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Evernote and lockscreen notes on a Samsung Note 8


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  • Level 5

I realize this will be of interest only to a subset of persons here, but it's a fairly large subset, so....

I recently bought a Samsung Note 8 running Android 7.1.1. I was disappointed to find that the ability to start creating an Evernote note on the lockscreen seems to be gone, since a specific item in the phone's Settings > Notification > Evernote is no longer available. (See my post regarding this in relation to Android 6.) However, the Note 8/Android 7 combination does allow you to replace one of the two shortcuts on the lockscreen, so I replaced Phone with Evernote, which does provide quick swipe access to the app. But then you have to start a new note manually.

Then I discovered, under Settings > Phone > S Pen, the option "Screen off memo," which lets you create notes directly on the lockscreen, and this is where things got interesting. Interesting, dumb, and frustrating. Because if only these lockscreen notes could be synced to Evernote.... It seems, however, that lockscreen notes are saved to Samsung Notes, and Samsung Notes will sync to the Samsung account, but not to Evernote.

Now, the separate app S Notes can sync to Evernote quite handily, but the lockscreen notes cannot be saved to it. S Notes downloaded to my phone automatically when I let Google restore apps, since I had it on my previous phone; apparently it may not appear on new Note 8s as such, but it's available in the Play Store. S Notes are different from Samsung Notes, and are much more highly functional--which would be why Samsung wouldn't supply them on new phones, because Samsung creates great hardware and then goes for dumb and frustrating on software. At any rate, there's good info on Samsung Notes vs. S Notes in a Reddit post here: http://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyNote8/comments/7100l6/difference_between_s_note_and_samsung_notes_and/. (scroll down to zolares' long comment).

So S Notes sync nicely to EN; but lockscreen notes save to Samsung Notes, which can't sync to EN. The kludge I've worked out is to take notes on the lockscreen, and then share them manually from within Samsung Notes. This can be done from Samsung Notes' Share function, which will let you share as PDF (or as their proprietary format); then you can attach the PDF to an Evernote note. But I prefer a different option, which is to go to the lockscreen note in Samsung Notes and use the S Pen's Smart Select function to select the note's content and then share the resulting image to Evernote. Did I mention this was a kludge? But it does work, at least for short notes, and looks like it could be useful. Bonus: EN will scan the handwriting in the image (even my sloppy mess handwriting) and extract searchable text from it, making it easier to find the note later.

OK, thanks for reading, hope this helps someone!

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  • 1 month later...

I know this has been posted a while ago but I just wanted to tell you that you are not alone :) I definitely miss the ability to sync my spen notes with Evernote. 

Having said that, I have installed the SNote (good old one) with action memo. So majority of the times I just wake up the phone and use old action memo. 

 

Thanks 

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  • 1 month later...

Not sure if any headway has been made here. Having used practically every Note phone Samsung made, I used the Screen Off memo/S Note/Evernote sync in past devices as well. One of my favorite features. The only workaround I have now is to screen capture the note pages (I prefer a pic to PDF for handwritten notes).  Any plans to better integrate the Note series with a Evernote like it used to be? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having bought the Note 8 myself, I searched for ways to synchronize the off-screen memos with Evernote as well. So far, I have not found a solution; neither Tasker nor IFTTT is integrated with Evernote. Furthermore, since the folder in which the SOM are saved is not accessible without root, any auto-uploading apps don't work.

 

Cheers

Alex

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  • Level 5

And I would just say that this is really Samsung's problem, not Evernote's. Evernote can't just suck in Samsung Notes (which are in a proprietary format anyway); Samsung Notes needs to be fixed so that it syncs with Evernote. But of course Samsung (I suspect) wants you to do everything within their closed system, and not use Evernote at all.

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