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All notes / notebooks gone. Need to restore from local backup.


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Running Mac OS Mojave.

Yesterday my Evernote worked fine (has for years).  This morning, I started up Evernote and it suddenly asked me to sign in (never had done that before).  So I signed in, and all my notes / notebooks are gone.  Pretty sure I only had locally stored notes / notebooks.

Help file says:

Select File > Import Notes...
Locate and select the ENEX (.enex) file from where it's been saved on your computer
Select Open

But I can't find the .enex file on my mac.  Seems like this should be straight forward.

I also have time machine backups.

Any help would be appreciated.

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  • Level 5

Most likely reason is that by accident (typo or something) you have created a completely new account. This will be empty ...

ENEX is the EN backup format, so if you did not create one before because you wanted, you do not have it.

But the data will still be there, on your Mac but as well on the EN server. So no need to create anything anew. And no need to go back through time machine (but good you have it up and running).

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3 hours ago, oaxaca_one said:

So I signed in, and all my notes / notebooks are gone.  Pretty sure I only had locally stored notes / notebooks.

Are you saying you only used "Local Notebooks"? 
Thats too bad; they're not sync'd to the Evernote server.  The only backups are those performed by yourself

>>But I can't find the .enex file on my mac.

.enex files are created when we use Evernote's export function to backup our data

>>I also have time machine backups.

That's good.  You can use these backups to resore your database folder
To identify the folder, hold down the option key and click Help

555499113_ScreenShot2019-06-26at10_17_09.png.28ba7a12c59c37ff23f603c259ff6290.png

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Are you saying you only used "Local Notebooks"? 
Thats too bad; they're not sync'd to the Evernote server.  The only backups are those performed by yourself

Yes, I think it was only local notebooks.  It was a decision I probably made 5 years ago when I didn't understand what it would mean to backup to the cloud.  And then it never got changed cause it just 'worked'.

.enex files are created when we use Evernote's export function to backup our data

So, what if I never exported any of the notes from Evernote's export function?  I just backed up my entire computer using time machine *assuming* that that would backup local Evernote files.

That's good.  You can use these backups to resore your database folder
To identify the folder, hold down the option key and click Help

Here is what comes up when I choose Open Database Folder.  I don't know which of these files / folders I should restore from.  I don't see any .enex files here.

Thanks.

Screen Shot 2019-06-26 at 1.41.01 PM.jpg

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  • Level 5

As you can see, there are 2 entries (= accounts) inside of the Evernote-folder on your disk.

Probably the first one xx566, with the smaller number, is the one containing your notes.

The second one xx9933 is the one probably created by accident. You can check, if this is true the files and folders inside should show a recent date on which they were created.

You just need to access the original one to get everything back as you had it before. If you did not save anything in the second one yet (the one you say is „empty“), you can delete it later.

For now try to find out what are your real access credentials, and try to open your real account trough the EN app again.

******************

After and when this is resolved, think about using the EN cloud. Either by going PREMIUM in general, or at least by doing so for a month. One month will give you 10GB of upload allowance, which is pretty much in terms of EN data. If you have more, maybe you will need to buy additional time. 

There are many advantages with using the EN cloud. One of this is to have a second backup in a place where it is secure even when a fire would destroy your Mac AND your time machine target at the same time. A second one is to have a note history, which means you can always go back to an older version of a note that you changed. This is for using it a Premium feature, but the versioning will be created for BASIC users as well - just without giving access to it as long as you are on Basic settings.

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36 minutes ago, oaxaca_one said:

Here is what comes up when I choose Open Database Folder.  I don't know which of these files / folders I should restore from.  I don't see any .enex files here.

Your screenshot shows 20....33 is your database folder.  You would be restoring this from your Time Machine backups - the entire folder

The 6...566 folder is the database for a second account

As I said, .enex files are only created when you use Evernote's export feature

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Thanks for the help.  Almost there, but not quite.

You say to restore from the entire 204419933 folder.  I thought I knew how to do that, but I guess not.

Inside EN, I go File > Import Notes...

Then, I go find the 204419933 folder.  But when I highlight it, EN doesn't recognize that as a 'restorable' folder because the Open button is greyed out, see screenshot.

So I wonder:  is there another way to restore other than File > Import Notes?

Thanks.

Screen Shot 2019-06-26 at 3.22.41 PM.jpg

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25 minutes ago, oaxaca_one said:

So I wonder:  is there another way to restore other than File > Import Notes?

You need to use time machine to restore the folder.  You can't use EN to import since it is expecting a enex file which you don't have.

Per @PinkElephant, it does look like you have a second account.  Are you sure that when you signed in, you didn't accidentally create a new account?  It is easy to do.  Maybe your notes are still there.

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50 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

Per @PinkElephant, it does look like you have a second account.  Are you sure that when you signed in, you didn't accidentally create a new account?  It is easy to do.  Maybe your notes are still there.

Geez, that is exactly what happened.

When I started up Evernote, it unexpectedly asked me to sign in.  To sign in, it asks for an email address.  But, I had a user name, not email address (I signed up in 2013, I guess that's how they used to do it...) .  So instead of just putting in my user name, I figured I needed to enter my email address--- which no doubt created a new account for me with -0- notes.

I just tried signing in by putting my user name in the email field--- along with the password-- and violà!  all my note/books are there.

It would have been helpful if the Evernote sign-in field said "Email or User Name", for us old-timers that signed up with a user name.

Thanks to all!

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Glad you could solve this.

Think about joining the cloud service !

It will create another layer of security for you. You could upload what is there during (probably) one month of going Premium, and then continue on Basic. Even when on basic, EN will not delete anything, they just restrict the upload of new stuff.

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1 hour ago, oaxaca_one said:

I just tried signing in by putting my user name in the email field--- along with the password-- and violà!  all my note/books are there.

Glad you got it worked out.  There's no problem with having two accounts, but you have to keep track.  

Back to the Local Notebook thing.  If your notebooks are Local, I recommend moving to sync'd notebooks

Also, for experience try exporting some notes to create a .enex file, then import the .enex file.

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2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

You could upload what is there during (probably) one month of going Premium, and then continue on Basic

Or go full premium and maybe EN can then justify letting someone spend a little time making the login page less confusing 😁I wish I had a nickel for every time someone here answered a "help my notes are gone" question.  Considering what we see here I can just imagine the number that the full support network must get.

I did learn something here.  I also have a user name and always assumed that I could login with either my user name or email address.  I haven't tried but from @oaxaca_one's experience it sounds like that would just create a second account, so thanks for the heads up.  Glad to hear you found your notes.

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