Control Which Image Shown in a Note's Thumbnail/Snippet View

[marcelo 85]

I do like the new layout with larger thumbnails, except for one thing: Evernote seems to choose as thumbnail the largest image within a note. But it is rather annoying, for it seldom coincides with the image which would enable me to recognize a note at once. Can I somehow force Evernote to use a specific image as thumbail?

Marcelo

[CalS 5,280]

[Domokan 1]

I've been an active Evernote user for over a decade (since 2009), including sometimes having additional paid accounts at work. I see the oldest request for this feature is dated 2011. The thumbnail functionality has annoyed me the entire time.

If you hold out for another year, you'll make it a whole decade of ignoring a very sensible and straightforward feature request from your users. As a software developer, I am aghast.

I've stopped recommending your product to other people.

[RJRJ 5]

I wrote in this thread 6 years ago. And here I am again.

What can I say?..

I have no words.

[johnortt 26]

I have decided to try twitter instead.

If anyone else wants to try I suggest sending a message to @IanSmall (The CEO) and @evernote

Hashtags: Evernote #EvernoteBugs #EvernoteThumbnails

[SparkWerx 3]

6 minutes ago, johnortt said:

I have decided to try twitter instead.

If anyone else wants to try I suggest sending a message to @IanSmall (The CEO) and @evernote

Hashtags: Evernote #EvernoteBugs #EvernoteThumbnails

Then again, if anyone is interested, one could contact Ian Small via LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/iansmall/. 

[dbareis 14]

What does it take for Evernote to provide this basic functionality.  Big demand going back at least 8 years.

A FIX: Image->Right-Click->Make Note Thumbnail, can't be more than a couple of minutes work.

[kflores 3]

Premium user here -- signed in to Evernote forum for the first time to +1 this long-standing feature request: the ability to manually set the thumbnail image for a note.

[JoelArt 5]

This has been requested for over 10 years and with my limited programming skills I believe this could be implemented in a day or two. There could be some backend server database issues but it's not technically hard when they already can use an image, it wouldn't be that much work to make it possible for a user to select it.

Evernote is the most shi**y company when it comes to listening to it's users, frustrating and sad. I already use a couple of other services but none is as complete and they know it and just keeps on lazily surfing on their initial success. If I had an option I would leave immediately.

[NobleKen 0]

Could someone from Evernote please explain why this LONG-requested, seemly-quite-reasonable feature is NOT being addressed? It's hard to imagine why selecting/presenting a thumbnail–which is currently done in a naive, automated fashion–couldn't be a user-driven feature. If we missing something, please let us know.

[gtdmouse 3]

It's insane to me that I'm coming on this forum for the first time in 2020 specifically for this issue, and for NINE YEARS they haven't done anything to fix it. Unbelievable.

[slimus 2]

10 years latter still no change? Such a helpful application and no attention to details. The easiest change would be to make first picture as note preview. 

[Nickerz 19]

9 years, 6 pages later (and counting) yet Evernote still hasn't gotten the hint!? Goodness Evernote get with the program and add this feature already since it's been requested for nearly a decade now!

[Nickerz 19]

I asked a tech about this feature to see if he can maybe move this decade long request up the developer ladder so we'll see. Below is his email reply I just got from him (Oleg-VERY nice and helpful tech!)...

 

Oleg T (Evernote Help and Learning)

Oct 28, 2020, 14:44 PDT

Hi Nick,

Thanks for writing back. The ability to control which image is shown in a note's thumbnail/snippet view has been a popular feature request for quite some time. I certainly agree that this functionality would be very beneficial to many of users.

With that being said, I'm more than happy to raise the priority of this feature request via the internal channel. I’ve gone ahead and sent a note of this to our development team. While we can’t commit to getting all feature requests into the product, we do rely on our community to tell us what they’d like to see in the future.

Please let me know if I can be of any other assistance.

Best regards,

Oleg T
Technical Support Specialist
Mon-Fri, 9:00-5:00 CST

[Nickerz 19]

Hmmm, I wonder how many other companies can ignore their customer's top request for a decade and still remain relevant?

Just a reminder Evernote for this kind of arrogance and mentality, as the following businesses, as well as many others, all once dominated and yet are no longer around...

• Border's Books
• PanAm
• Toy's R Us
• Tower Records
• Blockbuster Video (technically, I think there's still 1 store-lol)
• Sears
• Lehman Brothers

...only time will tell!

 

[Eric Dereudre 0]

+1  in need of this feature...

 

[Hugoboss 1]

+1

[Nickerz 19]

I say Evernote's next update be named marcelo in honor of his great idea almost 10 years ago! 😄

[Roger Robson 1]

+1

Thinking of switching to a competitive product because of this.

[Coolohoh 2]

+1 to this. Is this really all that hard to implement? Just let us have an option when we right click on a picture to set it as the thumbnail image. This makes searching and locating my notes much easier!!! 

I love evernote but the speed at which basic updates/features are implemented is appalling! 

[dustov 11]

I also want the ability to edit the snippet image that appears in the sidebar.  It should be an easy fix.  I found the picture could be open in an image editor, but saw no way to delete or replace the image.

[highchairdrama 14]

Yikes, I used to be able to solve this by deleting all the irrelevant images in a note until I got one I liked - but now THAT doesn't even work anymore! Now this most recent "update" is apparently caching the original image it deemed thumbnail-worthy so I can't change it no matter what. After 8 years of struggling with thumbnail images I am at my wit's end!!!!

[johnortt 26]

Dear Evernote Admins.

Please take not of how few people are saying this is a bad idea (Zero at last count) and how many are in support of this feature.

I really am getting so fed up of waiting ten years for basic functionality!

[mladlow 0]

The best current solution is to switch to Trello

[PinkElephant 8,112]

Anything substantial to say ? Or just venting hot air ?

You can add your vote to the request by clicking on the button top left.

[Christophe Chaussin 1]

I'suggest it for evernot's development team :

1 - Right click on the desired picture

2 - in the drop-down menu, add this option : 

"Use this image as thumbnail for the current note"

3 - it's done, thousands of users will worship your Great Team.

4 - Thanks

[gcnewell 0]

I deleted the note image then uploaded a new note image, but the thumbnail/snippet does not change to the new image even though it's the only image in the note.  Please help.

 

[agsteele 2,949]

7 hours ago, Eduardo Estefano said:

 Now that they have re-implemented the encryption edition, I have a feeling that this long lasting feature will be implemented soon. 

Well this thread had been going since 2011. No change in a decade so I'm not holding my breath even though the image thumbnail is broken in v10.

[carolinj2010 7]

This feature would be particularly useful when you have an audio attachment that is quite big. It shows you the 'audio' icon. In order to overrule this I had to add an image that is even bigger than the attachment which blows the note size unnecessarily up. 

Found WORKAROUND:
So - size doesn't matter apparently. Whatever your algorithm is doing it has nothing to do with file size when there are audio & image files present.

First: insert the image you want to see in the snippets view for example.
Second: add your audio file.

P.S.: This is for the PC version

Edited November 1, 2021 by carolinj2010
Found workaround

[SSPOZ 1]

This is a feature that needs to be implemented asap. The algorithm doesn't make sense at all. Why would the biggest image be the most important?

For example, I want YouTube thumbnails or book covers to be the main image preview after I have captured them with my screenshot tool.

[Hoss_Boss 6]

It's mind boggling that his user feature has not been implemented 😖 

[Theodor With 2]

I can edit the metadata of my notes. I've been working with IT development and databases since before this bug (being unable to edit the thumbnail metadata field) was reported, and it is no reason this couldn't be added an half a day's work, and tested in the next half - or say a whole new day to be generous (the documenting could be done here). And give it yet another day to write a simple if/then clause to select either the automatically created thumbnail or the manually added one for display. So, in less than a week this could be fixed. It's not even complicated, it's simply another field in the metadata!

And, by the way, if functionality is not enough: the automatic thumbnail often detracts from the experience of the product. Truncated titles for those who don't need thumbnails, and eyesores for the visual needs some of us have.

[highchairdrama 14]

1 minute ago, gazumped said:

technically unable

I understand how the sausage is made. They're not technically unable to make this happen.

As paying customers, we're fully within our rights to make noise about a feature we want in the company-provided forum for just that purpose.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

No dev team will ever fulfill „all“ wishes of users, subscribers, wanna-bes and other stakeholders. If they did, the software would simply become unusable.

A couple of features get implemented over time, others not, some never. There must not even be any logic behind it. It is normal that in every dynamic project things happen in a non linear chain of events. What it hip and top notch today may fall to new priorities tomorrow.

What I found interesting: In this quite extensive thread there is little talk about other apps allowing to pick thumbnails for notes. Putting it negatively, the feature seems pretty low priority for all in the market.

Putting it positively, EN has a real chance to set itself apart with a very limited technical effort. It can’t be difficult to allow a user to select a piece of content and make the thumbnail from it.

[Eduardo Estefano 89]

We want custom thumbnail!

 

did everyone vote on this? Only 438 votes in 10 years is very little. Please go up there and vote for the feature!

[johnortt 26]

This thread is like Groundhog day.

[gazumped 11,665]

23 hours ago, jrryj said:

Seems like I'm not the only one experiencing this problem,

Hi.  It doesn't seem like the worst issue Evernote users have to deal with, but you have 449 votes and 8 pages of agreement. However this isn't a democracy,  and (AFAICS) Evernote aren't amazingly stupid - they're not obliged to honour requests here,  but they normally try to accommodate users where they can.  If they can add thumbnail choices,  they'll do it when the task fits their schedule.  Meantime - if you didn't already - please vote at the top left of this page...

[bearbecue 13]

On 8/10/2021 at 7:16 PM, PinkElephant said:

Anything substantial to say ? Or just venting hot air ?

You can add your vote to the request by clicking on the button top left.

Well maybe that's because it's the only rational explanation after waiting 10+ years for a seemingly basic feature.

And what's venting air seems to be voting for this feature, as user votes seeem to be completely ignored by the devs 😐

We're in 2022, still no way to do this?

As people have said, if you cannot allow the user to pick the thumbnail for whatever reason, then at least change the heuristic used to pick the thumbnail and pick the first thumbnail in the note. And if the design is so bad that you cannot find the first thumbnail of the note from wherever that code runs because they're not accessible in sorted order in the database or whatever, then do not display thumbnails in notes ! or allow to disable that broken feature. I'd much rather have no thumbnail than a random image which is both distracting, misleading, and even though inside the note, might be irrelevant to the note preview in its globality (when you have 20 images in a note, clearly, this happens)

How to frustrate users & send tables flippin 101...

[gazumped 11,665]

3 hours ago, Steven Gauck said:

I don't get why EN has not picked up on this.

This is a feature suggestion thread,  not a request forum.  Evernote take up those requests that they can fulfil - within budgets of time and cost - and which will benefit users to the extent of (in their view) generating more business.

The existing process of choosing an image (I guess) is because

1. Many users won't make a specific choice of image for every note,  so they need an automatic assignment of one image from the note.
2. Since many will be clips of web pages,  it's possible that some images will be low-res icons which would not contribute to the purpose of a thumbnail.
3. It's also possible that users will have included very large image files which would also not be useful if shrunk down too small - and which would very considerably bulk out the database if thumbnails are kept as separate files - as they'd have to be to keep the overhead of repeatedly shrinking the originals down (which would also slow things down!)
4. So Evernote chose a process which avoids icons and large images but still selects the smallest (probably) significant image in the note.

They haven't yet found a need to change that,  and won't (usually) comment on why,  when or whether they might do something differently.  We'll just have to wait...  

[dbareis 14]

On 3/19/2022 at 7:12 PM, gazumped said:

This is a feature suggestion thread,  not a request forum.  Evernote take up those requests that they can fulfil - within budgets of time and cost - and which will benefit users to the extent of (in their view) generating more business.

The existing process of choosing an image (I guess) is because

1. Many users won't make a specific choice of image for every note,  so they need an automatic assignment of one image from the note.
2. Since many will be clips of web pages,  it's possible that some images will be low-res icons which would not contribute to the purpose of a thumbnail.
3. It's also possible that users will have included very large image files which would also not be useful if shrunk down too small - and which would very considerably bulk out the database if thumbnails are kept as separate files - as they'd have to be to keep the overhead of repeatedly shrinking the originals down (which would also slow things down!)
4. So Evernote chose a process which avoids icons and large images but still selects the smallest (probably) significant image in the note.

They haven't yet found a need to change that,  and won't (usually) comment on why,  when or whether they might do something differently.  We'll just have to wait...  

Well they won't even fix the broken external protocol links so I'm stuck on the legacy version until they ever get around to that in any case.

 

They don't seem to give a f what users want.

[Tanja012 9]

On 6/2/2022 at 6:43 PM, gazumped said:

... From recent discussions where Evernote seems reluctant to change a thumbnail,  even where the image is deleted from a note,  I wonder whether it might be possible to start a new note using one chosen image,  so that the note gets a suitable thumbnail - and then copy/ paste the content of another original note including random other images into that new container with the approved thumbnail...

?

This is possible! I wrote this long time ago.. But if you start a new note.. The 1(picture for the thumbnail) should be the very first thing to put in.. Then when you 2(write the title) of the note it will update the thumbnail and then you can paste or write anything else.. The thumbnail won't change again in this note.. If you've copied and pasted from another note.. You can then delete this old one.. 

[highchairdrama 14]

20 hours ago, ttony said:

The way I see it is, Evernote could easily have existed without ever introducing a thumbnail feature. They could have also, in theory, never introduced a title feature as well. But they did! The title and the thumbnail are features that help organize, identify, and locate your notes; which is the entire point of this app.

Imagine if the app auto selected a random (or by arbitrary algorithm) a sentence in the body of your note to use for the title. That would be completely unacceptable; no one would ever use the app because that would make no sense. Why should it be OK for the thumbnail to be auto-selected then?
 

ttony, well said. I think you nailed why we're all so baffled this isn't important enough for them to fix.

Also, welcome to the thread. (Now it's customary to wait until PinkElephant and/or gazumped tells you why you're wrong/uninformed. It's fun!)

[Rebecca T 2]

The thumbnail for one of my notes is an image that doesn't even exist in the note and there's still no way to fix it... Thanks Evernote...

(I think it was an image I accidentally added when I first made the note and later deleted.. but it's still the thumbnail).

I would honestly prefer not having the thumbnail feature than having the feature not work properly with no way to fix it. 

[Mike P 2,641]

Here is another, relatively straightforward, workaround to change the thumbnail. I like to forward Kindle book receipt emails into EN. Unfortunately EN always chooses some marketing image, rather than the image of the book, to be the thumbnail. The workaround is to delete the other images and then simply duplicate the note. Although the content of the note is unchanged, EN regenerates the thumbnail. This has the advantage of not only being relatively quick but it also keeps the note meta data (e.g. creation date) unchanged.

[jrdunson 21]

Can we do this please?  Seems this has been requested for some time.

[Mike P 2,641]

I have noticed a slight change to the thumbnail behaviour. It appears that if you delete the image in the note that is being used as a thumbnail, and replace it with a different image, the thumbnail is updated, although it does take a few seconds for this to happen.  This is different from the past where, whatever thumbnail was there at the beginning was remarkably persistent.

Some other observations

• If you have two images in a note and delete the one being used as the thumbnail the second image then becomes the thumbnail.
• Sometimes if you add a second image to a note with one image the thumbnail is updated - but sometimes it isn't! It may be that the bigger image has priority.

Clearly, nowhere near the ability to choose the thumbnail, but a change none the less and potentially another way of hacking itl.

10.46.7-win-ddl-public (3701)
Editor: v158.2.19526
Service: v1.58.7
© 2019 - 2022 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

 

[123456789011 2]

We're now in 2022, nearly 2023, is it possible to select the thumbnail/snippet image for a note now ?

[caineo 5]

A little bump to see in 2023 for this idea which is now 12 YEARS OLD and which should be basic functionality for Evernote.

Happy New Year!

[Astopia 1]

It's hard to imagine that this is a technically difficult thing to implement, yet it would be so incredibly useful. Why oh why is this not being implemented?

[Astopia 1]

It's hard to imagine that this is a technically difficult thing to implement, yet it would be so incredibly useful. Why oh why is this not being implemented?

[matohak 1]

Can't believe there is such a long thread on this simple issue...

[DrGG 0]

Please add this much needed feature! We need to be able to decide which image to show in the notes thumbnail! 

[winyourday 1]

This feature has been requested for more than 10 years now! Can't believe Evernote does not even comment on why they don't add it or why it takes so long.

It's really annoying for some note collections. So I am now after many years as a loyal Evernote customer considering switching to a competitor. What are your best alternative note apps? Any recommendations?

[Woola 1]

Evernote just keep increasing fees, but still not providing the most basic of functionality like user-nomination of which image to use as the thumbnail.  This thread is 12 years old and still being ignored by Evernote.  Maybe its time to kill the business account and move to One Note.

[Amystoneus 21]

The below is Evernote's response to my "support request."

It appears the only way to have control over the thumbnail once a note already exists is to create a new copy without the objectionable image and a different one top-most (from experience, this can be deleted later and the thumbnail will not change). 

It also seems clear that no one on EN's tech team (pm, dev or QA) bothers to use this forum to better understand user needs and grievances. Instead, they opted for a dedicated "user" to offend and distract from one's genuine desire to have a solid product that provides the features and functions they need to be productive. 

Hope this helps. It helped me. I now fully accept that EN will never be the product we all know it's capable of being if only it had a team of competent developers and a management team with a clear vision. 

Althea D. (Evernote Help and Learning)  Feb 14, 2023, 20:28 PST    EVERNOTE TIP: Meet your deadlines with Evernote by setting due dates for your tasks and adding reminders - even on the go!   Hello Amy,   Thank you for reaching out to Evernote Customer Support. My name is Althea, and I’ll be assisting you today.   I understand how important it is for you to have the ability to modify the image being displayed in the thumbnail/snippet view.   At this time, the image being displayed in the thumbnail view originates from the first uploaded image within your note. To confirm, it appears this is a Feature Request our product team is working on releasing in an upcoming fix. I'm unable to provide a definite timeframe on when this will be available. Any announcements about this feature will be made on Evernote's Release Notes.   I will share this information with our Team. I appreciate your honest feedback so we could improve the services we're providing.   In the meantime, in terms of my own experience, I've seen the following behavior will be how it works currently with Evernote's apps (below).   Behavior for a new notes on Evernote V. 10+ apps   1. Write the title of your new note. 2. Add the thumbnail you wish to have as the default thumbnail image for the note at the top of the note page. 3. Save changes to your notes   Behavior for an existing note on Evernote V. 10+ apps   1. Remove the default image you had in your existing note. 2. Make a copy of your original note content without the default thumbnail image. 3. Create a new note and add the new image to your new note. 4. Delete the original note. 5. Save changes to your notes.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

The workaround to post one single image in a note, sync it, wait for the thumbnail to appear and then add the rest was posted several postings above.

We had however mixed experience that this thumbnail will stick, when more pictures are added to the note.

[Nicole Bertsch 7]

Still no Thumbnail-Solution? Unbelievable! @Evernote - You really have to solve it !!!

[PinkElephant 8,112]

No "You" here, the forum is user2user, and not monitored by EN.

Use the feedback or a support ticket.

[chocolove 0]

Started using Evernote after many years, surprised at how well they have worked on the design and speed, thank you for that!
However, the fact that you can't change the thumbnail of a note is very sad. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future! I'm planning to buy a yearly subscription.

[Nicole Bertsch 7]

3 hours ago, agsteele said:

This is a known request and had been almost forever in Evernote terms. I am pretty sure that it isn't the highest priority so enjoy your Evernote renaissance but don't hold your breath waiting for this to arrive.

It's really awful. The evernote-team should see how important the thumbnail-thing is for the users....

[Nicole Bertsch 7]

A new version of Evernote - I just installed it. And - again not the possibility to choose the thumbnail. I can't beleive it!

[s2sailor 2,198]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

I think of it more as make it look “right” 😀.  Granted this isn’t the highest priority or a must have (at least for me) but there are a number of minor usability issues that I hope the new team is willing to take on that would reduce friction for many users.

[philanon 9]

12 hours ago, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

This is about functionality, not looking pretty. They spent a bunch of time on making it look modern which IMO was not necessary. But they spent no time on making the thumbnails function the way that any normal person would think they should if you asked them.

I get that a lot of people probably use list view so they don't care, so maybe this isn't a popular request. But for those that want it, it's a big deal. There is no software that comes close to EN for what I need it for, so I'm likely not going anywhere, but it is one of the few things about EN that grinds my gears.

[caineo 5]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:25 PM, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

This isn't about form for me, it's all about function. In my case I predominantly use Evernote as a repository for visual reference. The lack of control over how thumbnails are displayed means I have to find workarounds in order to maintain a practical visual reference archive.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

The workaround has been described already: Create a new note with just the picture you want used as thumbnail, a second with the other content. Wait until the server has created the thumbnail, then merge the notes, or copy the content over.

This is first a PITA, making it necessary to touch the content several times, and we had reports the thumbnail was changed later, based on the added content. So it is a mixed proposition, at best.

Posting here has no effect - to reach EN staff issue a support ticket.

[s2sailor 2,198]

5 hours ago, caineo said:

This isn't about form for me, it's all about function. In my case I predominantly use Evernote as a repository for visual reference. The lack of control over how thumbnails are displayed means I have to find workarounds in order to maintain a practical visual reference archive.

Until we are allowed to pick thumbnails, I currently find them essentially useless and turn off show images in the options.  I got tired of seeing images, on web clips in particular, that have nothing to do with the note, and the work around is so painful, that I rather just turn off images.

This is one of the (I think) obvious features that should, long ago, have been added.  Hopefully the new management sees fit to consider this one.

[SxWerks 7]

My only recourse is to

1. create a new note
2. Paste in the ONLY image I want for a thumbnail
3. Copy and paste the content from original note.
4. Trash the old note.

Once the image is set, it's fixed and cannot be changed.

Most ridiculous.

[gazumped 11,665]

4 hours ago, SxWerks said:

Most ridiculous.

What is?  That something designed 20 years ago doesn't include the single tweak you personally require?  Most folks might tend to think - "I could suggest that as a new feature,  or add my vote for that feature to an ongoing poll collecting those votes" but I guess some could be offended that an app that nowhere claims to do something,  isn't actually providing that feature...

[s2sailor 2,198]

There are work arounds, but personally I find them all cumbersome. The V10 editor is already a clickfest.  IMO they can remove some of the friction and improve the function of the editor by adding this and collapsible sections.

[jaranovich 2]

Choosing a note's thumbnail is one of the most important usability features.  This issue has been raised 12 years ago and is likely wanted by most users, it being still unresolved is a reflection on Evernote's management.  As the notes that we have accumulated over time cannot be ported effectively and efficiently to another application, Evernote's users are  hostage to a company that, as in this case, disrespects its customers.  Shame on you!

[Boot17 1,450]

13 minutes ago, gazumped said:

This is NOT wanted by 'most users'  - 544 votes here is slightly outclassed by a 200 MILLION silent majority

You make it sound like the 200 MILLION silent majority don't want this because they haven't come on the forums and voted for it?

This feature is in the top 6 of all requested features by this measurement: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/forum/304-general-feature-requests/?sortby=forums_topics.question_rating&sortdirection=DESC

Just curious if you even use the Snippets view?

[ChipWhitehouse 20]

1 minute ago, raojenkins said:

Thanks for the fix of "Create a new note with the correct picture(s) copy the old note content across.  Delete old not with wrong pictures.  Easy." 

Sounds great and works great -- just so it's recorded here in case developers ever take a look, NOT necessarily "easy" when you have many Evernote notes linked to each other -- deleting the note means that I have to redo links in any notes I've manually linked it to. 

EXACTLY!

[ConfusedCupcake 21]

Please, please, please add the ability to select what image is used as a thumbnail to Evernote.

[ChipWhitehouse 20]

They have AI now to help with coding… there honestly is no excuse anymore. Get it together!

[chef_j 1]

Oh man, this has been a request for 13 years??? Seriously? Please add this in. I just started using the "cards" format for my crafting project folders, and I'm experiencing some serious formatting issues. Not only are many of the pattern photos cut off in weird ways, but the "date" is issued so prominently - it takes up like half of the card. It's absurd. This is supposed to be the most visual way to view the note - why would I care that much about the date??? I want to see the picture, that's the whole point!

 

Please, add the option to make a custom thumbnail. That should be a moderately simple request. Or at the very least, please allow for the "date" of each note to be hidden while in "card" view. It takes up so much space, and honestly removing that would fix a lot of my formatting issues with the pictures shown. Please, please fix this. Thank you.

[gazumped 11,665]

On 2/17/2024 at 6:20 PM, chef_j said:

Oh man, this has been a request for 13 years???

The company changed hands (and all its staff) just over a year ago.  I think the new team is pretty busy improving elsewhere,  but you could use feedback@Evernote.com to register your interest in this as well as voting here...

[Okonomiyaki 9]

Voted and shared feedback!

[christopherhopper 0]

I'm a diehard Evernote power user from the beginning. Love it.

But…

This sneaky little non-existent persistent nuisance of feature would be so lovely to have.

Rooting you on, Evernote Devs! I believe in you. You can do this!

—Christopher

[jpservices 16]

Yes adding new features... but not fixing long lasting issues. The thumbnail management has never been perfect but at least the workaround of making the image you wanted as a thumbnail the widest (in term of pixels) worked always. Now even this does not work anymore. Having a button or something on an image to set it as thumbnail would be clearly better. 

Understand me well: it is not that I do not like those "new" features: task management, connection with a folder and with a calendar, the concurrent working on a note are really cool things, easier to use search but ... I mostly take notes with Evernote, online and offline and this for ages. When this basic function is not reliable anymore or it takes for ever to get to my note then I do not even want to work with these new features, and really question if I still want to work with Evernote. Granted lately they have been improving a lot, turning version after versions. They are obviously sweating and fighting probably for life.  Version 10.80  "almost" works for me except the offline thing and sometimes the long lag (here I speak about minutes) to get a note from one device to another.

So there is hope. Maybe they will get to fixing the thumbnail thing once they cleaned up the mess out of 10.x.

If I had a say in their priorities though I would pause with the new features and get the base of taking and sharing notes across devices rock solid again. The thumbnail is a key element of this but unfortunately not the only one.

 

[PinkElephant 8,112]

My notes have thumbnails if they contain anything that can be thumbnailed, no problem there. It is just I can’t select which picture they show.

If you get no thumbnails, it has nothing to do with this thread. Open another one to see if anybody has an idea about it 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

No.

[marcelo 85]

No.

Thank you for your prompt reply. Does it mean the only way to force an image to appear as thumbnail is to make sure that it is the heaviest one within the note?

Thanks

Marcelo

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Thank you for your prompt reply. Does it mean the only way to force an image to appear as thumbnail is to make sure that it is the heaviest one within the note?

You're welcome. I don't know how EN selects the thumbnail.

[emerick 155]

I don't know how EN selects the thumbnail.

We select the image with the largest smallest dimension. There are some other rules, but that's the main one.

[jbenson2 2,147]

We select the image with the largest smallest dimension. There are some other rules, but that's the main one.

The largest smallest dimension?

[jefito 5,589]

The largest smallest dimension?

[jefito 5,589]

OK, got it. I think anything else would have too many words, and "largest smallest" probably works because it's short and easy to remember (and apparently self-contradictory). Cool.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Jumbo shrimp.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Yeah. For example, if you have 3 images with the following dimensions:

75x100

100x400

200x300

The "smallest" dimensions are 75, 100, and 200, respectively. We're going to use the image with the largest of those "smallest" dimensions (i.e., 200).

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess if someone really wanted to promote a specific image, they could use a photo editor to re-size the photos. That's too much work for me.

[cpchang 12]

The largest smallest dimension?

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

You learn something every day.

[Owyn 457]

An alternative is the image with the largest number of pixels. This is a good predictor of importance of the image to the note's content.

e.g.

75x100=7500

100x400=40000

200x300=60000

250x150=37500

Largest -> 200x300=60000

[emerick 155]

One way to express this in a more definitive way is the image with the largest width, assuming that your example you gave is in the order of width x height.

My list is ordered by increasing size of smallest dimension. We don't want to pick the image with the largest width, since that would result in us selecting things like graphical horizontal lines (e.g., 600x1) for some notes, which isn't very useful.

For example, what if we add an image that is 250x150?

Then the list would be:

75x100

100x400

200x300

250x150

Does that mean that EN would now select the last image (250x150) for the thumbnail?

No, we choose the image with the largest smallest dimension. To keep my list sorted by increasing size of smallest dimension, your new entry should be third:

75x100

100x400

150x250

200x300

So we're going to pick the last one again (200x300), because it's still the image with the "largest smallest" dimension.

does it make sense to anyone at Evernote to choose the first image in the Note for the thumbnail?

It does make sense sometimes, but it doesn't make sense a significant number of times too. Some part of the algorithm needs to factor in the dimensions and/or sizes of the images or else you end up with non-useful thumbnails (see 600x1 example above).

[emerick 155]

An alternative is the image with the largest number of pixels. This is a good predictor of importance of the image to the note's content.

e.g.

75x100=7500

100x400=40000

200x300=60000

250x150=37500

Largest -> 200x300=60000

Yeah, that's probably another good algorithm (and note that in this specific case, that is the image we choose). I think we're reasonably happy with the algorithm we're using; they're all subject to false positives, unfortunately, but I think our algorithm ends up choosing a fairly representative image a lot of the time.

[Owyn 457]

Well, it does have the advantage of being easier to explain. Which usually results in a more likely to be correct implementation.

The best, and most likely, implementation of either algorithm would pick the first "largest" in the event of a tie.

My guess is that in most cases (>90%) either algorithm would pick the same image for the thumbnail.

Hmmm.

Not sure which algorithm is more likely to pick the squarer image. Squarer usually results in a more recognizable thumbnail. Probably a toss up.

[jefito 5,589]

Well, it does have the advantage of being easier to explain. Which usually results in a more likely to be correct implementation.

Hmmm, bubble sort is easy to explain, and it's not hard to get a correct implementation of a bubble sort, but so what? Implementation is not usually the problem, it's choice of algorithm, and bubble sort is of course notoriously poor for anything but the most trivial uses.

The best, and most likely, implementation of either algorithm would pick the first "largest" in the event of a tie.

My guess is that in most cases (>90%) either algorithm would pick the same image for the thumbnail.

Hmmm.

Not sure which algorithm is more likely to pick the squarer image. Squarer usually results in a more recognizable thumbnail. Probably a toss up.

I think you're right -- there are probably fail cases in any algorithm that will be used to pick a thumbnail candidate out of a collection of images. I think that making a good guess is fine, but the best case for users would probably be to allow them to designate which image to use if the guess is not the one that they want.

[Owyn 457]

bubble sort

Nah. This is a single pass scan. No sorting. Just compares.

And, bubble sort, can NOT be fully described in a single, non-compound, sentence.

----------

Ummm. Re-read your comment. Never mind my comment about single pass. You were using it as an general example, not a specific example. :?

[jefito 5,589]

Right -- just trying to illustrate that things that are easy to describe may not be the best choice.

[radiantlf 1]

Sometimes I have multiple images in a post, and evernote seems to pretty randomly choose which one to use as a thumbnail. Is there any way to pick which one it is? Sometimes the photo chosen is no help at all, so I would like to be able to change it, either by selecting which one or being able to determine what position to put the one I want in (i.e. first or last) so it gets picked.

[Owyn 457]

[dotcommer 8]

Can someone tell me why evernote doesn't have this ability yet? This seems incredibly near-sighted.

I read on someone else's post that evernote uses an algorithm to choose the thumbnail image depending on what the largest image is, it uses that one as the thumbnail.

I want the algorithm to conform to ME, not the other way around.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I don't know why but I'm sure it's much easier to have a standard system on the servers that does this rather than implement this feature across all the platforms EN lives on. You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is. (shrug)