Local Notebooks

[Steve Klinghoffer 4]

Is there any way to generate a list of "local" notebooks?  I use over 150 notebooks and discovered that two or three had been inadvertently set up as local notebooks which obviously resulted in them not synchronizing.  My note count is off slightly from my web evernote data.  I suspect there may be one more local notebook.  Is there any way of checking without manually going through each notebook and checking its properties?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Is there any way to generate a list of "local" notebooks?  I use over 150 notebooks and discovered that two or three had been inadvertently set up as local notebooks which obviously resulted in them not synchronizing.  My note count is off slightly from my web evernote data.  I suspect there may be one more local notebook.  Is there any way of checking without manually going through each notebook and checking its properties?

 

For some reason unknown to me, EN has chosen to remove the clear & obvious indications that notebooks are local/sync'd or shared. 

[gazumped 11,661]

Try viewing your notes in a list window - there's a column which shows whether or not notes have been synced.  Sort on that column - that'll list all the unsynced notes and show you which notebook they're from...  try a manual sync and see what's left.

[Steve Klinghoffer 4]

Try viewing your notes in a list window - there's a column which shows whether or not notes have been synced.  Sort on that column - that'll list all the unsynced notes and show you which notebook they're from...  try a manual sync and see what's left.

It is great idea EXCEPT that notes in a local notebook do not show up as unsynchronized at any time.  Frankly, that was the technique I was using to try to reconcile my note counts.  I only realized that a couple of notebooks were Local when changed notes did not appear to be unsynchronized.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Well, this is pretty much unbelievable!   The UI design for creating, identifying, and managing Local Notebooks is unbelievably poor!

 

It is hard to image how this could have ever been conceived by a developer as a usable interface, and even more hard to image how it could get past ANY QC or usability testing.

 

Here's what I'm seeing (or NOT seeing) on EM Mac 5.5.1 (latest ver):

1. There is NO way whatsoever you can identify a NB as being "Local"
2. On normal, Sync'd NB, when you mouseover the NB in the NB panel, you see a popup gear icon, which, if clicked, displays the NB properties, including whether it is "Sync'd" or "Local".  This Gear Icon does NOT appear for Local NB.  So I guess, indirectly, this gives the User a clue that the NB is Local.  But it certainly is NOT clear, and still leaves doubt in the User's mind.
3. When you create a new NB from the NB panel button, it does NOT give you a choice of Sync'd or Local
4. To create a Local NB, you have to use the menu File > New Notebook >  and then either Sync'd Notebook OR Local Notebook.

Evernote, you really dropped the ball on this one. 

[gazumped 11,661]

 

Try viewing your notes in a list window - there's a column which shows whether or not notes have been synced.  Sort on that column - that'll list all the unsynced notes and show you which notebook they're from...  try a manual sync and see what's left.

It is great idea EXCEPT that notes in a local notebook do not show up as unsynchronized at any time.  Frankly, that was the technique I was using to try to reconcile my note counts.  I only realized that a couple of notebooks were Local when changed notes did not appear to be unsynchronized.

 

 

Doh.  That seemed like such a good idea at the time..  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

We could use clear indications in several places of a notebook's status, and the indications we have on shared notebooks cut off the already truncated titles to make them almost meaningless on the Mac. On the iPad, the situation is even worse with everything (truncated names of notes, tags, and notebooks). If you work in Asian languages (50% or more of our user base?), characters take up more space and you can see even less.

Ideally, we'd simply have more customizability and information density. If the default view needs to be this pretty, but difficult to manage view, then that is fine. For some of us, though, more information would be nice. Think of Finder on the mac (Explorer on Windows). Text arranged in columns and rows that is easily sorted is extremely helpful for managing large amounts of data. A column telling us the notebook status would solve this problem, and, like the current list view, it could be hidden or shown as necessary. I think the wheel has already been made, and reinventing it with images and icons isn't a better mousetrap (mixing my metaphors here).

[jbenson2 2,147]

Well, this is pretty much unbelievable!   The UI design for creating, identifying, and managing Local Notebooks is unbelievably poor!

 

It is hard to image how this could have ever been conceived by a developer as a usable interface, and even more hard to image how it could get past ANY QC or usability testing.

 

Here's what I'm seeing (or NOT seeing) on EM Mac 5.5.1 (latest ver):

1. There is NO way whatsoever you can identify a NB as being "Local"
2. On normal, Sync'd NB, when you mouseover the NB in the NB panel, you see a popup gear icon, which, if clicked, displays the NB properties, including whether it is "Sync'd" or "Local".  This Gear Icon does NOT appear for Local NB.  So I guess, indirectly, this gives the User a clue that the NB is Local.  But it certainly is NOT clear, and still leaves doubt in the User's mind.
3. When you create a new NB from the NB panel button, it does NOT give you a choice of Sync'd or Local
4. To create a Local NB, you have to use the menu File > New Notebook >  and then either Sync'd Notebook OR Local Notebook.

Evernote, you really dropped the ball on this one. 

 

Completely agree. I believe the Evernote development team relies too heavily on the limited base of beta users and not enough on their own internal QC testing. I see more and more UI complaints on this forum since the major jump for both the iOS and Windows.

 

This oversight is really going to hurt some unsuspecting customers who encounter the classic, often repeated Evernote mantra to use Revo uninstaller,  re-install latest version, and then download from the Evernote cloud. If they have some local notebooks, once that recommended practice occurs, their unsync'd data is gone (unless they remember to maintain personal backup copies). 

[gazumped 11,661]

The "mantra" to use Revo always includes a warning about local notebooks and unsynced notes,  so I don't think anyone with a designated local notebook is likely to have any problems.  The only issue is whether someone who incorrectly creates a local notebook by accident might lose data due to lack of visual cues,  which seems pretty easy to check for - any significant difference in note numbers (as with the OP here - remember him?) would probably already have been questioned by the user anyway - as happened here....

 

It's a feature request,  not a major disaster.

[jbenson2 2,147]

<snip> so I don't think anyone with a designated local notebook is likely to have any problems.<snip>

 

Power users who frequent this forum will comprehend the risk of this altered UI.

 

But regular users (myself included) are no longer able to easily identify which notebooks are sync'd and which notebooks are not-sync'd. And it is especially difficult for the users with a hundred or more notebooks created over the past few years. It becomes a Herculean chore to find all of the local notebooks in that situation. 

 

As we have seen over and over, there are some users who do not back up their Evernote database. They just hope the information in the Evernote cloud is still there.

 

For some people losing data is not a big issue; for others it can be very serious.

 

Edit: Note count discrepancies can be due to a variety of other issues.

[VP123 1]

View - Jump to Notebooks

 

The icon is slightly different for Local vs Synced notebooks

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

View - Jump to Notebooks

 

The icon is slightly different for Local vs Synced notebooks

 

I don't see ANY difference in Local NB in EN Mac 5.5.1.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

View - Jump to Notebooks

 

The icon is slightly different for Local vs Synced notebooks

 

I don't see ANY difference in Local NB in EN Mac 5.5.1.

 

 

You have to follow the instructions exactly. There are no icon changes, but you can see (Local Notebook) written in parentheses. In grey on grey text. It's not what I would recommend for the user interface, but perhaps with the release of Yosemite (Mac folks) this will be an opportunity to redesign the app and include a visual language that is quick and easy to comprehend. As long as they don't follow Apple's lead... Red on purple? Gray on gray? Ugh. It's almost like they have an axe to grind with people who want to get stuff done, people with vision issues, or people stuck on their Macbook Airs.

[FrancaV 3]

View - Jump to Notebooks

 

The icon is slightly different for Local vs Synced notebooks

Thanks - this could be helpful in the future, though not nearly as simple as it used to be. Once upon a time, the main Notebook list had an icon next to each notebook and the icon for synced notebooks was different from the icon for local notebooks - one was solid green and the other wasn't - why did they remove this simple visual cue?? It drives me crazy that I can't tell at a glance whether a particular notebook is synced or local. I tried to explain this to Evernote Tech support without success. The people here in the forum know what I'm talking about so why is it such a difficult concept for tech support? It's an interface feature that Evernote used to have - it's not as though we're requesting something unheard of or impossible. Aaarrrggghhh.

[FrancaV 3]

The "mantra" to use Revo always includes a warning about local notebooks and unsynced notes,  so I don't think anyone with a designated local notebook is likely to have any problems.  The only issue is whether someone who incorrectly creates a local notebook by accident might lose data due to lack of visual cues,  which seems pretty easy to check for - any significant difference in note numbers (as with the OP here - remember him?) would probably already have been questioned by the user anyway - as happened here....

 

It's a feature request,  not a major disaster.

I have to disagree ... it's pretty much a disaster for anyone who remembers having the distinguishing icons. I have many notebooks and a significant number are local. When they were created it was very easy to tell they were local but now it's not. Now I am completely unable to look at the Notebooks list and distinguish synced from local at a glance. If there had been no designating icons to begin with I would have devised a special naming system for local notebooks but it's way too late for that now.

[FactMan 196]

This is for the Windows version (5.5.2.4187 (22187) Public). Open the left panel (F10). Click on the large "Notebooks" icon. A list pops up showing the notebook/stack names. Stacks are closed until you click on them. Mouse over the file name. You get a cogwheel for the local notebooks, and a cogwheel plus the sync symbol for the synced notebooks, although it is the symbol is actually a link to the sharing options. You get an indication of the number of notes contained in the notebook as well. It's enough for me. YMMV.

 

One thing that could be improved about this is for the list of notebooks to have some way of jumping to the notes contained in that notebook, in the same way that selecting a tag in the tags display allows you to see the notes with that tag.

[CalS 5,280]

Though some confusion maybe earlier in this chain, in the View - Jump to Notebooks view, synced, local and shared notebooks all have different icons (slightly open book, closed book, and heads).  Maybe they appeared with the new public release, 4187.

[FrancaV 3]

This is for the Windows version (5.5.2.4187 (22187) Public). Open the left panel (F10). Click on the large "Notebooks" icon. A list pops up showing the notebook/stack names. Stacks are closed until you click on them. Mouse over the file name. You get a cogwheel for the local notebooks, and a cogwheel plus the sync symbol for the synced notebooks, although it is the symbol is actually a link to the sharing options. You get an indication of the number of notes contained in the notebook as well. It's enough for me. YMMV.

 

One thing that could be improved about this is for the list of notebooks to have some way of jumping to the notes contained in that notebook, in the same way that selecting a tag in the tags display allows you to see the notes with that tag.

Thank you for the more detailed explanation. Someone tried to explain this further up the thread but I didn't understand.

 

Because you have to hover over each individual notebook to see if it is local or not, this is not as good as having the immediately visible icons next to the notebooks in the list down the left panel, but it is better than having to open each individual notebook to find out if it's local. I think I'm going to rename all of my notebooks and stacks to differentiate local from synced more easily. Tedious, but the current situation isn't acceptable to me. Your tip will make the renaming task faster, though, so thanks again!

[FactMan 196]

FrancaV, your explanation reminded me that there is a registry hack that will give you closer to what you want. https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/41705-everreghack-colors-for-notebooks-names-in-evernote-5-for-windows/. The page is in Russian, but the link at the bottom is in English. Download the and extract the zip files (I have it in my Programs folder so that I should remember where I filed it, but didn't!). The program gives you the option to color the names of notebooks (I couldn't find a way of making the synced notebook names any color other than black, and my change for shared notes didn't work). There are some other intriguing options that you may or not find useful. I installed it on an earlier version of Evernote, but the colors of the notebook names had reverted to black. Exit Evernote before running it.

[jefito 5,589]

Thank you for the more detailed explanation. Someone tried to explain this further up the thread but I didn't understand.

 

Because you have to hover over each individual notebook to see if it is local or not, this is not as good as having the immediately visible icons next to the notebooks in the list down the left panel, but it is better than having to open each individual notebook to find out if it's local. I think I'm going to rename all of my notebooks and stacks to differentiate local from synced more easily. Tedious, but the current situation isn't acceptable to me. Your tip will make the renaming task faster, though, so thanks again!

 

You should note that there is no such thing as a local stack in Evernote. Of course if you're trying t differentiate between a stack that contains only local notebooks and a stack that doesn't, then that may be helpful to your use case.

 

The registry hack that FactMan mentions does work for notebook names (not for stacks, as far as I know), and that may be helpful as well.

[FrancaV 3]

FrancaV, your explanation reminded me that there is a registry hack that will give you closer to what you want. https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/41705-everreghack-colors-for-notebooks-names-in-evernote-5-for-windows/. The page is in Russian, but the link at the bottom is in English. Download the and extract the zip files (I have it in my Programs folder so that I should remember where I filed it, but didn't!). The program gives you the option to color the names of notebooks (I couldn't find a way of making the synced notebook names any color other than black, and my change for shared notes didn't work). There are some other intriguing options that you may or not find useful. I installed it on an earlier version of Evernote, but the colors of the notebook names had reverted to black. Exit Evernote before running it.

Thank you! I'll have a look. I've renamed my notebooks but some of the names are so long that my Local/Synced notations aren't visible without making the side panel temporarily wider; a different color would be preferable if I can get over my deeply ingrained fear of mucking about in the registry.  I've never screwed anything up but there's always a first time. 

[FrancaV 3]

 

Thank you for the more detailed explanation. Someone tried to explain this further up the thread but I didn't understand.

 

Because you have to hover over each individual notebook to see if it is local or not, this is not as good as having the immediately visible icons next to the notebooks in the list down the left panel, but it is better than having to open each individual notebook to find out if it's local. I think I'm going to rename all of my notebooks and stacks to differentiate local from synced more easily. Tedious, but the current situation isn't acceptable to me. Your tip will make the renaming task faster, though, so thanks again!

 

You should note that there is no such thing as a local stack in Evernote. Of course if you're trying t differentiate between a stack that contains only local notebooks and a stack that doesn't, then that may be helpful to your use case.

 

The registry hack that FactMan mentions does work for notebook names (not for stacks, as far as I know), and that may be helpful as well.

 

Yes, I know there are no local stacks but I wanted to be able to tell if there were any local notebooks within the stacks. Thanks for the confirmation that the registry hack works!

[FrancaV 3]

FrancaV, your explanation reminded me that there is a registry hack that will give you closer to what you want. https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/41705-everreghack-colors-for-notebooks-names-in-evernote-5-for-windows/. The page is in Russian, but the link at the bottom is in English. Download the and extract the zip files (I have it in my Programs folder so that I should remember where I filed it, but didn't!). The program gives you the option to color the names of notebooks (I couldn't find a way of making the synced notebook names any color other than black, and my change for shared notes didn't work). There are some other intriguing options that you may or not find useful. I installed it on an earlier version of Evernote, but the colors of the notebook names had reverted to black. Exit Evernote before running it.

Yippee! I am a happy camper now. This registry hack works just fine. All of my Local Notebooks are now blue and my Joined Notebooks are red. The Synced ones are plain black as you said, but that's just fine; as long as they are a different color from the local ones I'm content. It actually showed me that I had renamed a couple of my notebooks incorrectly - oops.  Thanks so much for pointing me to this simple workaround.

[FactMan 196]

 

Thank you for the more detailed explanation. Someone tried to explain this further up the thread but I didn't understand.

 

Because you have to hover over each individual notebook to see if it is local or not, this is not as good as having the immediately visible icons next to the notebooks in the list down the left panel, but it is better than having to open each individual notebook to find out if it's local. I think I'm going to rename all of my notebooks and stacks to differentiate local from synced more easily. Tedious, but the current situation isn't acceptable to me. Your tip will make the renaming task faster, though, so thanks again!

 

You should note that there is no such thing as a local stack in Evernote. Of course if you're trying t differentiate between a stack that contains only local notebooks and a stack that doesn't, then that may be helpful to your use case.

 

The registry hack that FactMan mentions does work for notebook names (not for stacks, as far as I know), and that may be helpful as well.

 

The color remains changed on notebooks within the stack, but the stack name is not colored. I didn't have any stacks in my offline notebooks, so I was not aware of this before. So thanks for pointing that out, Jefito.

[lel 5]

The color remains changed on notebooks within the stack, but the stack name is not colored. I didn't have any stacks in my offline notebooks, so I was not aware of this before. So thanks for pointing that out, Jefito.

 

You can put different types of notebooks into the same stack, so changing stack color would be confusing. Since you are already using those registry settings, here is one more trick: you can change a notebook font to be bold and/or italic. For example "#949494,bold,italic" value will make it gray, bold and italic.

[LanceP 2]

My workaround to quickly find notes that are in local folders:

View all notes in list view. Unsynced notes in synchronized notebooks will show a dot in the SyncStatus column. Unfortunately notes in local notebooks (never synced) do not show a dot or any indication that they do not sync. As a workaround you can sort by SyncStatus and float local notes to the top. Edit a test note from a known synchronized notebook. Sync with the server. Click on the sync status header to toggle the sort order. Look for notes listed above your test note. Click the sync status header again to flip the sort. If either sort shows notes listed above your test note then those notes are probably in local notebooks. If you do not have a local notebook you can create one with a test note to confirm this behavior. (Version: Mac 6.11)

[gazumped 11,661]

Hi.  All Local Notes will be in Local Notebooks,  so surely the easiest way to identify local notes is to select the notebook(s) they're hosted in?

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  All Local Notes will be in Local Notebooks,  so surely the easiest way to identify local notes is to select the notebook(s) they're hosted in?

Don’t exactly host Local notebooks.  

[DTLow 5,736]

10 hours ago, LanceP said:

My workaround to quickly find notes that are in local folders:

View all notes in list view.

As per @gazumped, simply use the notebook page to identify local notebooks

The local notebooks are clearly labeled

The notebooks could even be placed in a stack, and the notes listed in one view

[LanceP 2]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

As per @gazumped, simply use the notebook page to identify local notebooks

The local notebooks are clearly labeled

The notebooks could even be placed in a stack, and the notes listed in one view

Hi @DTLow. My Notebooks page (Mac 6.11.1 ) does not have the details shown on your screen shot.  I need to to hover my mouse over each notebook to tell if it is local.

[gazumped 11,661]

4 hours ago, csihilling said:

Don’t exactly host Local notebooks.  

Picky,  picky - hosted in,  children of,  parented by,  assigned to,  connected with... 

[CalS 5,280]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

Picky,  picky - hosted in,  children of,  parented by,  assigned to,  connected with... 

plus filed in, stored in, contained in, are a member of the set known as notebook.name..... 

[LanceP 2]

I found the single column notebook view that @DTLow has. Preferences>Software Update>Enable New Notebook view for personal accounts. This view does indicate which notebooks are local. Yay!