REQUEST: Sync iPhone Notes app to Evernote

[samchristie 2]

it blows my mind this isn't a feature already, or if there's already a thread please link me to it. i have googled this a million times and cannot find a way to sync notes from my iPhone Notes app to evernote. even if it's a one time import, i have so many notes that i don't wanna copy and paste them all. why is this not a feature yet?

additionally i've looked around for ways to sync certain gmail labeled messages to evernote (since you can sync iphone notes to gmail) but no dice. am i missing something? seems like this would be the perfect feature for evernote to finally take over the native notes app on iOS.

[chinarut 29]

It would be nice to have such functionality between the two, but setting up your own system can be pretty straight forward.

not 100% clear what you mean by "setting up your own system" as I'm looking for a utility to import past Note.app notes.

 

make one big giant note throughout your day so you only have to email it once, perhaps into a specific notebook and have the title be the date. With evernote search abilities you can find any and everything in an instant later on)

batching up entries into a single note is definitely useful for helping reduce clutter. I was doing this for awhile manually and it got tiring and noticed it was missing timestamps so i started hunting around for apps.

I tried vJournal and found it too restrictive (can't change notebook destination/structure and couldn't insert audio notes) and didn't preserve timestamps if u created notes offline (fail!). iLifeLogger is a bit better - i like how you can even define contexts for different activities, blog within each activity (or you can just use a single category and be done with it) - it's all good at "rolling up" at the end of the week if you're into stats.

neither is perfect, both add more complexity and just to emphasize the point of this thread - looking to get back to basics with Note.app.

perhaps there is a separate thread for this topic - my goal is to import past notes in Note.app since 2007 and use an app du jour (thanks for iNote ptr!) to keep Note.app and Evernote in sync from here on out.

[sunkencathedral 2]

Thanks! I'm glad this was able to help someone else.

 

Maybe the info here could be added to some kind of pinned help thread (or help page)? This is a really common question around the internet. What's more, the method (for most people) requires a Premium Evernote account. This is the reason I purchased a premium account, and I suspect a lot of other people would purchase one for this reason as well. They should advertise this to sell more accounts. As far as I know, a premium Evernote account is the only possible way to mass-transfer a large number of Gmail-synced iPhone notes to a new phone.

[Dave S 0]

Just used the "Email to Evernote" strategy to move 88 ipad notes to Evernote. Much better than cut and paste.

 

You can apply existing Evernote tags to the notes by adding the tag to the subject preceded by the # mark. Please note, the tag must already exist in your Evernote collection. Adding #FoodFight to the subject of an email to your Evernote account won't create the tag.

[dartie 0]

@grumpymonkey

I think that you misunderstood @Jahnzhall. He and I would like to know how to synchronise Notes (as in the iOS iPad/iPhone Apple app) with Evernote not Evernote to Evernote. Do you have any suggestions?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

@grumpymonkey

I think that you misunderstood @Jahnzhall. He and I would like to know how to synchronise Notes (as in the iOS iPad/iPhone Apple app) with Evernote not Evernote to Evernote. Do you have any suggestions?

Oh. No, I don't have suggestions. In fact, I am adamantly opposed to Apple Notes and strongly recommend that no one use it for notes they want to keep. The reason is because Apple provides no options for import or export of notes. It is a closed app that locks users into it. One thing I like about Evernote (and many other apps that I recommend to people) is the value they place on portability. They provide one or more methods of getting data in / out of the app. In some cases (like Evernote), they are also set up in a way that will enable notes to be synced with other apps. In my opinion, Notes is antithetical to the interests of consumers / users. It has great potential, of course, but utterly fails in practice.

In its place, any number of wonderful notetaking programs exist: notesy, voodoopad, plain text, etc. all do pretty much the same thing as Notes, except they do it better, and by syncing through Dropbox using the .txt format (all except for VoodooPad, which has an export as .txt on the desktop version) notes are easily moved in and out of Evernote. I have not used Cloud HQ myself, but you can sync data between Dropbox and Evernote using it https://www.cloudhq.net/dropbox.

[Don Sakers 98]

There's the old-fashioned method of using copy-and-paste to move text from Notes to Evernote, the way we did in Neanderthal times.

 

Or you can email your individual Notes to your Evernote email address, which is a somewhat more Cro-Magnon approach.

 

Or...wait, there was an iPhone app called iNote that was able to put some of my Notes into Evernote...but I removed it months ago, I'm not sure I remember exactly why. It was fussy and required a bit of setup. You might want to take a look at it, but please understand this is not a recommendation.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

There's the old-fashioned method of using copy-and-paste to move text from Notes to Evernote, the way we did in Neanderthal times.

 

Or you can email your individual Notes to your Evernote email address, which is a somewhat more Cro-Magnon approach.

 

Or...wait, there was an iPhone app called iNote that was able to put some of my Notes into Evernote...but I removed it months ago, I'm not sure I remember exactly why. It was fussy and required a bit of setup. You might want to take a look at it, but please understand this is not a recommendation.

Great points. Migrating is difficult, but not impossible. Syncing (as far as I know) is impossible. Run! Notes is not the app you are looking for

[Don Sakers 98]

> Migrating is difficult, but not impossible. Syncing (as far as I know) is impossible.

> Run! Notes is not the app you are looking for

 

Ah, yes. I saw "sync" and read it as "transfer." As far as I know, syncing between Notes and Evernote is as elusive as the aptly-named Sir Not Appearing in This Film.

 

If you've sold your soul to Apple the way I have, and fully entrenched yourself in the Apple ecosystem, Notes natively syncs across iOS, OSX, and iCloud. 

[msdisme 0]

Pedro Matiello wrote a really nice applescript (https://github.com/pmatiello/notes-export) which will export the notes to html.

 

Then you can drag and drop them into an evernote notes folder.

[FirecrackerPM 0]

That too from pmatiello was slick! Install, pick a folder on your Mac and it will dump all your Mac notes files to folder. Then just drag to Evernote. EASY. 

 

I've been having a rough time w/ my iPhone to Android migration and notes was one of my headaches.

 

Thank you!!

[chinarut 29]

+1 for a bulk exporter from Notes.app to Evernote that preserves dates.

 

Back when I imported all my delicio.us bookmarks back in 2008 - was *very* pleased to just discover a few weeks ago, it preserved all the creation dates back ever *before* I signed up for Evernote - so I'd want this feature in an Apple Notes import tool too

 

Hey guys, why do you want to get your iOs notes into Evernote so badly? I'm just wondering. I tend to use my iPhone notes for small things on the go, but do those notes really need to be in Evernote? What benefit are you trying to achieve? Curious if I'm missing something

 

to answer your question @emmaici - I made Apple Notes from 2007 until 2013 my only input/capture tool - esp while in the field.  I've been burned too many times having data all over the place (I still do, but it's not as bad) - yes i have a lot of scribbles here and there but I'm finding I have journal entries, meeting notes, ongoing lists, agendas - things that are better referenced (and leveraged ) in Evernote IMHO.

[JoshuaRJones 2]

It would be nice to have such functionality between the two, but setting up your own system can be pretty straight forward. 

 

I enter my notes into the native apple notes application throughout the day (unless something is really important, in which case I write it in my Franklin Planner) and at the end of my day I sit at my desk and go through my notes and just email them right into my evernote. My evernote email in my contacts is labeled .Evernote so it is on the very top so I do not have to search for it. With the ability to set the note title, notebook, and tags it's pretty fast and effective. Most notes can be sent in about 20 seconds or less. 

 

While this may seem like a pain, it is actually a good way to inadvertently review things and possibly add or remove ideas. 

 

(If you want to make it even more straight forward and are just using evernote for storage, just make one big giant note throughout your day so you only have to email it once, perhaps into a specific notebook and have the title be the date. With evernote search abilities you can find any and everything in an instant later on)

[anjoschu 67]

I also only use iPhone notes for occasional small things that are (probably) temporary. But I'm still syncing my iOS notes with Evernote because I'm a pack rat. Everything has to go into Evernote. Everything! NOTE ALL THE THINGS!!!

 

Edit: Also, sometimes, temporary things become permanent and I'm glad I have them available everywhere.

[Tia 0]

BUMP! This is a must-have feature!

[lindosh 0]

Am I really not able to sync my Mac Mail notes to evernote?  This is crazy - what is the point if we cannot retro fit things into new apps.  We should have learned from our Palm days...Any ideas?  If not...then note to the EVERNOTE team - this surely must be a priority?

Thanks in advance,

Lindosh

[megsaint 441]

Honestly, I don't know of anything that can sync with iOS Notes. I suspect that the issue is on Apple's side. I don't think they've opened it up for syncing. 

[5--String 0]

Checking for info on something else I came across this thread.

 

There in fact is an easy, air-tight way to get an iOS note directly into Evernote. One poster asked why it was necessary... and here's why this is my favorite app on my phone:

 

-- I think of something I must remember

-- I grab the iPhone and start Siri

-- I say, "Make a note that says...." and speak my thought

 

That's it.  And when I go into Evernote later, whatever I dictated shows up as a new note.

 

The app is iNote Sync... yes, the same one that didn't work about a year ago or so. To cut to the chase, the developers fixed their server problems, and iNote Sync has been and now is absolutely rock-solid. The only thing about it is that the setup is a bit tricky... but do it once and you're done.

 

http://apollobrowser.wordpress.com/inote/

 

I'm no techie at all, so this solution has truly been a life saver for me.

 

No affiliation etc etc.. just a very satisfied and grateful user.

[5--String 0]

Just to add...

 

-- this won't get previously created iOS notes into Evernote

 

-- and yes, this app just didn't work and was a POS for a long while.... but now it works great and it is great... at least in my opinion.

 

5--String

[Estherevernote 0]

I wanted to transfer my ios notes to evernote (as a one time solution) as i switch to android phone but i could not find the ideal app for this.

 

After much reluctance,  i decided to copy/paste each note from gmail and to evernote.... this took me about an hour in total for about almost 200 notes on my iphone. Based on hindsight, i should have done this earlier, after me wasting almost 2 days on searching/googling/youtubing to see if anywhere out there in the market if there is anyway to sync gmail notes or iphone notes to evernote, i found  evimsync , i download and tried that method but i was not successful.

 

If your not super tech savvy i recommend just copy paste each note from gmail to evernote, i did this on my laptop, and help met to do this much faster, not more than one hours work (compared to spending many more hours googling for solution) .

[Idecorrtt 0]

You can use itunes and icloud to sync iphone data .Or you can use google account to backup iphone data.

[Thomas B. 0]

The Notes import script posted here on Github actually worked just fine for me, importing >200 notes in a minute.

Thanks to the guys who wrote that!

 

[Silkeystroke 0]

Genuis! - Notes import script worked great for me too on my Macbook Air! One tiny note though: Make sure that you put all iOS notes in the iCloud as the Applescript copies the notes from there not under the "all notes" heading.

[Shauli 1]

On 5/18/2015 at 8:30 PM, Thomas B. said:

The Notes import script posted here on Github actually worked just fine for me, importing >200 notes in a minute.

Thanks to the guys who wrote that!

 

the problem is that it doesn't import as folders and it doesn't import the attached files in the notes 

so it is a waste for me

 

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, Shauli said:

the problem is that it doesn't import as folders and it doesn't import the attached files in the notes 

so it is a waste for me

The great thing about these scripts is that you can modify them as you require.
Of course Evernote doesn't have folders, however I'm sure the script can use notebooks

I'm not an Apple Notes user but I've heard there is a bug with exporting file attachments

[Shauli 1]

On 11.5.2017 at 10:12 PM, DTLow said:

The great thing about these scripts is that you can modify them as you require.
Of course Evernote doesn't have folders, however I'm sure the script can use notebooks

I'm not an Apple Notes user but I've heard there is a bug with exporting file attachments

I hope I'll find a way 

Or I'll just stay with Apple notes and that's it

[Jon B 0]

I tried the app and it fails after the Evernote login prompt and authorization. I know my evernote credentials are correct because i have verified my ability to login from my PC. Possibly $4 down the drain, but I'll see what kind of support that app developer has.

[Bojan011 27]

Actually this seems like an important feature for me too. Since iOS Spotlight doesn't search Evernote's notes, I started using Notes for instant access on certain notes that require me to get them instantaneously.

That kind of integration is increasing the efficiency of notes app. I wish that we could get the similar something to the Evernote as well.

[Bojan011 27]

I am bumping this thread since this is second time I am looking for a way to sync notes! Any ideas coming up?

[Metrodon 2,184]

you could try emailing the notes you want to keep to your evernote address. Based on the lack of traffic on this thread, I'd guess that very few people need this feature.

[samchristie 2]

hey i found a clunky workaround for this, first off the only answer i got from evernote was off their facebook, i messaged them and they said this.

"We don't have an automatic sync form either of those two programs. If you are looking for a way to automate the process you can use our email gatewayhttp://blog.evernote...ernote-account/ ... alsohttp://blog.evernote...rvices-you-use/ might offer a workflow to help."

i ended up logging in to Mail on my mac (any dedicated email client on your desktop will work) and forwarding all existing emails labeled "Notes" to evernote (you can do this with your evernote email address that every user has). (i sync my iphone notes to gmail which is why this worked). so now i have one massive note with all my previous notes in it because it would have taken forever to fwd each individual one. so i selected them all and forwarded in bulk.

now for part 2--syncing future notes, this is easier.

i set up a (free) account on http://ifttt.com which is a flow for syncing apps, i created a flow that basically says "if a gmail message has the label notes, then forward it to evernote". i only wish it worked for previous notes because i still havent gone and separated my bulk forwards.

[rh1n0cer0s 0]

Agree...I would like to be able to simply press the main button, speak my note to Siri, and have the note synch the desired Evernote note/notebook - 1 action.

[jmccarei 0]

I have just started using the evernote App, i love it because I use 3-4 different desktops depending on where i'm working and have access at all times to my notes via the iPad and my iPhone.

unfortunately, in meetings in the past I've used my Notes App (default on the iPad) for my note taking, and i'd like to convert them to the evernote app so i can rid myself of iCloud.

if there's a function to copy and paste all of them to the app or any other work around, please pass along.

many thanks!!

Jay

[Metrodon 2,184]

I don't believe that there is anything structured in place - quickest way is probably just to email them to your Evernote email address.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

iCloud hasn't quite lived up to its promise of seamless syncing in the Apple environment. As far as I know, we don't have a Notes app on OSX yet, and even if we did, the notes would be stuck in iCloud, and we'd have to download each one into our local drive. It is a very cumbersome situation that might be rectified with Mountain Lion and iOS6, but that won't help you today!

I think Metrodon is right. The fastest way is to just email them. Unless you have more than a few hundred notes, this should take but a few minutes. Make sure you have your Evernote email in your contacts list, and you might want to copy / paste the same subject line (a random string of characters or a tage) into the subject line in order to speed up the process and make sure they are easily found later when you go through your Evernote account and give them proper names.

[jmccarei 0]

thank you very much. good advice on the subject line 'cut and paste' most are work related so all should fall in similar categories. thanks again.

the ipad and iphone are great, the file sharing is not.

[Jon B 0]

I'm pretty amazed about the lack of traffic in this topic myself. I want to use Evernote, but I won't until i can sync them up with iOS notes. I can't be looking in two places when i want to find a note.

[allgo 0]

My iphone 4s Notes app has become very wobbly of late. I Googled and tried several solutions but to no avail. Notes still is unstable and crashes fairly regularly. I thought I should install Evernote and import all my notes. But to my astonishment I see there's no way to import everything from Notes into Evernote in one fell swoop. More workarounds....

Allgo

[k6ef 2]

There's an app for that.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inote-sync-evernote-iphone/id539845907?mt=8

[Mido2802 0]

Hey !

 

I just wanted to thank you for this long and clear explanation, because I'm in the same same you are (were); I'll be also changing to Samsung S4 and will have to transfer notes then (except I still have the notes on the Iphone). I hope this will help then!

 

Thanks again

 

Cheers

 

Mido

[RLex 0]

I tried the app #9 #10. Great!! No problems with Evernote account.

[charliesan 0]

It doesnt work dont create the account in note app and dont sync

[elisathon 19]

Have you looked at If This Then That https://ifttt.com/dashboard

It's a site/service that let's you create something like workflows/services/scripts between sites/services that don't normally work together. There is a selection of what they call recipes already created or the site will walk you through creating a custom recipe for you. There is an Evernote Channel (there are 57 different channels) with several thousand recipes too choose from -I did a quick check & if you sync your iphone/ipod/ipad Notes through your Gmail account there is a Recipe available to sync Notes to your Evernote account - haven't tried it yet but I use several other Evernote Recipes & they work great.

There are Recipes for Box, Dropbox, various emails, Craigslist, Buzzfeed, Etsy, Flickr, Instagram, Pocket, Twitter, FB, Youtube, & more.

Take a look, it's a generally useful site even if they can't help with this particular Evernote issue.

[oneblessedguy 0]

I wanted to post this link I found. I can verify this applescript works!

The one problem I had was it would not import any note that had a long title. I had to go through and shorten (255 characters or less, I think) the titles and then Ka-Chow, they are in Evernote in a new folder named Imported Notes.

Very sweet!

Screenshot from the site also included!

http://mph.puddingbowl.org/2009/02/import-mailapp-notes-into-evernote/#comment-600521754

Hope this helps!! I saved me a ton of time!

[timlittle77 0]

I agree, would be really helpful for an action to sync notes from Iphone note app and import them into evernote

[sunkencathedral 2]

Hi there,

 

Like many people, I have made hundreds of notes in the iPhone Notes app over the years. Now I have gotten a new phone (Galaxy S4), and the simple task of transferring my notes has begun. And by 'simple task' I mean 'hellish nightmare'...

 

Samsung offers a Smart Switch tool for copying data from your old phone to the S4, and it works remarkably well. It was able to copy all the content from my old iPhone (pictures, music, voice memos, contacts, SMS etc) EXCEPT the notes. The notes transfer function was only able to copy a few of my notes - the ones that were not synced with Google. As you may know, the iPhone notes app can be synced with Google, and what it does is essentially send you an email to your Gmail account (tagged 'Notes') every time you make a new note. The problem is that the Samsung Smart Switch utility is unable to copy these notes from the iPhone (and 95% of my notes are like that).

 

So... the next step is to figure out how to get the notes out of Gmail and into my new phone. Unfortunately, the iPhone Notes app's syncing method is a very inelegant solution. It sends emails to your Gmail account, but there is no way to sync them *back* with the Notes app. So it is impossible for me to get the Gmail notes back on my iPhone (whence I could then use the Samsung Smart Switch utility on them).

 

OK, so my next idea was to try and get the Gmail-stored Notes into Evernote. I've been a user of Evernote for a long time, and have it on all my devices. The idea is that if I can get all of those Gmail-stored Notes into Evernote, then I can simply access them on my new phone that way.

 

Now the obvious solution is to forward the Notes emails to my Evernote email address. I have tried this with a couple of Notes, and it works! The problem is that I have over 800 notes. Now, in my naiveté I began looking around for the 'Batch forward' or 'Bulk forward' button in Gmail, so that I could simply check the 800 boxes and forward them all at once. Of course, there is no such function in Gmail, leaving all of us in such situations stranded and frustrated. It would naturally be a very tedious job to forward every one of those emails one by one...

 

Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts on this issue? I am presuming it is a common one (and there are certainly people asking similar questions all over the 'Net). Has anyone found a way to successfully batch-forward their Gmail-stored iPhone notes into Evernote? Or has anyone found some other way to get those notes into Evernote? Or hell, a way to get them out of Gmail and into *any* app that I could potentially then transfer them to Evernote from?

 

Thanks a lot for any help you can offer. This forum has some pretty smart people; maybe you will know the solution that nobody else can figure out.

[sunkencathedral 2]

I actually found a way to do this, and it worked! I'll post the solution here, because I'm sure others may be wondering how to do the same thing. It was fairly quick and easy.

 

1, Get a premium Evernote account, because the instantaneous mass forwarding of the emails will take you over the standard account's limit. I had hundreds of Note emails to forward, and the standard evernote limit is much smaller (50 I believe?).

2, Follow the directions here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/auto-forward-gmail-messages/20665/ It is not too hard - the directions are clear and there is also an accompanying video. It took me about 5-10 minutes from start to finish.

3, When you fill-in the 'Gmail label' section of the sheet, enter 'Notes' (without quotes) as that is the name of the label that the iPhone notes are stored under.

4, Once you finish following those directions, the script will run and all of the emails in your account marked 'Notes' will get sent to Evernote.

 

Possible pitfall

If you have any Notes emails with REALLY long subject lines (multiple sentences long) then the script will stop when it reaches them. This is because there is a limit to the number of subject-line characters in emails that can be sent by the script. That's no big deal, though.

 

To deal with it, find and open the offending email in Gmail, then forward it to Evernote manually. Then remove the 'Notes' tag from that email. With the tag gone, the script will no longer try to forward that email anymore. It will continue on as before, forwarding the rest of your emails. You may need to open up the script again (as per the instructions) and hit Save to kickstart it again.

 

That problem only happened to me once, though (and with an email containing an extremely long subject line). So it may not be likely to happen to you.

 

Hope this helps!

[Bill DAlessandro 1]

Hey everyone - I found the applescript mentioned and made some improvements. The script above doesn't handle titles longer than 255 characters (crashes Evernote) and doesn't preserve the note creation and modification dates. I've updated the script to take care of both issues - enjoy

 

tell application "Notes"

set theNotes to every note of the folder "Notes"

repeat with thisNote in theNotes

set myTitle to the name of thisNote

if length of myTitle is less than 255 then

set myShortTitle to myTitle

else

set myShortTitle to text 1 thru 254 of myTitle

end if

set myText to the body of thisNote

set myCreateDate to the creation date of thisNote

set myUpdateDate to the modification date of thisNote

tell application "Evernote"

set theTransferredNote to create note with html myText ¬

title myShortTitle ¬

created myCreateDate ¬

notebook "Notes"

set modification date of theTransferredNote to myUpdateDate

end tell

end repeat

end tell

[Jahnzhall 0]

I have many, many Notes in iOS that I would like to sync to Evernote. Since I'm a new user, and an exhaustive search through the help menu has been unsuccessful at illuminating the method to achieve this.

 

How do I move and manage Notes in iOS into my Evernote Premium account?

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have many, many Notes in iOS that I would like to sync to Evernote. Since I'm a new user, and an exhaustive search through the help menu has been unsuccessful at illuminating the method to achieve this.

 

How do I move and manage Notes in iOS into my Evernote Premium account?

 

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

 

Here is how sync works (http://evernote.com/getting_started/#5). You should have synced already (it is automatic) and if you go to www.evernote.com and login (the top right corner) you should see your notes as they appear on Evernote's servers. If you want to view and edit these from anywhere else, just login to the web, or download the app and login.

 

One caveat, though. Safari (the web browser on iOS) and Evernote do not play friendly. You can either go to www.evernote.com/m to see the mobile version (view only) or download the Puffin browser to your iOS device and login to Evernote on the web from there.  

[Emmaici 0]

Hey guys, why do you want to get your iOs notes into Evernote so badly? I'm just wondering. I tend to use my iPhone notes for small things on the go, but do those notes really need to be in Evernote? What benefit are you trying to achieve? Curious if I'm missing something