to Business (ECC account), but previous view was better and easier IMHO.

I confirm, that issue with pasting pictures, it really is an issue and it's annoying.

Andrée Starå · January 7, 2017

I agree with the previous comments regarding the separation.

I'd suggest that the separation and other changes for Evernote Business Accounts should be an option for the administrator in the Admin Console.

In that way the businesses that want to use Evernote in the way the use it today can keep doing that and the new clients that demand the separation feature can use it the way they wan't to. Everybody's happy!

I understand completely that you need to change things so that many more businesses feel comfortable with implementing Evernote Business but i think it's extremely important that you don't change it to much for the current users and our clients.

Suggestion.
Maybe it could be a good idea to have some form of group within the Evernote Certified Consultant community to discuss these and future ideas and changes because we are so close to our clients and know how they work and what they want and need.

christensensteve · January 7, 2017

On 2017-01-06 at 8:01 AM, Stacey said:

Now that the separation between business and personal notebooks is so clear, I wish the process for moving notes from the default notebook to the business side of your account was easier. Since I don't have the option of making a business notebook my default notebook, often in the course of a busy of a day, notes get generated in my default notebook (either from outside applications that will only create notes in personal notebooks, forwarding an email to Evernote, etc) and I then have to move them to business when time permits. I find this happens a lot. Every day I'm moving notes from my default notebook to the business side of my account. A lot.

As an efficiency comparison...how I used to do it:

Drag/drop from my default notebook to a business notebook. Or, Command + Shift + M then type notebook name in move menu, then return to move it (never have to take my hands off the keyboard). Very efficient and quick.

Now:

The only way I see to do it now (please let me know of there is another way) is to use the move note command, then I have to click on a button with the mouse/trackpad to tell Evernote to access my business notebooks so I can then choose the notebook to move it to. No drag drop option, and I have to take my hands off the keyboard to click a button to then select the business notebook I want the note moved to. Much less efficient.

Is it possible to allow users to shortcut their default notebook on the business side of their account so they can move notes that get created there to the business side? Or maybe allow for the move keyboard command to include both personal and business notebooks?

It is going to be a huge shift in my workflows, and the workflows of my business clients) to not be able to see that we have new notes that got generated in our default notebook while we are on the business side of our account.

Back when you split the views in the Windows client I noticed the same issue (when working with clients). I'm on a Mac on a day to day basis so haven't kept up with the feedback on this from the Windows side....is it something you hear about and is there a work around that is more efficient than what I'm currently seeing in this Beta?

I agree with this 100%. Great thoughts.

JacquesF · January 7, 2017

Hello

Does this beta version includes the colored tag functionnality for MacOS version as for web and windows version ?

this is really a gret improvement for tag uses.

Regards

christensensteve · January 7, 2017

I'm trying to use the older version of Evernote until this update is necessary but it won't let me because my notes are being managed by a "newer version". Is there a way to use the normal Evernote now rather than the beta?

DTLow · January 7, 2017

18 minutes ago, christensensteve said:

I'm trying to use the older version of Evernote until this update is necessary but it won't let me because my notes are being managed by a "newer version". Is there a way to use the normal Evernote now rather than the beta?

I also had to downgrade

I used the AppCleaner app to remove Evernote from my Mac

I then downloaded the non-beta release from www.evernote.com, and it rebuilt my database from the servers

Warning: The rebuild does not include Local Notebooks or unsynced notes

EdH · January 7, 2017

3 minutes ago, christensensteve said:

I'm trying to use the older version of Evernote until this update is necessary but it won't let me because my notes are being managed by a "newer version". Is there a way to use the normal Evernote now rather than the beta?

You'd need to uninstall, remove all local note databases, and reinstall, letting it redownload everything.

christensensteve · January 7, 2017

3 minutes ago, EdH said:

You'd need to uninstall, remove all local note databases, and reinstall, letting it redownload everything.

Thanks! Can you point me in the right direction on how to do that? I downloaded the app from the App Store and it seems that it replaced the old Evernote. I'd rather have it downloaded from the Evernote site.

EdH · January 7, 2017

23 minutes ago, christensensteve said:

Thanks! Can you point me in the right direction on how to do that? I downloaded the app from the App Store and it seems that it replaced the old Evernote. I'd rather have it downloaded from the Evernote site.

As @DTLow said, use an app called AppCleaner. Then download the app from Evernote directly via https://evernote.com/download/

christensensteve · January 7, 2017

18 minutes ago, EdH said:

As @DTLow said, use an app called AppCleaner. Then download the app from Evernote directly via https://evernote.com/download/

Thanks, guys! It worked! Much appreciated.

handythinks · January 7, 2017

@Chantal Leonard, can you talk a little bit about the "why" behind this drastic change? There's been speculation and even suggestion from @SoftwareMarcus that we (as beta users) simply accept the inevitable because of needs of some Enterprise prospects. Is this why? Help us understand so we can give you better feedback.

Stacey Harmon · January 7, 2017

Further thoughts about this release and the relationship between personal notes and business notes.

NOTE LINKS:

I see that you still allow me to use note links to navigate to a personal note from the business side of my account. However, the wonderful efficiency that used to exist of being able to click the "back" button to return to the previous note, no longer is an option. This is really clunky and almost eliminates the use of note links as a workaround for creating some connection between your personal notes and you business notes.

As a use case example:

I have my business card notebook on the personal side of my account (so that I can benefit from the Atlas feature that at one time wasn't available on the business side of my account...this may have changed?...there was a time when the location tag on business cards wasn't available if it was kept in a business notebook). Assuming this is still the same, then if I had a business note about a prospect on the business side of my account, but note linked to the persons business card, I could get over to their card that lives on the personal side of my account, but couldn't easily jump back to the business note. I would have to switch accounts and navigate back to the source note on the business side.

SEARCH:

Not having the ability to search once across all of your notes at the same time feels like a big loss to me. I keep almost all of my data on the business side of my account...BUT, I do keep data on the personal side (when notebooks are shared with me from other Evernote users outside by business organization, for example). Having to do the same search twice (if I even will remember to do that) is an issue. I think this will be a big user training issue for business users who will wonder why the search isn't working when they do a search. They will just assume that search isn't working when it doesn't find their data, when in reality, they had to switch over to their personal accounts to run the search to find the data.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

Based on this release, it seems that the very unique advantages of having two accounts in one interface that the current live version has (which understandable also comes with on-boarding issues for new business users...I see it all the time) are basically eliminated by this version. Users essentially now have two completely separate Evernote accounts, and they have to account switch between them to use them. If this is the direction Evernote is going, then back to my original post earlier....I think you must make it so that there is a default notebook for business users where emails, web clippings, 3rd party apps, etc can send new notes from outside the app. Otherwise, this release just puts up extra clicks, account switches, and effort into keeping data in Evernote. It reduces efficiency and will still create confusion for novice users (particularly in the adoption of Evernote eco-system tools outside the desktop app - although, maybe this confusion will be less so than understanding the difference between business and personal notebooks and notes). Plus, without some better integration between the two sides of your account, I see you greatly upsetting your current fluent Evernote Business user base that benefits from the efficiencies that we currently have with two accounts in one interface (without having to account switch).

handythinks · January 7, 2017

Missed use case:

I'll often suggest to folks that they keep anything they wouldn't mind everyone in the company seeing in the business notebooks, and anything personal (meeting notes, personal to do lists, other personal work related items like HR stuff) in the personal account.

This situation would be broken because of the lack of universals search and access to notebooks.

Couldn't we still have the separated accounts but have one "All Notes" view that we can go into that affords us all these luxuries? If it's some kind of Enterprise requirement that's driving this, you could allow/disallow the ability to have the app boot into that as default view at the Admin level.

The lack of universal search is really killing me. Would anyone ever go to try both Google *Personal* and then Google *Work* when they need to find something online? No.

david.poyser@blueyonder.co · January 7, 2017

Hi Chantal

I have recently been using evernote on an apple phone (and on a Mac). My notes notes from today disappeared. I have tried various online discussions and (I am clearly not the first to miss 'edit undo' or Ctrl + Z to undo what I just did). I somehow pressed 'select all' by mistake - no idea how- and the next thing I did deleted all the notes
The forum answers did not help.

There is no Evernote helpdesk phone number.

The help I got suggested I pay money to become Evernote Premium or something like that and it turned out I already had paid.
I went to view history and it said the notes (if they are there) are in synchronised notebook or 'local network import'. Cant find either of these (or if I did the notes werent there)

I am afraid I think my best best is rather than continue to surf for some sense on this I will just print everything I have on Evernote, and never use it again. If anyone can help, much appreciated

email is david.poyser@blueyonder.co.uk
Thanks

EdH · January 8, 2017

Is anyone else seeing a crash when you try to paste a file into EN? I routinely do CMD-C, then CTRL-CMD-V to paste a file. EN has crashed 3 times this morning on two different PDF files. I gave up and manually created a note and attached it with the paperclip icon.

I sent in a crash report. Search your logs for eh20170108 to find it if anyone from EN is reading this.

DTLow · January 8, 2017

21 hours ago, david.poyser@blueyonder.co said:

I somehow pressed 'select all' by mistake - no idea how- and the next thing I did deleted all the notes

When deleted, notes are moved to the Trash notebook and can be restored from there

hobodrummachine · January 8, 2017

I've never downgraded Evernote before in all the many years I've been a paid and Business user, but I have today.....

The separation of business and personal is a serious fragmentation to my database. I can only imagine that this is at the request of some big business users, with less collaborative use cases than mine, but it is crippling.

AT LEAST. Make links between notes within the same notebook function when this notebook is converted to Business. I can see not reason why this is a security risk and would greatly help me transfer everything to Business, if this is inevitable...

Needless to say I really don't like this update for the same reasons described above. Universal search is not universal. No "all notes view". Broken Links between personal and business. No shared shortcut view. Cumbersome switching between views. Just no good and all bad I'm afraid.... (tabs are cool though!)

I suspect serious kick-back should this beta go live....

PaulhughMurray · January 9, 2017

Hi,

Just noticed a bug. I use Airmail. And the integration between the two causes the MACOS evernote app to crash everytime. I've logged the issue via the crash report.

To be exact, everytime you select and email to "Save to Evernote" it crashes.

lindseycholmes · January 9, 2017

I'm personally a fan of being lax around my Evernote organization when I want to be, and having a more tight workflow when I want to have one. I try to meet my Evernote clients where they are as well. For me this means getting all of my content into Evernote as quickly as possible and sometimes simply relying on search to allow me to locate the things I need, until I can further organize them. That said. The separation of the two in terms of search is a huge disruption to my workflow. A unified search is key for me. I would like to see switches for drastic implementations such as this.

Altruologist · January 9, 2017

I like the update - well done. The Tabs feature is an excellent productivity boost particularly when working across Notebooks as I do with projects or content development. I understand the sentiments regarding the separation, however I see it as a big improvement for small to medium businesses. This new way of separating Personal and Business is more aligned with how businesses view information management and intellectual property. I have had a couple instances of 'push-back' from people in businesses with 30+ employees who raised concerns with the Windows version. I am hoping this structure or similar is added to the Windows version to appeal to the broader business market.

Pascal Hämmerli · January 9, 2017

Happy new year all!

Just installed the 6.11 Beta on Mac.

Some initial thoughts about it.

The way to switch between the business and personal views is simple and does indeed bring more clarity concerning what resides where.

I believe that the effort Evernote is doing to improve the interface is important and very helpful.

I want to mention key issues, however, thinking that there is certainly a way to fix them and have the best of the two worlds!

It looks like I cannot search my whole account (personal and business) any more. If so, I think it is a great loss, because very often I do not know where a piece of info stays and it would require doing a double search.

Also, if I open a note from one side and then switch to the other side, the note closes. I cannot keep it open.

Also, there are some key notebooks that I use in both my personal and business context (life a is whole and things are not clearly separated). I do not see how to use those notebook in both contexts. I tried to share a notebook with myself, but not sure how to do that (maybe I need to set a non-business email address for the personal account for this to work?). I am sure there is a fix for this.

I just noticed also that it seems that internal links from one note to another note do not work any more, if the link goes from the business part to the personal part (and vice-versa).

Pascal Hämmerli · January 9, 2017

The end of Evernote as a holistic data management tool?

I have continued to test the Beta of 6.11 for Mac OS while trying to do my usual work. I list important workflow problems I perceive. I have mentioned already other points in another post in this thread.

1. A major shift in the Evernote's philosophy

I think that the main problem is the shift of data philosophy implied by what comes with beta 6.11. I do not think that this is intended, however in practice Evernote is a new reality with this OS release for myself and, as the reaction shows in this thread, for many intensive Evernote users.

I use Evernote to manage all my knowledge, all my contents, all my work, and my thoughts. My life as whole.

Evernote 6.10 (and earlier) gave me a clear cut (sufficient for me, if not the case for some larger corporate businesses) between business and personal, with the split stacks system, the tabs to manage/view the notebooks separately and the ability to easily search in one part or the other.

However, the ability to search my whole account, to have internal Evernote links across personal and business, to be able to work with all my stuff together in one single desktop view was what made Evernote superior to so many other applications. This was amazing and an integral part of the way many of us work.

Evernote 6.11 Beta comes with a different philosophy, where data are not longer accessible together, but they are segmented in two completely separated buckets. You have to close one account (personal or business) to switch to the other account. The button to switch is easy to use, but still you have to leave an account to access the other.

To say it with other words, the greatest force of Evernote is its ability to integrate in one desktop pane/view everything that belongs to my world (business and personal). To separate things will weaken drastically the capacity of Evernote allow for creative, cross borders workflow, in an age where data overload is the key problem to address.

Separation of data exploitation is not the way. A user should be able — I believe so — to see and manage all his or her data in one place.

2. Weakening the capture capability of Evernote

As explained in details by Stacey Harmon in this tread, the new notes which are created comes in the personal default notebook (except those manually rooted from the web clipper to a BUSINESS INBOX ad hoc notebook). This means that the yet unprocessed content of the day is in the personal view while I am working in Business. Even if a system would be implemented that allows to root newly created notes either to the business or personal default notebooks, this would mean to think and select for each note where it should go. This would weakened Evernote as a capture tool, because life comes at us fast and the things do not come for business only or personal only during the day. They come all mixed up and in the fire of action, it is not always possible to pre-process where they belong. Capture has to be automatic, like a ninja-reflex. Capture, capture, capture, and then review at the appropriate time in the day, where there is some time. Having to email things using to different email address to two different Inboxes, to root new clips to two different inboxes from the web clipper, the Evernote help capture tool, etc. would make things very complex.

3. Your Evernote data in two separated buckets — the end of the holistic data management approach

This aspect makes it simply not possible for me to work with this release. My workflow typically involves opening a bunches of notes in separates windows and also full-screens with the whole Evernote pane using much space on the three large screens I use to work. If I click an internal link that redirect to a note in the other account, if I have to find a info in the other account, or if I simply want to do a search in the other account to make sure this info is not there, all my current business windows will shut down.

Actually, trying this release out revealed me how much, how often I go back and forth to use data from personal and business. I understand that this is certainly not the case for everybody, but I think that many small business owner are using extensively both accounts during their work day.

4. I have switched back to the 6.10 release

For now, I have switched back to the 6.10 release. I just cannot work with this release. The time that I would lose in the coming days would be to important.

It is explained how to do that in other post in this thread.

5. The best of the two worlds?

To finish on a positive note: I know that Evernote development team meant the best and that they do a great work.

The question now is to know if there is a way implement this sharp split as an option (form the Admin Console and not as the default), as was suggested in this thread by somebody else. I think that if the problem is that larger corporate businesses want to have this for data control reasons (I understand their need), it should yet be remembered that employees are free to copy paste things around or export-import notes if they want to. In fact, it is not possible to prevent this, if the employee want to do this intentionally. Therefore the only questions that seems to matter is how to prevent the employee to do it unintentionally.

Trying to making Evernote a tool that would prevent employees to transfer data from one side to the other would kill Evernote (and all the joy of it.). However, there must be ways to help employees know they are breaching a company policy when moving content from business to personal. An optional alert saying (your are moving content to your personal account) could be useful. In parallel, there could be (for those business that really care about this) an option to audit the transfer of content from one end to the other. Like an audit tool that allows to see what business was exported (in any way) outside the business account.

My point is that other paths to fulfil the demands of data segmentation and retention of large businesses may be put in place (at a additional premium price for those business if necessary). To lock-down Evernote would kill what makes great for myriads of people and small businesses.

Happy new year to all!

I am confident Evernote will become even more amazing in 2017!

I am available to help with ideas for solutions.

Pascal Hämmerli · January 9, 2017

THE END OF EVERNOTE AS A HOLISTIC DATA MANAGEMENT TOOL?

— A CRITICAL REVIEW OF EVERNOTE 6.11 BETA FOR MAC

Here is a consolidate version of my review of Evernote 6.11 beta for Mac.
It has been posted in the ECC group originally.

If you use Evernote Business on the Mac desktop app or if your clients do: please read this post.

The 6.11 beta release, if it makes it to production, will profoundly change your workflows and your client's workflows. The stakes of this 6.11 Mac desktop release are much larger than just technicalities or functionality improvements for all using Business accounts.

My point of view is that the split between the business and personal account which is proposed by this release is deeply problematic. I argue that it changes in fact the very philosophy of Evernote.

I find that the issues raised by several people who tested the OS 6.11 beta release so important for the future of Evernote (at least on Mac) that I encourage you to test the release, also thinking of the implications for your clients, and give your feed-back, to confirm or infirm the arguments that are made here below.

In case your fear: it is easy to come back to the 6.10 version once you have installed the 6.11 beta. It give details on how to install the beta version easily and go back to current stable 6.10 at the very end of this post.

You can see and take part in the full discussion about the release in the official forum, where Evernote asked for feed-back: https://discussion.evernote.com/…/102925-evernote-for-mac…/…

There, you will find comments and similar reactions of others and you can post your own comments and thoughts.

MAJOR IMPLICATIONS OF THE RELEASE

1. A MAJOR SHIFT IN EVERNOTE'S PHILOSOPHY

I think that the main problem is the shift of data philosophy implied by what comes with beta 6.11. I do not think that this is intended, however in practice Evernote is a new reality with this OS release for myself and, as the reaction shows in the forum, for many intensive Evernote users.

I use Evernote to manage all my knowledge, all my contents, all my work, and my thoughts. My life as whole.

Evernote 6.10 (and earlier) gave me a clear cut (sufficient for me, even if it may not be the case for some larger corporate businesses) between business and personal, with the split stacks system, the tabs to manage/view the notebooks separately and the ability to easily search in one part or the other.

However, the ability to search my whole account, to have internal Evernote links across personal and business, to be able to work with all my stuff together in one single desktop view was what made Evernote superior to so many other applications. This was amazing and an integral part of the way many of us work.

Evernote 6.11 Beta comes with a different philosophy, where data are not longer accessible together, but they are segmented in two completely separated buckets. You have to close one account (personal or business) to switch to the other account. The button to switch is easy to use, but still you have to leave an account to access the other.

To say it with other words, the greatest force of Evernote is its ability to integrate in one desktop pane/view everything that belongs to my world (business and personal). To separate things will weaken drastically the capacity of Evernote allow for creative, cross borders workflows, in an age where data overload is the key problem to address.

Separation of data exploitation is not the way. A user should be able — I believe so — to see and manage all his or her data in one place.

2. NOT POSSIBLE ANY MORE TO SEARCH YOUR WHOLE DATA

Since your personal and business data are no longer combined together in Evernote desktop, you cannot perform a search that will look in all your data. You can only do a search in the current account (business OR personal) that is currently active.

This means that unless you know for sure where a piece of data is, you will have to perform to searches to find it.

3. WEAKENING THE CAPTURE CAPABILITY OF EVERNOTE

As explained in details by Stacey Harmon in her comment in the forum, the new notes which are created comes in the personal default notebook (except those manually rooted from the web clipper to a BUSINESS INBOX ad hoc notebook).

This means that the yet unprocessed content of our current work day will land in the personal view while you are mainly working in the Business account/view.

Even if a system would be implemented that allows to root newly created notes either to the business or personal default notebooks, this would mean to think and select for each note where it should go. This would weakened Evernote as a capture tool, because life comes at us fast and the things do not come for business only or personal only during the day. They come all mixed up together and in the fire of action, it is not always possible to pre-process where they belong.

Capture has to be automatic, like a ninja-reflex. Capture, capture, capture, and then review at the appropriate time in the day, where there is some time. Chris O'Neil himself insisted in a recent conference in Brazil that to make capture more frictionless is a goal for Evernote. My opinion is that this split weakens the capacity to use efficiently the data captured during the day, since it is difficult to get those new input on the business side (think to it: no more drag-and-drop and no more select a business notebook form your INBOX to send your new inputs where they belong in your Business account.)

Having to email things using to different email address to two different Inboxes, to root new clips to two different inboxes from the web clipper and the Evernote help capture tool, etc. would make things very complex in practice.

4. YOUR EVERNOTE DATA LIVES IN TWO SEPARATED BUCKETS

This aspect makes it simply not possible for me to work with this release. My workflow typically involves opening a bunches of notes in separates windows and also full-screens with the whole Evernote pane using much space on the three large screens I use to work. If I have to find a info in the other account, or if I simply want to do a search in the other account to make sure this info is not there, all my current business windows will shut down.

Actually, trying this release out revealed me how much, how often I go back and forth to use data from personal and business. I understand that this is certainly not the case for everybody, but I think that many small business owners are using extensively both accounts during their work day.

5. THE BEST OF THE TWO WOLRDS?

To finish on a positive note: I know that Evernote development team meant the best and that they do a great work.

The question now is to know if there is a way to implement this sharp split as an option (that could be selected from the Admin Console and not as the default), as was suggested in the forum thread by somebody else.

I think that if the problem is that larger corporate businesses want to have this sharp split for data control reasons (I understand their needs), it should yet be remembered that employees are always able in the real world to copy paste things (or screen shot in any case) around or export-import notes if they want to. In fact, it is not possible to prevent this, if the employee want to do this intentionally. Therefore the only questions that seems to matter is how to prevent that employee do it unintentionally.

Trying (once more, it is not possible) to make Evernote a tool that would prevent employees to transfer data from one side to the other would kill Evernote (and all the joy of it.). However, there must be ways to help employees know they are breaching a company policy when moving content from business to personal. An optional alert saying "your are moving content to your personal account" could be useful. In parallel, there could be (for those business that really care about this) an option to audit the transfer of content from one end to the other. Like an audit tool that allows to see what business content was exported (in any way) outside the business account.

My point is that there certainly is other paths to fulfil the demands of data segmentation and retention of large businesses that could be put in place (at a additional premium price for those business if necessary). To lock-down Evernote would kill the holistic aspect of Evernote and weaken some collaborative features it currently has. This would be a bad deal for a great myriads of people and small businesses.

Happy new year to all!

I am confident Evernote will become even more amazing in 2017!

I am available to help with ideas for solutions.

HOW TO INSTALL BETA TO TEST IT AND HOW TO LATER COME BACK TO 6.10

I have switched back to the 6.10 release. I explain here how to install beta and how to later go back to 6.10, in case you agree with my conclusions.

To install the beta version:
you have to go to preferences > updates and there accept the "Updates to beta versions when available". Then the beta version will be available for install.

To go back to the 6.10 version:
1. Install (or launch) AppCleaner (it is free: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/)
2. Drag your Evernote app from your application folder to the AppCleaner Pane.
3. Download Evernote 6.10 for Mac from Evernote.com (link to download in footer, on the left).
4. Re-install the app
5. Open the app: all you content will sync and re-build from Evernote server

Warning: The rebuild does not include Local Notebooks or unsynced notes.
Also, you must be aware that AppCleaner removes your whole local Evernote database on your mac. (Do a backup if you are anxious. I did not, I now Evernote keeps my data safe on their servers.)

sail · January 9, 2017

My update of this keeps crashing. Like all the time. Usually in the background when I'm not using it. I have dutifully sent reports to Evernote every time.

Now I just want to go back to the most recent stable release - please can someone tell me how?

Many thanks.

ehobyrne · January 9, 2017

I unthinkingly installed this beta update, and restarted Evernote.

Now it keeps crashing on start. Having to wipe and reinstall and revert to a production version. Not amused.

thhh · January 9, 2017

PLEASE! PLEASE PLEASE allow users to choose whether they want to separate personal and business!

This breaks my entire to do system. I constantly have to transfer notes between personal and business. I have to do lists that span both "accounts".

handythinks · January 9, 2017

Every time I sleep I think about this a little more.

How does this work with the Freemium model?

you ask your users to spend days, months, weeks, even years investing their data in the platform and suddenly when they begin to use the business product it becomes instantly less useful.

All their notes are on the personal side.

DTLow · January 9, 2017

2 hours ago, sail said:

My update of this keeps crashing. Like all the time. Usually in the background when I'm not using it. I have dutifully sent reports to Evernote every time.

Now I just want to go back to the most recent stable release - please can someone tell me how?

sail · January 9, 2017

Thanks DTLow!

gottastayorganized · January 9, 2017

The beta has broken most of the ways by which I quickly add notes or search for notes. The alfred workflow is now broken and the Airmail quick send is broken as well. Also, while I love the idea of having business and personal separated, you need to allow for a third option which is "both" so we can search our entire database. That is necessary! Thanks but I will have to get rid of this and rebuild from the old one.

Chantal Leonard · January 9, 2017

Thanks all for the feedback on the business/personal split - feedback on our early betas is especially valuable to the Evernote team so it lets us adjust our plans for upcoming Betas. Just a quick summary of some of the items I've seen mentioned and I'll follow up with individuals to get more details as needed.

AppleScript, Alfred, Airmail and other worflows that require scripting aren't working
A number of you would find you're losing too much context when switching especially when losing windows
Sometimes notes end up in the wrong context and the move functionality makes it difficult to adjust the location after the fact
Some of you like the simplicity of the separation and like the shortcuts for switching contexts

In terms of the rationale, as @SoftwareMarcus alluded to there are advantages for businesses, but also users. Many users tell us the ability to have their personal notes not show up when they're focusing on work is important - my personal todos, personal contacts or information, isn't something I want to have show up while I'm searching for the release notes from last week for instance, especially if I'm sharing or presenting my screen to collegues. I also like that I know exactly what data is mine vs. the company, and what will remain part of my Evernote and my external brain no matter where I work. That said, we want to make sure existing workflows aren't broken and/or have good alternatives. Appreciate all your help in helping us identify these - thank you Evernote community and stay tuned for our Beta 2 and don't hesitate to chime in as you find other areas we should consider improving.

handythinks · January 9, 2017

Repeatedly mentioned Issues to add to your list, @Chantal Leonard:

- universal global search

- business default notebooks

- add an "all accounts" view

thhh · January 9, 2017

in addition to universal search: allow tags to work across both personal and business, as is currently the case. This would be necessary for combined search.

I second the request to make this whole "separation" thing an option. I can't really follow the business practice of making such a huge change (see very panicked responses here in the forum) from one small update to another without allowing users to keep their old habits.

bbinder · January 9, 2017

Anyone experiencing data loss on the beta? I have, and it's reproduceable. I'm opening a ticket with EN so they can examine it. Figured I'd mention it in case anyone is looking to update. Yes, aware of the risks of the beta; just mentioning the fact that I'm seeing data loss on notes.

EdH · January 9, 2017

14 minutes ago, bbinder said:

Anyone experiencing data loss on the beta? I have, and it's reproduceable. I'm opening a ticket with EN so they can examine it. Figured I'd mention it in case anyone is looking to update. Yes, aware of the risks of the beta; just mentioning the fact that I'm seeing data loss on notes.

Can you post the steps to repro so we can confirm and also avoid doing that on accident?

bbinder · January 9, 2017

3 minutes ago, EdH said:

Can you post the steps to repro so we can confirm and also avoid doing that on accident?

Sure. I sent the videos to EN support and have 2 tickets opened for these.

How I can reproduce this on my own device is as follows: (2 issues)

Sync (without error)
Open example note with code-block formatting enabled
Paste any string of text inside of code block-formatted area
Sync (without error) while in the note
Switch to any other note
Come back to existing note and all changes are gone and note has reverted back to previous state, prior to text paste

Next issue:

Sync (without error)
Right-click any note and copy note link (like you're doing a table of contents)
Open another note that has a Table of Contents already present
Paste the link anywhere in the note
Sync (without error)
Change to another note
Come back to note that you just pasted the link in
Notice note has reverted itself again and none of the links are in there from other notes

Those were a nightmare since I had code snippets that went missing. Syncing is irrelevant, by the way. Sync or not, the data loss occurs - the act of me switching from note to note in both circumstances caused me to lose data in both scenarios. Maybe it won't affect others, but I made videos of both for EN's support. Just be aware; I had to uninstall it completely via AppDelete and am now installing the stable version again. I don't want to find more surprises with notes that I need to get updated, as it prevented me from progressing on certain things I needed to accomplish.

EdH · January 9, 2017

Yikes. That doesn't seem like unusual or weird steps. Thanks.

Chantal Leonard · January 9, 2017

@bbinder thanks for reporting & filing a ticket with the support team. We'll take a look!

Toph · January 9, 2017

Hmm. This one is crashing on launch for me…

Chantal Leonard · January 9, 2017

@Toph definitely not something we're seeing in our internal testing. Will PM you so we can get logs and debug - thanks for reporting!

Toph · January 9, 2017

@Chantal Leonard PMed you with a link to the crash log in a gist.

LSS1 · January 9, 2017

I have been using the Postbox email client for a long time and one of the important features is the built in Evernote button. I updated to EN version 6.11 beta 1 last week and since then, EN crashes each time I use the button. The email gets moved to EN so it is there when I restart EN. I have a screen recording if that is useful.

Chantal Leonard · January 9, 2017

13 minutes ago, LSS1 said:

I have been using the Postbox email client for a long time and one of the important features is the built in Evernote button. I updated to EN version 6.11 beta 1 last week and since then, EN crashes each time I use the button. The email gets moved to EN so it is there when I restart EN. I have a screen recording if that is useful.

Thanks for reporting @LSS1 - the team will investigate.

JMichaelTX · January 10, 2017

Downgrading or Doing a Clean Reinstall of EN Mac

I have noticed several posts requesting instructions on how to downgrade to a prior version of EN Mac.
Please see How to Completely Remove and Reinstall EN Mac.

Although AppCleaner works most of the time, some of the time it does NOT find all of the files related to an app. The developer confirmed that it does NOT search/find hidden files. For that reason I have been using AppDelete for years, and find that it always works. See the AppDelete User Reviews at MacUpdate.com

JWChang · January 10, 2017

Just wanted to say that I love the new tab feature. I need quick access to my schedule note, and I can now do that easily with keyboard only.

That being said, I'd like to be able to use a keyboard shortcut to access the tab that I want, something akin to most browsers (Cmd+Shift+# since Cmd+# does a different function). Moreover, I'd like to be able to open a single note in a new tab. Opening individual notes in a new window is too clunky.

Leo Gong · January 10, 2017

Thanks everyone for the feedback. We understand that this is a pretty big change for some of our EB users, which is exactly why we hoped to solicit your feedback. We'll be working through it to make adjustments before we release this to the public.

A few things I'd like to chime in on:

@handythinks, @asnook (and others) asked "Why are we doing this?"

tldr;

In the short term: Clarify Ownership of Data: notes in business notebooks are owned by the business; that has important implications; we do not make the separation clear enough today for users to make the right distinction between where their notes will be/should be placed.

In the longer term: Separation allows for better business admin controls, and features such as business only accounts.

Examples:
- If you were to place your personal receipts, or financial documents, or social security number in a business notebook, then they would belong to your business and stay with them even when you leave the company. This is not good for the user.
- On the flip side - many businesses ask that we help keep business-related notes in business notebooks, so that they can retain ownership even if the employee leaves. From their point of view - that's a bare minimum for paying for the service in the first place. We believe this is a very reasonable expectation. They also have asked for additional abilities to control what users do with content in a business account in the future.
What's wrong with things today?
- The current app doesn't do a great job of helping users to understand when they're in a business vs personal notebook. Allowing access to both contexts (from search results, shortcuts, etc.) is great for efficiency, but not great for communicating where you are. As a result, users often put business content in personal notebooks, and personal content in business notebooks.
  - A common example we see (and that I have been guilty of): treating personal notebooks as business-related notebooks I don't want to give everyone in my company access to, and treating business notebooks as business-related notebooks I'd give everyone access to. This will be a continuous project that we'll be working to get better at. This behavior is not what we intended - users keep their personal notebooks when they leave a business; a business will want to know they're retaining your work product - those should always live in business notebooks, not personal notebooks.
What do these changes allow for in the future?
- We are committed to building out stronger business features that allow businesses to have more visibility and control over the content and its distribution in their Business notebooks. We want to really help clarify when you're in Business vs Personal, so that when we introduce additional admin features, you aren't still mistakenly putting your personal content in Business notebooks - because it would be a worse experience for the user then.
- Business only accounts is also a commonly requested feature (many business owners from all business sizes are puzzled by why a personal account is linked to a business account they are paying for, that they have no rights of data ownership to). This design puts us in a place to implement that in the future.

Did we go too far and harm some workflows?

We expect that in this transition, users will see some harm done to some workflows - particularly users who have not historically split their data very cleanly between business and personal notebooks, and thus tend to frequently work in both contexts simultaneously.
This forum post seeks to understand the broken workflows - thank you for the feedback so far. As @SoftwareMarcus pointed out, feedback on how your workflow was negatively impacted and the seriousness of the impact is very helpful for us. I won't summarize what many of you, and @Chantal Leonard have already summarized - but please keep the feedback coming.

Last thoughts:

In some cases, we may still knowingly release changes that still harm your workflows. In many/most cases it just means that a fix is coming, but it didn't make it into that release. Your feedback helps us prioritize what must come now, vs later.
In terms of implementing an option to toggle the split vs "keep things as they are" - we'll be discussing this internally. However, generally I find that doing this doesn't actually address issues with the "new option" - why fix problems with a new implementation if you can just let your users keep the old one? This usually leads to bloatware that becomes difficult to use, and even more difficult to improve on, since you'd have to start supporting more and more versions of the same product. I'd very much like to avoid that, even if it does mean that we need to make some product tradeoffs.

Please keep the feedback coming!

JMichaelTX · January 10, 2017

1 hour ago, Leo Gong said:

Thanks everyone for the feedback. We understand that this is a pretty big change for some of our EB users, which is exactly why we hoped to solicit your feedback. We'll be working through it to make adjustments before we release this to the public.

I'm sure that the changes for EN Business Users are very important, and I encourage you to continue to make it possible to cleanly separate Business Notes from Personal Notes, while at the same time allowing the user to search ALL Notes (both Business and Personal) at the same time.

However, even more important, is the bug-free, reliability, of EN Mac for ALL users, both Business and Personal. I am still running EN Mac 6.9.2 because Ver 6.10 introduced some major bugs. More important than separating Business from Personal Notes, is FIXING BUGS.

Please release a version that fixes the bugs introduced in Ver 6.10, and serious long outstanding bugs, BEFORE you try to introduce new features.

Thanks.

asnook · January 10, 2017

@Leo Gong thanks so much for this candid and in depth response! It really helps us see the bigger picture from Evernote's perspective and provides context that helps us give feedback that is actually helpful. Hopefully, the team will be able to address some of our broken workflows while maintaining the vision for separating personal and business, which I can relate to. I run my own research lab so I'm the "owner" of my small Evernote business. I'm not sure that the separation will actually help my team keep their business stuff out of personal notebooks, but it is worth a shot.

Thanks again for the explanation.

Chantal Leonard · January 10, 2017

On 1/7/2017 at 8:50 AM, JacquesF said:

Hello

Does this beta version includes the colored tag functionnality for MacOS version as for web and windows version ?

this is really a gret improvement for tag uses.

Regards

@JacquesF thanks for the question. This release doesn't have color customization for tags, but it's a request we're tracking and keeping in mind for the future.

wedwards · January 10, 2017

This change in separation between personal and business needs to be optional. I understand the business requirements for doing so, but thats not how most people operate in real life, or have been using Evernote for many years. I think you will lose a lot of people over this, as it wreaks havoc on too many existing workflows. At the same time, I wouldnt want to see a dedicated Evernote Business and Personal applications either - that would be a complete nightmare. Please consider how this can be achieved without it being mandated so that the majority of user requirements may be accommodated.

Leo Gong · January 11, 2017

47 minutes ago, wedwards said:

This change in separation between personal and business needs to be optional. I understand the business requirements for doing so, but thats not how most people operate in real life, or have been using Evernote for many years. I think you will lose a lot of people over this, as it wreaks havoc on too many existing workflows. At the same time, I wouldnt want to see a dedicated Evernote Business and Personal applications either - that would be a complete nightmare. Please consider how this can be achieved without it being mandated so that the majority of user requirements may be accommodated.

Thanks @wedwards, could you please go into more detail around what the issues are for you that would be "no-go"s? We're open to a better solution, but without details on what can't change for you (ie. which workflows are being broken, and absolutely can't be), it would not be possible for us to assess if alternatives are actually better.

Woola · January 11, 2017

As highlighted by many of the other comments, the separation of personal and business notebooks is a deal breaker for me, and I think most of my clients. The current single interface between both your business and personal notes is fantastic, and removing that would make the tool antiquated and unusable.

As a perfect example, I currently run a "To Do" tag that shows me the tasks that I have to do for both my personal tasks, and my business tasks. Physically separating these would make the tool less efficient.

Within the Evernote Resources provided to ECC's under Talking Points, Evernote itself is highlighting its strengths as "All of your research, all in one place" and "Find what you're looking for, fast". The physical separation of personal and business notebooks is in complete opposition of Evernote's own talking points; as all your research is no longer in 1 place, and you can no longer find all your information fast as you are required to do searches across both your personal and business accounts.

Also, if you are a member of multiple business accounts, it looks like you would have a personal section and then a business section for each account; which makes this exponentially worse.

uriah · January 11, 2017

Hi I'm on Sierra, upgraded to this latest beta yesterday and Evernote now crashes on launch.

Really appreciate the driven development to add new features. Would appreciate it if this is fixed so I can use Evernote on my Mac

The Mac crash details:

Hardware Model: MacBookPro11,4
Process: Evernote [25052]
Path: /Applications/Evernote.app/Contents/MacOS/Evernote
Identifier: com.evernote.Evernote
Version: 454536
Code Type: X86-64
Parent Process: launchd [1]

Date/Time: 2017-01-11 19:34:44 +0000
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.12.2 (16C68)
Report Version: 104

Exception Type: SIGSEGV
Exception Codes: SEGV_MAPERR at 0xd92e744bec0
Crashed Thread: 0

Application Specific Information:
Selector name found in current argument registers: countByEnumeratingWithState:objects:count:

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fffda0d9b5d objc_msgSend + 29
1 Foundation 0x00007fffc7085b49 -[NSWhoseSpecifier _indexesOfPassingObjectsInContainer:] + 578
2 Foundation 0x00007fffc7085e57 -[NSWhoseSpecifier _specifiedIndexOfObjectInContainer:] + 27
3 Foundation 0x00007fffc7003f4f -[NSObject(NSScriptingInternal) _scriptingIndexOfObjectForSpecifier:] + 436
4 Foundation 0x00007fffc7004cc1 -[NSObject(NSScriptingInternal) _scriptingIndexOfObjectWithName:inValueForKey:] + 307
5 Foundation 0x00007fffc7004a44 -[NSObject(NSScriptingInternal) _scriptingObjectWithName:inValueForKey:] + 210
6 Foundation 0x00007fffc6ff7287 -[NSNameSpecifier _specifiedValueInContainer:] + 69
7 Foundation 0x00007fffc7003d69 -[NSObject(NSScriptingInternal) _scriptingValueForSpecifier:] + 30
8 Foundation 0x00007fffc7042448 -[NSScriptObjectSpecifier objectsByEvaluatingWithContainers:] + 41
9 Foundation 0x00007fffc70422a4 -[NSScriptObjectSpecifier objectsByEvaluatingSpecifier] + 78
10 Foundation 0x00007fffc70422a4 -[NSScriptObjectSpecifier objectsByEvaluatingSpecifier] + 78
11 Foundation 0x00007fffc70422a4 -[NSScriptObjectSpecifier objectsByEvaluatingSpecifier] + 78
12 Foundation 0x00007fffc70397ea -[NSScriptCommand evaluatedReceivers] + 121
13 Foundation 0x00007fffc703a501 -[NSScriptCommand executeCommand] + 61
14 Foundation 0x00007fffc7055484 -[NSScriptingAppleEventHandler handleCommandEvent:withReplyEvent:] + 195
15 Foundation 0x00007fffc6eb6ebd -[NSAppleEventManager dispatchRawAppleEvent:withRawReply:handlerRefCon:] + 290
16 Foundation 0x00007fffc6eb6d37 _NSAppleEventManagerGenericHandler + 102
17 AE 0x00007fffc62b90da _Z20aeDispatchAppleEventPK6AEDescPS_jPh + 544
18 AE 0x00007fffc62b8e51 _ZL25dispatchEventAndSendReplyPK6AEDescPS_ + 39
19 AE 0x00007fffc62b8d5d aeProcessAppleEvent + 312
20 HIToolbox 0x00007fffc4a0f7bf AEProcessAppleEvent + 55
21 AppKit 0x00007fffc2fa4dad _DPSNextEvent + 1833
22 AppKit 0x00007fffc371f21f -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 2789
23 AppKit 0x00007fffc2f99465 -[NSApplication run] + 926
24 AppKit 0x00007fffc2f63d80 NSApplicationMain + 1237
25 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fffda9cb255 start + 1

Thread 1:
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fffdaafa4e2 __workq_kernreturn + 10
1 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffdabe21ed start_wqthread + 13

CSA · January 12, 2017

The business account was created considering companies employing 25 people or more. I also find having to move personal notes to business quite inconvenient. If it is so inconvenient for me the solution will be is that I might just stick to the Plus or Premium account. There's a reason for different versions.

Chantal Leonard · January 12, 2017

@uriah working on addressing the issue you're hitting, a couple of other users are also facing the same. We'll release a hotfix when available. thanks for reporting!

ramophalatsi · January 14, 2017

Hi guys

To outline my observations:

Universal search

I have to echo others’ sentiments that the loss of single search across personal and business notebooks is a step in the wrong direction — the single thing I do several times a day, without fail, is to jump into Evernote..hit CMD-J and enter my string confident that I’m searching across all of my content. Universal search is essential to the Evernote experience. That said, points raised indicating that seeing personal results in search in the middle of a business presentation may not be desirable, however in that case I’d suggest providing the ability to limit the scope of search (much as we currently have the option to do within specific notebooks)

Tabs

Tabs are great, however others have also noted that the current tab titles don’t assist in identifying what each tab contains, I’d suggest using Note titles rather than Notebook titles for the tabs

High-resolution (retina) image display in the Mac and iOS clients

Then, while I’m at it I may as well mention a previously existing feature which has been missing for some time now. I use the Mac client of Evernote on a retina-display MacBook Pro. In the past I was able to drop retina-compatible images (i.e images with a resolution of 144 pixels/inch) and Evernote would respect the image’s dimensions. By that I mean the image would appear as it should (at 2x pixel density). The dimensions were also retained in the iOS versions of Evernote. Now when I drag an image into Evernote, the set resolution isn’t respected and I have to manually resize my images to roughly half the size they appear. Furthermore if I happen to make edits via an iOS Evernote client, then the images default back to double the size requiring me to manually resize again. This was one of those edge cases where Evernote illustrated its level of polish and elegant execution and now it feels like this little detail fell off the QA wagon. Please pick it up and put it back guys?

lpr · January 14, 2017

Seriously... every single thing The Evernote Corporation does seem to be 1) mostly about boosting sales and 2) alienating their longtime, faithful, core user base...

How big is the marketing team? is it bigger than the programming team?

I would love to see Evernote stop creating unnecessary sync conflicts in my notebooks, I would love to be able to work on a note on 2 devices and see the changes mirrored instead of the total meltdown it creates right now. Isn't this what you should be working on? Seamless work across devices? An experience free of bugs and conflicts and data loss? The decisions at this company are exasperating. And yet I'm hoping you figure your stuff out because I have a lot invested in this app.... I just want it to WORK.

LSS1 · January 15, 2017

I want to agree with Noteworthy. I like Evernote and have used it fairly heavily for several years but there are so many little things that make the experience painful -- and I don't see any of them getting better. The sync problems are a pain -- I have a small number of notebooks that I touch on my phone and I have a high probability of having a sync conflict every time I touch it on my phone, so I avoid it. There a lots of little text and UI artifacts in the Mac version. Tables are still lousy. I can't always get a clean TXT file out of a note. Its been like this literally for years and it doesn't get any better. Then there are little things that, I admit, are personal preference things like wanting to have each notebook sorted on a different criteria (and also have more criteria for sorting such as Creation Date). There seems to be more effort put into three or four marketing blog posts on meaningless topics than there is making EN a pleasant and productive experience.

tomw · January 15, 2017

From a work science standpoint I can see the benefit of separation. Search must be working through both at the same time if I want to.

What makes the TABS difficult for me now is that they disappear when I change between work and private account. In General I like them thous, its much cleaner then cluttering everything with double clicked extra windows for multiple notes. I love the TABS.

Positive is that the is a note move between the private and business accounts again and not the copy and delete workaround. I did not believe myself first how often I move notes between the two.

A real cool feature would be the scrivener style doubleview single window that allow you to see two notes in the main window side by side and have one of them active. I find this one of the main attractive features of the software.

lpr · January 16, 2017

On 2017-01-14 at 8:59 PM, LSS1 said:

I want to agree with Noteworthy. I like Evernote and have used it fairly heavily for several years but there are so many little things that make the experience painful -- and I don't see any of them getting better. The sync problems are a pain -- I have a small number of notebooks that I touch on my phone and I have a high probability of having a sync conflict every time I touch it on my phone, so I avoid it. There a lots of little text and UI artifacts in the Mac version. Tables are still lousy. I can't always get a clean TXT file out of a note. Its been like this literally for years and it doesn't get any better. Then there are little things that, I admit, are personal preference things like wanting to have each notebook sorted on a different criteria (and also have more criteria for sorting such as Creation Date). There seems to be more effort put into three or four marketing blog posts on meaningless topics than there is making EN a pleasant and productive experience.

I have the exact same issue. I avoid ever opening EN on my iPhone because I just know I'm gonna end up with a sync conflict. It never misses...

Also, MANY bugs on the mac OS version and they never get fixed with updates: one very annoying one is that when entering text in the "Find a tag" field in the filter by tag area, when I write suddenly disappears after a couple letters and I have to start the word again a few times before it works... God knows why...

What I'm wondering is... Is it POSSIBLE that you guys are unaware of these issues?

lpr · January 16, 2017

Also, since I'm at it... and in case anyone is paying attention...Have you guys not been paying attention to the press coverage you have been getting? It's pretty much just been intensely negative for years. You changed management... people were hoping you guys would try to listen to feedback but its been a long time and still the same tone deafness...

Honestly , the only reason I am still using (and paying) for the app is because I WANT it to work, because I have so much data tied to the app and have no desire to switch. But I wished you guys would listen, it's beginning to feel like you don't care because you've figured out that longtime users are unlikely to switch because they have a lot invested in the app so you can forget about them and focus on trying to take over the corporate world. That's really insulting and not the kind of relationship I want to have with a company I entrust with my "digital brain'.

Wake up!

Donald Pudney · January 16, 2017

Search functionality limitation - For me the biggest downside of this release is the limitation to only search one account at a time and this is a serious consideration in my workflow as it changes my entire manner of working. Is there not an option in the search bar (like in the iOS version) to search in ALL:PERSONAL:BUSINESS. If this was made configurable, people would be able to use in a manner that suits their own work style.

Missing functionality: Improved back-up options - I would like to be able to back up (to my own servers) a selection of Notebooks / Notes and this is not very easy at the moment. Would like to see this improved.

tomw · January 16, 2017

Is there a memory leak in the beta? I had Evernote on for a few days and now its at 12 GB of memory use. Never noticed this behaviour before.

EdH · January 17, 2017

Ugh. Can anyone successfully copy and paste a file into this build? CMD-C of a PDF in Finder followed by CMD-CTRL-V is an instant and 100% crash for me. Just happened again. I sent in a crash log with the tag eh20170117 in it if someone from EN can look at crash logs.

macfixer · January 17, 2017

4 hours ago, EdH said:

Ugh. Can anyone successfully copy and paste a file into this build? CMD-C of a PDF in Finder followed by CMD-CTRL-V is an instant and 100% crash for me. Just happened again. I sent in a crash log with the tag eh20170117 in it if someone from EN can look at crash logs.

Works on my end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Might be a bad PDF?

macfixer · January 17, 2017

4 hours ago, EdH said:

Ugh. Can anyone successfully copy and paste a file into this build? CMD-C of a PDF in Finder followed by CMD-CTRL-V is an instant and 100% crash for me. Just happened again. I sent in a crash log with the tag eh20170117 in it if someone from EN can look at crash logs.

Hold up — I didn't see you actually wrote "cmd-ctrl-v" (not sure what that does).

Pasting it that way crashed my Evernote. So, ignore my earlier comment

EdH · January 17, 2017

16 minutes ago, macfixer said:

Hold up — I didn't see you actually wrote "cmd-ctrl-v" (not sure what that does).

Pasting it that way crashed my Evernote. So, ignore my earlier comment

It will copy any PDF from finder into a new note in Evernote. Awesome shortcut, but the current beta has broken it.

When it works, it is nice. You can do it with multiple PDFs. I download statements when doing bills and "paste" them into Evernote this way all at once. Each PDF goes into a separate note.

Chantal Leonard · January 17, 2017

On 1/16/2017 at 4:36 AM, tomw said:

Is there a memory leak in the beta? I had Evernote on for a few days and now its at 12 GB of memory use. Never noticed this behaviour before.

Thanks for reporting - will investigate. May PM you if we need additional logs.

Chantal Leonard · January 17, 2017

@EdH thanks for reporting - the team is taking a look.

Miss_Colleen · January 17, 2017

I don't understand what tabs are for. Do you have something that shows how to use them, @Chantal Leonard ?

sdolan · January 18, 2017

Thanks to everyone for taking time to share their thoughts about this release. I really appreciated the input from Leo Gong, Stacey and Pascal Hämmerli.

My personal response to this beta is to roll back to 6.10 and suggest that 6.11 is not GA ready. I won't rehash the comments made by others regarding the separation between Personal and Business accounts, notebooks and notes. I understand the reasons put forward by Leo regarding the need that Evernote corporate clients have to ensure that their business information is separate from their staff's personal notes, and that their data is therefore secure and private. There can be no debate that organisations using Evernote have clear ownership of their data. But this means that Evernote is a federated system in terms of data ownership. Therefore, as Evernote rightly separates my personal data from my employer's business data, the Evernote UI should not impose an unreasonable burden on my productivity or effectiveness as I use these two different data sources.

My concern about version 6.11 is that it steps across this line and starts to look like an overhead to me. Let me offer two UI examples.

First example: searching

Evernote 6.10 enabled me to search across either or both my personal and business notes. This is very effective and makes it clear that there may be results in both data stores.

Evernote 6.11 has eliminated this distinction between personal and business data. It requires me to explicitly switch between these two data stores and run the search again, provided that I know or suspect that the note I'm interested in may be in the other data store. The search UI no longer makes this distinction clear, and now imposes a significant overhead to Evernote's search capabilities. How will Evernote users respond to this inefficiency? They will think twice about storing notes in their employer's business notebooks so that their productivity is not diminished. This runs completely counter to Evernote's philosophy as I understand it. Hence, Stacey's and Pascal's feedback is very well founded.

Second example: selecting Notes in LH menu panel:

Evernote 6.10 made it clear that I had notes in both my personal and business notebooks and I allowed me to easily switch between them.

Evernote 6.11 eliminates this UI distinction and feedback. Not only that, it shows the wrong number of notes (total number of notes rather than the number of notes in either my personal or business notes). This is going to be confusing and I suspect is a bug rather than expected behaviour. Nevertheless, my question is: why eliminate this UI feedback. It was simple and efficient to select either my business notes or my personal notes from the LH menu. Now I have to go to the account pull-down at the top of the screen and select the account that I want to work in. Note that the number of notes in the LH menu doesn't change.

How is this adding to my productivity? It isn't, so maybe I shouldn't keep notes in two separate data stores. Maybe I should keep all my notes in my personal area and only move notes to the business area when I don't need them anymore or when I really need to share them with my colleagues. I don't think that this is the Evernote user behaviour that Evernote's corporate clients will want.

Sorry Evernote, but this is a fail from my point of view. Please urgently reconsider your thinking and do not update to 6.11 in this present form. Do not enforce a UI that makes your users see the separation of personal from business data as an overhead to their productivity. I can guarantee that users will find ways to end-run this functionality, probably by not storing notes in their business notebooks in the first place.

My suggestion is that you think carefully about enhancing visual and UI cues to reduce the possibility for confusion about personal vs business notes. For example, make a link to a personal note green (as presently the case) but use a different colour link to a business note. Just as we have blue links to external URLs. Use differentiated icons to select personal and business notes. Use an icon in a note's editing toolbar to show which account the notes is currently stored in. You can also enhance UI elements that enable us to operate on either a personal note or a business note or both, such as the current 6.10 search panel.

asnook · January 18, 2017

If anyone installed Evernote 8.0 for iOS today, you'll see that a hard separation between Business and Personal is the new standard for Evernote. Evernote web has been separate for a while. Now Evernote for iOS is completely separate. I'm sure that Android and all Desktop clients will soon follow. I was passionately opposed to the change in Evernote 6.11, but I can now see that it isn't open for discussion. That is the approach Evernote is taking across all platforms and they have their motivations for doing it. We would be best served by making constructive suggestions that minimize disruptions to our workflows or allow new workflows to maintain our productivity. One suggestion from me would be making the switch faster and easier. The shortcuts aren't easy to remember or find with my fingers and the UI switch is slow and harsh. Ideally, switching could be easily made using the ⌘J shortcut. In 6.10 I constantly used ⌘J>Business Notes or ⌘J>Personal Notes to quickly switch between different accounts. I would love to get that option back to switch between accounts. Also, the abrupt closing and reopening of the entire Evernote window could be smoother. That's my 2¢.

sdolan · January 18, 2017

On 1/9/2017 at 10:57 PM, Pascal Hämmerli said:

I think that the main problem is the shift of data philosophy implied by what comes with beta 6.11. I do not think that this is intended, however in practice Evernote is a new reality with this OS release for myself and, as the reaction shows in the forum, for many intensive Evernote users.

Thanks for your insightful comments Pascal. I'd like to suggest that there is both a technical and experiential difference between Evernote's data management philosophy and it's application usability philosophy. I think that it's entirely appropriate and indeed necessary for Evernote to separate our personal notes from our employer's business notes. Evernote's corporate clients no doubt demand this. This means that Evernote is, by definition, a federated data management and application system. Data federation is a well understood IT concept and there are many reasons why data needs to stored, managed and accessed from separate systems. We may need to keep data associated with our European operation physically stored in Germany (say) so that we comply with EU data privacy legislation.

However, this does not necessarily mean that our application systems should also embody this data separation. I may want to run a database query that accesses multiple data stores, some geographically distant, and return a single result for presentation to our user. The user doesn't want or need to know that the data they are interested in is stored in some particular way. They expect the application to hide this complexity. Indeed, application developers may not need to know about the data federation strategy when they code their SQL query; the DBMS itself will handle this complexity.

With this concept in mind, my objection to 6.11 is that Evernote now forces the user to directly deal with this data federation complexity. I now need to know that the note I'm searching for is in my business account rather than my personal account. I need to (effectively) log out of my personal account in order to work with business notebooks, notes and tags. Worse, Evernote's UI does not make it obvious that I am working with a one type of notebook/note/tag or another. I pay a price for this added complexity in reduced productivity and efficiency, and workflow complexity. As you point out Pascal, this runs counter to the essential GTD philosophy: one inbox only.

This is a fundamental problem for Evernote's usability and productivity. And the consequence will be user behaviour that attempts to get around this complexity.

I urge Evernote to pause on 6.11 and re-think this approach. Evernote needs to find innovative ways to abstract their data federation strategy from their application functionality and not make it the user's problem. This is simply lazy design.

sdolan · January 18, 2017

On 1/7/2017 at 2:01 AM, Stacey said:

What is presented in this Beta release is going to be a huge shift in my workflows, and the workflows of my business clients. It is a huge change to efficiency to not be able to see at a glance that we have new notes that got generated in our default notebook while we are on the business side of our account.

Thanks for your comment Stacey. The changes to our Evernote workflows and practices are the result of Evernote's developers forcing us to deal explicitly with the data federation strategy introduced with the distinction between personal and business notes. I'm not objecting to the management of business and personal data separately in Evernote. This is an entirely necessary and desirable consequence of Evernote's strategy to become an enterprise solution for their corporate clients. My objection is the way that Evernote 6.11 makes an Evernote user increasingly responsible for explicitly navigating through (and around) this data federation complexity. Yes, users need to be aware of when they are working with business vs personal information; but this should not impact on our productivity when using Evernote Business. To the extent that this does reduce user productivity, users will respond by attempting to avoid dealing with this complexity. And this changing user behaviour will damage Evernote's value proposition in an increasing competitive market.

Chantal Leonard · January 18, 2017

4 hours ago, sdolan said:

Evernote 6.11 eliminates this UI distinction and feedback. Not only that, it shows the wrong number of notes (total number of notes rather than the number of notes in either my personal or business notes). This is going to be confusing and I suspect is a bug rather than expected behaviour.

Thanks @sdolan for your thoughts. Regarding the highlighted, it's indeed a bug and we're addressing it presently. I'm a bit curious about how you organize your notes so will PM you for some more details to better understand the scenarios where you find yourself searching across multiple contexts.

In terms of how to think about this release, this is our first of several betas. We plan on making improvements based on the feedback iteratively so you'll start seeing changes come in and we'll ask for feedback again once we've done our first round of changes to assess again where things are and if you still are finding certain workflows complex. We generally find that being able to share progress as we're making it helps us assess if we're headed in the right direction, so stay tuned for that and looking forwards to getting additional feedback then.

thhh · January 18, 2017

Hi Chantal,

I'll jump in here to explain some of the things I really hope will work once you go out of beta:

1, I have notebooks that were shared with me from other people. At the moment, I MUST add these to my private account, but they are business related. I have contacted support and heard that adding shared notebooks to business is currently not possible (this was a while ago, but I am not aware it has changed). So currently, I must search across personal and business folders to include also the shared folders.

2, I use tags to organize my todos. My personal and work life are very much intertwined, and a day consists of both personal and business todos. I tag notes with a tag for the current day. Currently, I can use the same tag across personal and business and then search all todos for the day with one single saved search. When you force me to separate personal from business, this will force me to have 2 todo lists, and to monitor them by switching accounts all the time. Others here have pointed out that this also extends to GTD inbox and similar issues.

3, I use multiple programs to send stuff to Evernote - one of the key features it was designed with. For instance, I use MailButler. I have a shortcut to send a mail to my inbox (this has the advantage of getting a link back to the original email in Evernote). This inbox is in the personal account. In Evernote, I distribute notes to different personal and business folders, depending on the saved email context. I have not updated to the current beta, but have read here that transferring notes between accounts is not straight forward at the moment.

4, in a similar way, my browser plugins are set to send everything to 1 inbox, and I distribute things later in Evernote, which is much easier (with keyboard shortcuts etc.) than choosing a target folder for personal vs. business in the browser plugin each time.

sdolan · January 18, 2017

2 hours ago, Chantal Leonard said:

understand the scenarios where you find yourself searching across multiple contexts

Let me put it this way:

Why should I not be able to search seamlessly across my business and personal notes?

Or to put it another way, why should Evernote force me to consider whether the note I am looking for is in one context (business) vs another (personal)?

evb · January 18, 2017

4 minutes ago, sdolan said:

Let me put it this way:

Why should I not be able to search seamlessly across my business and personal notes?

Or to put it another way, why should Evernote force me to consider whether the note I am looking for is in one context (business) vs another (personal)?

The obsolete (former) Desktop Search feature would make this question obsolete.

Ceterum censeo: Please bring back Desktop Search under MS Windows as we had it under EN 2.X (and 3.X?).

Cheers, EvB.

sdolan · January 18, 2017

And while we're on this topic, I know that the Mac and Windows clients are developed by different teams, but do they ever talk to each other about these issues? For example, the current version of Evernote for Windows separates Business from Personal notes in the LH menu panel this way:

Why? Not that this is a bad UI approach, but why does the Mac development team take such a fundamentally different approach to the same problem? Is there no overarching UI strategy or philosophy in Evernote?

sdolan · January 18, 2017

16 minutes ago, evb said:

Ceterum censeo: Please bring back Desktop Search under MS Windows as we had it under EN 2.X (and 3.X?).

Ceterum censeo Evernote Fenestra et Scotorum in concordia

sdolan · January 18, 2017

6 hours ago, asnook said:

a hard separation between Business and Personal is the new standard for Evernote

And users will likely respond by avoiding the productivity and usability penalty imposed by this distinction. We'll simply "live" in our personal account and move notes across to our business account when forced to.

ColD · January 18, 2017

Any chance of getting this release for Mac to have feature parity with the Windows & web version?

Dan Wilson · January 18, 2017

16 hours ago, Miss_Colleen said:

I don't understand what tabs are for. Do you have something that shows how to use them, @Chantal Leonard ?

ditto that. When right clicking a note in notes list and selecting "Open Note in New Tab" I am expecting to get a full screen view of that note, instead I get all the sidebar, main toolbar and notes list. Cannot see the point of it.

sail · January 18, 2017

14 minutes ago, Dan Wilson said:

ditto that. When right clicking a note in notes list and selecting "Open Note in New Tab" I am expecting to get a full screen view of that note, instead I get all the sidebar, main toolbar and notes list. Cannot see the point of it.

1

Expected behaviour does not reflect actual behaviour. This is what I find annoying about Evernote and many big developers recently. Has someone who uses Evernote (and is familiar with browsers and the web) developed this feature, or is it just one on a checklist to add to the product, because Apple introduced tabs in Sierra?

New product features are supposed to be useful.

EdH · January 21, 2017

On 1/5/2017 at 3:41 PM, Chantal Leonard said:

[Edit 1/18: We've updated this Beta 1 build addressing the issue some users were encountering with Apple Script, Afred, and crashes at startup. You can get the latest build here]

Copy and Paste file from finder with CMD-C, CTRL-CMD-V is still broken. I sent a crash log. Look for "eh20170121" to find it in the description text.

Stacey Harmon · January 22, 2017

In continuing to work with this beta, it has occurred to me that it is actually easier for me to share data with other Evernote users than it is to share between the two sides of my account. I can simply share a business notebook with another Evernote user (of any level, or to someone inside or outside my business account), and have the efficiency of quickly moving notes easily in and out of that notebook, and them having immediate access to them (upon sync). However, I can't share that notebook with the personal side of my account - I have to go through a series of commands and clicks to move data to the other side of my account, and then it is moved, not on both sides of my account. So, in essence, it is easier for me to share data with people I work with and others outside my organization than it is for me to share data with my personal Evernote account? Doesn't seem right.

I'd almost be better off having two separate Evernote accounts and sharing the default notebook of my "personal" evernote account with my business account.

It highlights another possible remedy to the split between personal and business - allow users to share a notebook with the business or personal side of their account, so they have a "transfer" notebook. And, maybe this can be the default notebook from the personal side of the account so that if they are working on a daily basis on the business side of their account, they can see notes that are generated during the capture process that get auto-filed in the default notebook.

Evernote for Mac 6.11 Beta 1 Released

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