Offline Backup?

[seththepeacock 0]

I'm considering upgrading to pro but the one feature I really want is to be able to download all my files and save them as PDF's. I know they offer offline saving with pro but I'm guessing you still need the evernote app to access those offline files. I love evernote but I dont like the idea of all of my work at risk of being lost if a company goes under or is hacked or something of that sort. I'm wondering if there is a way to do this (maybe I'm wrong about the pro offline access) or suggest it to the evernote team.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

Hi and welcome to the forums. You're right about offline notes being a paid feature (see the feature comparison here). AFAIK there's no way to save notes to PDF in bulk. If that's what you want to do, the best way would be to save each note to PDF as you create or edit it (File > Print to PDF). Tedious, but reliable. Of course, if the note contains an attached PDF or audio or video file, probably not going to be workable in any circumstances.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 9/13/2019 at 2:26 PM, seththepeacock said:

the one feature I really want is to be able to download all my files and save them as PDF's.

I wonder about the PDF requirement.  
My Evernote data is in various formats; note (enml/html), pdf, images, word/pages, excel/numbers, audio, ...

For backup, I use the html export feature.  
Notes are converted to plain html format, readable by any browser app.  
Attachments maintain their native format; pdf, images, word/pages, excel/numbers, audio, ...

The screenshot is a backup sample;
a note with attachments

[CalS 5,280]

On 9/13/2019 at 4:26 PM, seththepeacock said:

I'm considering upgrading to pro but the one feature I really want is to be able to download all my files and save them as PDF's. I know they offer offline saving with pro but I'm guessing you still need the evernote app to access those offline files. I love evernote but I dont like the idea of all of my work at risk of being lost if a company goes under or is hacked or something of that sort. I'm wondering if there is a way to do this (maybe I'm wrong about the pro offline access) or suggest it to the evernote team.

You can highlight any size group of notes and print to PDF, don't think you can get a PDF per note.  A bit cumbersome to find things or transport to another product I would think.  HTML might be friendlier.  Remember even if EN bellies up you can still use the desktop for some period of time, there just won't be any syncing anymore.

[PinkElephant 8,116]

Beware the wording: 

• „Offline“ is a feature of the mobile clients, to be able to work without internet connection
• “Local“ is a feature of the desktop clients, to define a notebook that will not sync with the EN server at any time

Both are not the solution if EN would one day go belly up. The solution to this is always one of the desktop clients, be it Win or Mac. These keep a complete copy of the personal database on the devices disk. This contains the server synced notebooks plus all local notebooks. But the local notebooks only exist in this copy (so make sure you run a backup !), whereas the server synced notebooks exist locally and on the server. The server is the master copy, but the local copy is fully operational.

You can try this yourself: Just sync the EN database, then quit the internet connection of your desktop, and open EN again. You will find everything is there, any you can work on it. What is missing are server-based features, and of course no sync to other devices.

So even if the EN servers are dead tomorrow morning, you have everything on your desktop, and you are fully operational with this data. You have all the time to pick another solution, wait for theses guys to build golden bridges for the EN users out alone in the cold etc. So there is no need to hesitate go go fully in, because you can always and independently of the fate of EN take your stuff and move on.

Why not the mobile clients, set to „offline“ ? Because up to now it is much more tricky to get stuff out of a mobile app locally. Maybe this will change under iOS 13, but at the moment the data is there to work offline, but not easily exported. Sure you can export it note by note, via the share function.

And why is it completely theoretical ? Because with the installed user base, even if EN would go into Chapter 11 (or something similar), there would for sure be investors that take up the ball, put in some fresh money and keep things running. The data itself is hosted on servers driven by Google, maybe the best protected and managed servers on this planet.

So as long as there is not a big stone falling on our heads, there is no need to worry. And if, we all had to worry about other 🦕🦖 stuff.

[CalS 5,280]

11 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

You can try this yourself: Just sync the EN database, then quit the internet connection of your desktop, and open EN again. You will find everything is there, any you can work on it. What is missing are server-based features, and of course no sync to other devices.

Just NEVER log out of EN on the desktop.  

[seththepeacock 0]

Thanks for the replies, exporting to html was the answer I was looking for. If anyone else comes here heres the article that thoroughly explains the process:

 

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313528-How-to-back-up-and-restore-your-data-in-Evernote-for-Windows

[CMW9 0]

Does anyone know if "export notebooks" (as described in link above https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313528-How-to-back-up-and-restore-your-data-in-Evernote-for-Windows) is available only to Premium? I currently see no right-click context menu on my notebooks.  (I am delaying upgrading to Premium until I get my new student number (and discount) in Sept ... but petrified of data loss in the meantime! (Through my own error ..)