Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks

[cswsteve 85]

I think Evernote is a fantastic product, especially with the iPhone integration. I currently use a program called UltraRecall because of it's heavy use of subfolders. This makes organizing my data very logical. I was wondering if Evernotes has a way to create subnotebooks under existing notebooks to help group numerious notebooks together?

Example Notebooks:

Work

Clients

Customer1

Customer2

Customer3

Customer4

Personal

Electronics

Web Clips

[grdd 41]

I don't understand why after almost 10 years this has not been implemented yet. Also, I don't understand why workarounds such as tags are considered a good solution.

Is it that complicated to add more hierarchy levels to the structure?

[Saxophone 30]

To all Guru's that keep saying the same thing about being able to do the same thing with tag. This maybe so but is not the point. 

Clearly for at least the last 9 Years people have been asking for the ability to nest stacks. We pay for this product and this is what we want so do it already.

[mishii1776 16]

Yes - please, add sub-folders / categories / etc.

I am getting the feeling from reading these threads that the EN people are 'refusing' to add this? Is that really true? Why would a company alienate it's user base by refusing to add a feature that so many have requested?

Well, my position is simple, if I find the program a burden to use, and I will if I cannot find a way to organize things the way I am USED to organizing them, then I will simply stop using it - it wont happen right away, however small frustrations will build up over time, and inertia will take its toll. Probably will happen in about - 2 or 3 weeks I imagine. Meanwhile I am looking for a different service - or unless I can get a different feeling from the EN development team.

Also - I can add this feature if they dont want to - just give me teh codez.

[crane 40]

I'm using the notebooks the same way I used many categories in EN2.2, as "holders", as opposed to tags/attributes. For instance, I dump recipes into the Recipes notebook, Tips into the Tips notebook, etc. etc.

What I'd like to be able to do is have subnotebooks so that I can have say Tips:Latex, Tips:Linux, Tips:Windows as subnotebooks on Tips. Yes, I can painfully accomplish the same thing with tags, but it's clunky for a couple of reasons:

1. When I want to mark a note as a Tips/Linux note, I have to: (a) move it to the Tips notebook and then ( tag it with Linux to distinguish it from other tips notes. If I had a separate notebook for Linux, I could just drag the note to that notebook and be done - half as much work. However, I've already got 13 notebooks - adding that many more will make the list unwieldy.

2. One of the joys of clipping to the web version is the ability to pick the destination notebook. Easy, quick, done. (Yes, I can tag there too - but I'd have to remember all my tags then.)

Basically, I find the current tag implementation unwieldy. And frankly, useless. I can't easily select multiple tags, e.g., by clicking on their parent (a la 2.2), so the hierarchy is, well, frankly, completely meaningless. I'm trying to adapt to using it, but it's kind of a square peg/round hole argument.

In addition, I find the saved searches to be pretty much useless for me too. Because I can't organize them in a hierarchy; and because they're not combined with the tag list, and because I can only have 32, I don't see the point in using them.

What this means is that the only left-panel part of EN3 that I find useful at all is the notebooks concept. Unfortunately, they're a flat list, sorted alphabetically. This means that I've actually changed the kind of data I store in EN3. I don't keep anything "important" there, just scraps that I can dump into a notebook willy-nilly.

[crane 40]

Has the fact that several of us have asked for subnotebooks been noted as a feature request? Will it be possible in the future? Personally, subnotebooks will be much more useful to me than the tag hierarchy.

[mUpPeTMoWeR 6]

Well that was an interesting read. This thread seems to have devolved into a debate about the relative superiority of tagging over folders a la PlayStation vs. Xbox, PC vs. Mac, Star Trek vs. Star Wars, Android vs. iOS.. [need I continue?]

The reality is the features don't have to be mutually exclusive; you can have both and it would:

• Add to the multitude of creative ways to use Evernote by having the two systems complement and enhance each other
• Allow users to choose for themselves which organizational system to use
• Extend an organizational system that almost everyone is already familiar with into Evernote
• Add another potentially tier-able feature to entice users to subscribe

Is there something to be lost by adding this feature?

[mtanne 9]

On 11/1/2017 at 9:55 AM, jefito said:

If you follow the history of the thread, then I think you'll probably see that this is an intentional stance on the part of Evernote (look for posts by @engberg), rather than making a virtue out of necessity. My take is that they have tended to emulate GMail's structure more closely than anything else: GMail has some predefined folders, but not nested folders; these are like Evernote notebooks. GMail also has labels, which can be nested, but are more like tags (sadly, the GMail also documentation uses the term 'folders' to describe them, but they are not folder-like in that they can be applied to multiple emails). From everything I've seen from Evernote employee postings, here and elsewhere, they just don't seem to think that nested notebooks are necessary. That being said, there may be added resistance due to cost of implementation, but I really think that the architectural choices here are philosophical.

Good points. An intentional stance that has note changed since 2008?  There are four factors at play here.

1. Information Structure and Organization. gmail is an excellent example showing that "labels" and "folders" are one and the same.  In fact, technically, any filesystem is simply a set of labels (tags) in a directory. The only difference is that tags allow multiple membership, which is a more flexible structure than a directory.  I'd argue that EN users have a higher requirement for organizing active information than an email app, which is ultimately about Inbox Zero and an archive.  This is the actual nature of the technical problem at the root of everyone's frustration.

2. User Stories / Usage Cases. Some people think in terms of folders. Some think in terms of tags. Some prefer search.   Some problems (archival) favor folders and hierarchy. Some problems (research) favor jumping to a tag.  Some (quick answers) favor a search. Take a simple example from Spotify, who has essentially solved this problem:

Playlist: My Deep House Playlist - a list of songs I MUST have together in a specific order (they can also be in other playlists)

Hierarchical Playlists: Electronic > House > Deep House; Electronic > DownTempo;  Electronic > Dubstep; etc.

Tag: Artist names, albums, genres are all forms of tags: Metalcore, punk, Prince, JustinBieber, 

Search: "Free bir..."

3. User Perception.  The fact that this is an ongoing debate 10 years later, means customer expectations are NOT being met.  Perhaps Evernote Team don't understand what the users are asking for. Perhaps they do understand but are dismissive.  Perhaps no one with formal training in ontologies and information structure is even looking at the problem, so EVERYONE is confused both Evernote and Customers.  But regardless, the fact that users aren't free to organize thousands of notes in a way that works for them, and the company and the users are talking past each other for 10 years running? Obviously a communication problem. Poor @engberg left alone to defend the company's position without reinforcements.

4. Technical Deficit.  Evernote has been running a technical Deficit since the beginning. I'm a champion, and supporter and really WANT them to succeed. And they've managed to keep advancing the product so many of us rely on. But the reality of over-stretched technical teams, is long stand-up meetings with long lists of unresolved bugs.  And the lists keep getting longer. If the technical deficit is never addressed, often by biting the bullet and focusing on refactoring ancient code, the problems compound, it shows up in quality, and it shows up in subscription renewals, and those paying customers are the lifeblood of the company.  All it takes is a freshly funded Y-Combinator team who are super smart and super motivated to solve the problem in a cleaner way.  Then when Sequoia backs that team, it will be able to hire the best engineers who've been slaving away to maintain the EN code base for a decade, and the rest is a story told a thousand times in Silicon Valley.

So, hopefully, this one widely desired and poorly understood aspect of information organization can be resolved AND communicated sometime soon.

[rocketguy 4]

A note to Evernote ;)

The lack of this feature is why my company chose Quip over Evernote. And it's why I am finally getting around to moving my personal Evernote content to some other (yet undecided) service.
 

Quote

But you can do everything with tags!

I've been a software developer for quite awhile now, and no, just no. Things as simple as moving deeply nested subfolders around, dragging and dropping files from one folder to another, become a painful exercise in trying to rename tags.

I'm sure EN made an early mistake in software or db design that makes this feature nigh impossible, just letting the product team know that it is affecting your bottom line.

[Hummer 5]

I just wanted to add my two cents.. I chose Onenote over Evernote based only on subfolders/hierarchy.. Albeit onenote doesnt have much beyond three levels deep (and even the 3rd level of hierarchy is barely noticeable).. My friend is considering Evernote for the Mac but immediately was upset when it revealed no support for subfolders. It has everything but it! She wants to create 100+ notebooks but knows how cluttered it will look.. when she hoped to break them into about 10 categories.. For cleanliness subfolders are needed! She tried the tags and got more confused.. Why should she have to set the tags manually for each note she adds? When she should just be allowed to "select" on a certain notebook and hit add... then it will know file it in that same sub-notebook... without "tagging" it (another tedius chore).

+1 vote for subfolders

Thanks!

[Shellah 9]

28 minutes ago, Flier said:

Maybe I missed reading the rule book.  Are others required to prove to you that their viewpoints are valid?  FWIW I am not seeing any proof here that your endlessly repeated tag workarounds to the folder problem are anything but that:  workarounds.  And clumsy ones at that.

I have not found any of the replies from DTLow in this thread to be helpful.  He seems to be strictly on a mission to talk hierarchical thinkers out of being the way they are.  This thread is home for we who have been begging EV for nested, organiz-able folders for years.  It is not helpful to be told (over again) why they aren't necessary, aren't a good idea and why the workarounds work just fine when we of the nesting tribe know they don't fill the void.

[Flier 19]

10 minutes ago, Shellah said:

I have not found any of the replies from DTLow in this thread to be helpful.  He seems to be strictly on a mission to talk hierarchical thinkers out of being the way they are.  This thread is home for we who have been begging EV for nested, organiz-able folders for years.  It is not helpful to be told (over again) why they aren't necessary, aren't a good idea and why the workarounds work just fine when we of the nesting tribe know they don't fill the void.

Yeah.  Agreed.  I don't know which is more impressive, his arrogance or the amount of free time he has available to spend on posting the same comments, over and over.  and over.  and over.

Re "I am not interested in boohoo posts."  Is that also a requirement , that your highness be interested in every post?  Or that someone cares whether you are interested or not?  ROFL.

[Christina Mc 2]

Can hardly believe that 10 years on, this still isn't possible. 

This paying customer may not be paying for long... I'm surprised this feature is still lacking. 

+100 for nested notebooks! 

[Andreas 11]

Another voice for sub-notebooks.

Tags are extremely useful, but on their own they are restrictive and unintuitive. Folders and sub-folder mimic the way the human brain works, there is no learning curve involved.

Products that force the user to work in an unfamiliar fashion frequently fail. Apple's success is largely due to making computers, and phones, work in an intuitive, human way. Apple products are rarely the 'best' product on the market, but as far as usability is concerned they are unbeatable. They work for you, not against you.

Evernote is an excellent product, but there isn't a day where I don't wish for sub-notebooks. I want to see at a glance where my information is. I want to be able to search just a specific sub-notebook. I want to scroll through notes without having to run a search first. Why? Because I might miss a connection otherwise. I want to the software to work for me, not against me.

The answers that I've read from the developers in this thread (use tags, use tags, use tags) are ignoring what a large number of people are asking for. I suspect that the people who are asking for advanced features might well be the people who would evangelize the product if they'd consider it to be closer to perfection. Ignoring user feedback is the fastest way into irrelevance I know of. It's also pretty arrogant - we know best, don't worry about it. Well, we are the people you're relying on for your commercial success. Might it not be time to start listening?

The day Evernote gets sub-folders is the day I'd go pro. in the meantime, I'll be keeping my eyes open for the inevitable arrival of the competition.

[raphaelaguiar 5]

Although this request is far from being a priority to me, it is the 7th most voted one right now (09/20/2017).

I've learned here that the only discussion which really matters is about # of votes. Fine, but then this request deserves more than the "EN-is-not-for-you" or "go-and-look-for-something-else" usual approaches.

 

[johnd 8]

If I may add my 2 cents as well (again).

Organizing by using sub notebooks seems so logical ... it follows the approach of Explorer and a million other programs (listing just the ones I have open currently: ListPro, Clip Cache Pro, ACDSee Pro, Thunderbird, jRiver Media Center, iTunes, etc, etc). I really don't want to have to learn a new paradigm every time I use a new program. For better or worse using sub 'folders' is what we're used to.

The tagging idea is great but I'd prefer to have that as an extra feature rather than the only way to organize the notes.

2 cents>

[everyxnewxday 1]

I'm not going into the philosophical reasons that I want sub-notebooks, but just know that for what I'm doing and for how my brain works I would really appreciate it if they were added. Keep all the good tagging stuff too, but just give me a concrete place to stash stuff quickly.

I decided to post here because I was actually trying to use Evernote today - trying to set up my note structure and become a consistent user (and likely future suscriber) - but became frustrated with my growing list of tags. I kept wishing there was a way to make a sub-notebook. I KNEW there must be a way because it seemed like such a basic UI feature. I couldn't find it anywhere and consulted google only to find out that there are no sub-notebooks.

I think of those multi-section divided notebooks that I used in high school. I keep each subject in a section of the notebook. Each day I easily flip open to the correct section and write my notes in the section that belongs to that class. When it comes time for a test everything is there, in order, and easy to find. Now, say I have to write a paper for another class that incorporates things I've learned in several classes. I tear out all the pages I need from various classes that are about the same subject and put them in a 3 ring binder to write my paper. This is how I would like to use sub-folders and tags.

I know that with work I could do that with tags alone, but I think that this is how it works in so many other places and just seems natural. Maybe my mind is too feeble to understand the benefits of a "tags only" system, but for me sub-categories just make sense and would be ideal working in conjunction with your powerful tag system. Why not give your users more power by implementing both?

So, to sum up... +1

[x9sim9 7]

I think its clear at this point that someone within the Evernote organisation has simply refused to add this feature a long time ago and now its blacklisted. I am a developer and unfortunately this is very common in the industry logic goes out the window and pride comes into play.

There is only 1 way that this feature will ever get implemented in Evernote, if it effects their revenue streams...

I am not advocating this as I love Evernote, but something as simple as a group of users refusing to renew their memberships until this feature is available would put pressure on the management, and thus would apply pressure to the development team.

Unfortunately I also see this alot in my industry, its just a sad state of affairs when pride comes into the picture.

I don't like tags, and I like stacks, give the customers what they want... it should really be that simple!

[x9sim9 7]

Just so you know there is a very simple way to implement this regardless of how the backend architecture of evernote was built, and would not effect backwards compatibility and would work easily across all platforms.

Create virtually nested stacks

Stack 1

-- Stack 2

-- -- Stack 3

is stored in the backend as a single stack with the string:

Stack1 :: Stack 2 :: Stack 3

older clients simply see this instead of nested stacks, and the newer clients see the stacks in a nested view

 

Its really not as hard as evernote seem to think it is...

[AlextheUnicat 6]

Hierarchy of notebooks/stacks should be a given. Currently the only thing keeping from using Evernote over OneNote is the lack of hierarchy. I really, really would prefer to use Evernote, but no matter what I try (hours and hours of experimenting) nothing is right for me. Yes, I have tried tag hierarchy. I like my notes to be in one place, one notebook, and for tags to be something additional. That is how my brain works and is the genius behind applications like Workflowy and Todoist.

If hierarchical tags are enough for you, good for you, but everyone doesn't need to be just like you. There is no universal "right" way to take notes, what is right is what is right for you. A good app offers a variety of options to many different people who think in many different ways. I happen to be non-neurotypical and frankly the posts that are like "I can't see why you could possibly need this" frustrate me. Of course you can't, because it isn't how you think, but can you recognize and accept the fact that some people do think that way even though it isn't how you do?

And yes, I have found another app to use. OneNote. It isn't perfect but I have weighed the pros and cons of each application over a few years, and have in general experimented with many note-taking platforms (I genuinely enjoy doing so.) I have found OneNote to be the better choice when I weigh the pros and cons, but that all would change if Evernote had notebook hierarchy. So yeah that's the reason I have come on here to comment, because I really do want things to improve with Evernote.

Also I want to add notebooks don't necessarily have to be under notebooks in a hierarchy, it could actually just be stacks under stacks, with no sub-notebooks and only sub-stacks. Honestly either way would be nice if there were just true hierarchy.

Also something that makes a huge difference when it comes to notebook hierarchy vs. tag hierarchy is that with tag hierarchy you lose the ability to share things as one notebook. Since Evernote prioritizes collaboration a lot you would think this would be important to them.

Edited May 26, 2018 by AlextheUnicat
added note about notebook sharing

[OVPdev 6]

I believe there are two categories of people: those who work on projects using Evernote, and those who don't.
And the last ones sincerely don't understand why is the feature they don't need is needed for anybody.
in my opinion, http://theguide.sourceforge.net/ had the best hierarchical structure view and the user experience for working on projects.

When you write a note, at some point you might need a deeper structure, so you create a note inside a note, and each of them has a content.

Differences compare to tags:

• notes don't change the order based on recency or name, only by user explicit actions. hence a user can leverage visual memory for better navigation
• only one parent, so I don't need to remove the old tag, assign the new one, and it's not possible to make a mistake during these actions 
• I can see all the notes inside a parent in the same view, so again I can use my visual memory to the fullest extent
• any parent can have a content, so you can start with the main idea and detail it with child notes
• Evernote parent tags contain everything that children and children of children contain, therefore I have to click on all the tags lower on the hierarchy, remember all the notes and compare what I've remembered with what Evernote shows me to finally find out what are the actual children.

Tags are really bad for this purpose. I use a note with structured references instead. 
Don't get me wrong, tags are good but not for that.

The better solution for adding this type of view is to make it as a separate database or hidden note with information about references and structure. When you turn it on it's empty, regardless you already have notes. and then you can move notes in that view. 
So this feature won't affect you if you don't need it, and you can use it selectively.
Differences compared to a note with internal links:

• it's always at the navigation panel
• you can use drag and drop
• a note in single hierarchical view can have only one parent and you can't accidentally duplicate references
• it has an ability to create or remove notes right from the view.

 

I would definitely buy a Premium if Evernote had a good hierarchical structure view.

[mikefinleyco 52]

The 3rd highest request and still nothing? New CEO should read this forum and he would look like a genius for simply giving his customers their top 10 product requests, seems like a no-brainer. The world revolves around data trees visually as nested trees, time for the new CEO to look at how tags have been a poor man's workaround for 10 years with users continually requesting nested notebook tree structure.

Evernote is so buggy and has destroyed so much of my data over the years I leave the least amount of data in it and export the majority of my data to archive it, but it sure sucks to have to recreate note books everytime you import data back into evernote. Some really simple fixes and features seem so rudimentary for a product as old as this one.

[Sarabeara 0]

Adding my vote. Being able to stack stacks is integral.

I currently have a situation where I want to archive my stacks into one stack and start fresh..   but that's not possible.. and no I don't want to move all the notebooks inside into one stack, the hierarchy that I have is important...

Is there any way we can get this prioritised??

[Khidr 0]

Just one more vote for subfolders/notebooks. I mentioned my workflow in onenote on this thread....http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8617, but evernote has so much other good stuff going for it, that I would immediately become a premium user if I could hierarchically manage my notes. +1.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Using Tags as Pseudo Notebooks

My knowledge of how to use Tags continues to evolve.  This has been largely due to limitations Evernote has placed on Notebooks.

So, the question is:  How does one make the best use of the tool they have?

Notebooks (NB) are limited to 250.  Tags are virtually unlimited at 100,000.    Tags can have a hierarchical structure of Parent Tag / Child Tag, much like the folders that you see on your computer.

 

So, if we can model NBs as Tags, then we can effectively have unlimited NBs and sub-NBs.  One of the most appealing features of Notebooks (and folders) is how they visually appear.  But what if we can do the same visual layout with Tags?  Stay tuned to learn how.

 

I use tags in two fundamentally different ways:

1. Pseudo Notebooks -- use in place of where you would normally use a notebook.  This includes sub-notebooks.
2. Note Categorization -- traditional use of tags to categorize the entity, which can have multiple tags.  Can be used across Notebooks, or in this case, across pseudo NBs.

Using Tags as Pseudo Notebooks

 

Tags can be organized in hierarchies (meaning Parent-Child relationship).  So we can achieve the appearance of Notebooks and sub-notebooks,

 

Without going into a lot of detail at this point, I have created a number of Tags which serve as pseudo Notebooks.   Note that all of the pseudo NBs, actually tags, all have a prefix of ".NB.", which makes it easy to identify which tags are pseudo NBs, and will cause them to appear at the top of the Tag list.

 

One great advantage of using tags as pseudo NBs, is that you can assign multiple pseudo NBs to the same Note.  Can't do that with actual NBs.  Each Note can belong to only one NB.  So this allows me, for example, to assign multiple pseudo NBs of .NB.IT, .NB.Business, and .NB.Personal to the same Note, which is the asset record for a new Mac, used in both business and personal activities.  Now when I search or filter on any of the 3 pseudo NBs it will find the asset record of my Mac.

 

I now have all of my pseudo NBs that appear at the top of my Tag list, and the pseudo NBs can, and do, have sub-pseudo NBs.  Here's an example:

 

 

As a result, I now have a need for ONLY 3 main Notebooks, plus any Notebooks needed for sharing or mobile offline use:

 

 

Please feel free to post any questions or comments.

 

EDIT:  Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 12:36:27 PM CST

For more discussion on pseudo notebooks, 

see Do you find lots of notebooks or notebook stacks useful?

[Brien Bear 3]

I'm a newb, but I want to add my 2 cents to this. This would be super helpful. 

My example: 

I have notebooks for work, home, etc. I travel a lot and I like to organize my expense reports and I'd prefer to keep that under "work", so basically

Work

   -Expense Reports

• 2017 October 16-18
• 2017 October 23-25

   -People

• -Person A
• -Person B
• -Person C

After reading this, I'll start using tags, but typing out the long date format for every expense report is going to be cumbersome. "2017 October 16-18", "2017 October 23-25", etc. 

And I don't know who at Evernote reads this, but the other thing I'd like to say is, I understand the gurus role, but telling people "EN isn't right for you" - that's really not a great answer for people to respond with. If you're trying to sell a product, chasing them away isn't going to help sell. My boss told me about EN but funny enough he uses OneNote. I'm actually really digging EverNote but reading some of the replies really is kind of off-putting. Also, nitpicking between "product" and "subscription".... well, that's just offensive. A subscription is still a product.

Again, just my 2 cents.

Thanks

 

[dawa68 0]

Directory like structure would be very good - at least one more level

[crispinb 8]

... but then I don't make much distinction between the idea of tags and folders anyway, to me they are just different metaphors for categorising things. In "real life" I'm forced to use physical location (folders, notebooks, shelves etc) as the main means of categorising things, which is rather restrictive since an item can only be in one place at a time, whereas in Evernote something can be in many places at once (using tags).

Well, the really crucial difference is that real-world containers can have hierarchy. The lack of this in Evernote could be fixed either by having subnotebooks or hierarchical tags, but certainly not (as Dave seems to have suggested a couple of times in the forums) by simulation via the current flat tag system (notwithstanding the fake hierarchical GUI fig-leaf). A good example of what you can't do with Evernote: have a series of Projects, each with a 'refs' section. Yes, you could have 'ProjectX' and 'refs' tags, but then to assign something to ProjectA's refs, you have to tag twice. You don't have to go far along this road before realising how quickly such a system becomes too error-prone and cumbersome to be viable for *organising* (a different problem from *searching*).

I feel some impatience with both sides of this debatelet. Dave's answers sometimes seem uncharacteristically evasive (as if he's telling people that Evernote's facilities are adequate to their needs, when are plainly saying they're not); and the subnotebook proponents seem intent on thcweaming and thcweaming and thcweaming until they get what they want (when the EN guys are plainly entitled to take their app in any direction they please).

[Daly de Gagne 5]

I see the sub-notebook discussion is going on the same way it was several months ago when I last looked in on Evernote forum.

I now use Surfulater, www.surfulater.com. It has notebooks, and tags, and a growing capability to handle metadata.

It also manages to clip web pages with even greater accuracy than EN.

And the developer replies to queries from users.

From what I see the sub-notebook discussion is being ignored by EN.

For saving to the web when that is actually important in my work I use Microsoft's new, free program Thumbtack.

If you all want to continue using EN, and want sub-notebooks, then express yourselves in forums outside of EN, such as www.outlinersoftware.com

Daly

[Anton R 0]

Hi,

I'm missing the possibility to easily create subfolders with a deeper hierachie.

The more content you store in everynote the more unhandy it get's if you can't create a Folder within a Folder.

Anton

[kimaldis 1]

16 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Evernote has taken the organization hierarchy seriously - this was implemented long ago with the Tag feature

HIerarchical tags are poorly implimented, half baked.

[Tazzz 21]

12 hours ago, DTLow said:

Evernote has no support for folders; we only get the notebook/tag metadata fields

We can emulate folders using the notebook/tag trees

Except notebooks are folders.

[bensik 0]

is there any chance that Evernote notebooks will be nested in future?

[vnavone 2]

subfolders, please!  I like a visual hierarchy and i don't use tags much. 

[cswsteve 85]

The tagging is great for some users but I think the majority of users would understand and prefer subnotebooks. I think you need to look more at your future customers as EN grows and ask which method they will understand more.

In fact, I say leave the tagging feature exactly as you have it now and add the ability to create subnotebooks. Then you would cover ALL users in the future with the best of both.

[aaaron33 5]

I would "Go Premium" if Evernote had subnotebooks. Evernote would be a killer product. I can't seem to orient my mind around hierarchical tags.

[missdipsy 2]

Big mistake, IMHO. Tags are for taxonomy, not organization. Organization with tags resembles spaghetti. Folders are absolute and cleaner.

Anyway, I'm another "I'd go premium, if EN had folders" vote. I'm ready to throw money at you guys if you fix this usability issue.

I don't really understand this "tags are for taxonomy, not organisation" argument. What's the point of taxonomy if not for organisation?! Why on earth would you spend time categorising data if it weren't for the purpose of organising it? It only takes a very subtle shift in thinking to use tags in virtually the same way one might use sub-notebooks or folders. And tags offer many advantages such as being able to add multiple tags to an item, to search for a specific combination of tags, more finely-grained categorisation etc. I agree that the current functionality of tags could be improved, especially in the way that the hierarchy works (to be more like Evernote 2 was, with the ability to treat nested tags as a group and therefore select them all by selecting the "parent").

The only really valid argument I can see here for sub-notebooks is that notebooks behave in a slightly different way to tags; if you are "in" a particular notebook, you stay in that notebook, so any new notes are added to that notebook and any tag you click on will only bring up items in that notebook. Perhaps a more fruitful line of attack for getting the functionality you want would be to focus on getting tags to work more like subnotebooks. So perhaps have a way of being able to select one or more tags and have them automatically applied to any notes that are created while those tags are selected.

A bit if creativity in how you use tags can help overcome the "messiness" that some people associate with them; I use a kind of syntax to organise my tags, so all of my main "projects" (i'm talking "uber projects" here rather than GTD style projects) are prefixed by an "*", and all of my "action" tags are prefixed by an "!" (e.g. "*househunting", "*family", "!read/review" etc). This sorts the tag list in a logical order & reduces mistakes in forgetting tags (if I know I need to add an "action" tag I just type "!" and autocomplete brings up a list of all of these tags - very easy!). All tags without a prefix are more general categorisations of the topic of the note (e.g. "food", "psychology", "money", "law", "advice" etc.). I think the asterisked tags serve a similar function to your subnotebooks, but allow me a great deal more flexibility by being able to assign things to more than one project (the lack of an ability to do this is one thing that I've found very frustrating in some other tools). I actually use notebooks very little as I find them too restrictive - surely there are some things that could go in more than one notebook? With tags there's no need to make a decision between two categories, as they can go in both! I tried to use my notebooks only for very discrete projects with absolutely no overlap with other projects, but I kept finding things that could go in more than one of them, consequently I only have one separate project notebook now and I'll probably get rid of that soon! Apart from this I just have one main notebook, one public notebook, and one for "my thoughts" (which is where I put random ideas that pop into my head, to avoid cluttering up my main notebook with these things). My system also simulates some of the other features that people ask for in notebooks, like being able to associate certain tags with only one notebook - I simply put these tags in the hierarchy under the relevant project tag, so they're all grouped together and easy to find.

@mwg147 - your beer tasting notes shouldn't "pop up by accident" if you're using the current notebook feature to separate personal notes from work notes. If you select your "work" notebook, only notes in that notebook will pop up.

[dkwright 2]

Tree structure for notebooks, please.

This really is a significant feature. The metaphor of a notebook is a necessary metaphor: One place to hold everything that the user wants to "bind" into one place, one conceptual bin, ordered chronologically.

Tags are a different concept: cross-references between things that the user does not necessarily want to put into one bin--tags label things that may not have chronological or immediate conceptual unity for the user, but which have some referential relationship.

The restrictions of the UI make a flat notebook hierarchy unwieldy. At about 20 notebooks, things start to get messy. Subnotebooks of arbitrary depth let the user use notebooks to bind things together as needed, in a clean, easily manipulated way. Tags let the user cut across the tree notebook structure to mark inter-relationships and retrieval possibilities that a notebook tree structure alone does not allow.

These are two different approaches to data, both with their strengths and weakness. Both are useful. Right now, you are severely diminishing the usefulness of the notebook approach by not allowing a notebook hierarchy.

Even if you are not persuaded of this way of viewing tags vs. notebooks, please still consider putting notebooks in a tree structure just because users are asking for it.

I'm also in the "give me tree structure for notebooks, and I'll go premium" camp.

[smartins 1]

Hierarchical notebooks are not in the next release of any of our clients. However, if you want to make hierarchical ontologies to organize your notes, you can do that in all of our clients today by using tags.

Big mistake, IMHO. Tags are for taxonomy, not organization. Organization with tags resembles spaghetti. Folders are absolute and cleaner.

Anyway, I'm another "I'd go premium, if EN had folders" vote. I'm ready to throw money at you guys if you fix this usability issue.

+1 for folders. I'm used to EN2. Why on earth do I have to learn a new "concept" (and yes, importing my notes from EN2 into EN3 does look like spaghetti - don't get me wrong, I love all kinds of pasta but only when I can eat them).

[wolfdogg 2]

Tags suck. I came here, hoping to find a setup issue I had with subfolders not being displayed. Disappointed to see so many requests and not one glimmer of hope in creating subfolders. Please listen to your audience. Everyone wants subfolders. Not one person anywhere here is arguing for tags. Seems a pretty clearcut distinction for what your users want.

[Ltn 0]

Thx for the quick answer !

I read lot of post on the subject, but I think it's the first I see from the dev team.

I apreciate.

Ok, so it's best if I don't count on it soon.

Thx again for the answer

Ltn

PS :Speaking for myself :

I can't imagine using a notes repository applications that doesn't implement some kind of sub folder and a tag system.

Evernote has everything I need except "subnotebooking"

Judging by the number of posts on this suject I'm not the only one waiting for this feature.

IMHO, you should think seriously about developing this feature (even if it dificult to implement in the actual code).

Especially since this is a no intrusive feature (people that doesn't need/like sub-notebook don't have to use them)

You will make a lot of people happy and really thinking about switching to Evernote (like myself)

Appart for this -imo surprissing- miss, Evernote is really a amazing piece of work. Congratulation !

[jefito 5,589]

Thanks guys for your answers !

@jefito : unfortunatly tags are not the solution, because I feel the need to deploy trees, sub-trees etc. Let's imagine I want to create a 2nd sub-level by cheating and using tags, all these tags will be bulk (is this the right expression in english?) and not connected to any stack/notebook. I could have a thousand tags bulk, lol ! Impossible... Anyway, thank you for this idea.

As I say, sub-whatevers are not the solution in Evernote, since they don't exist.. You actually may be able to organize your data using tags, but if you're uncomfortable/unfamiliar with the idea, then Evernote is probably not for you.

I absolutely HATE when developpers are blinds, depth and bounded. "I don't see the utility, so I won't implement it" = bye bye !

The entire computing is slowed and filled by this kind of mentality.

What is the use of Evernote for me? Nothing.

Why? Just because of a miserable consideration of sub-level.

Evernote makes a fine hammer. If you are looking for a screwdriver, then blaming Evernote for not being a screwdriver is just silly.

[jefito 5,589]

6 hours ago, raphaelaguiar said:

Only when I first saw Notion I really understood how amazing this feature would be!

Please stop spamming the forums with links to other products. If you have something to say about the topic, then say it. Otherwise...

[kingtrn 4]

6 hours ago, DTLow said:

No, I'm the guy pointing out that you're in the oranges section; you should be shopping in the apples section 

1

That's not even close to the situation. If you want to use the fruit section metaphor, so here is the correct one:

E is a supermarket near my house, I enjoy shopping here very often, and shopping a lot, so I register a membership card (with customer benefits). I like to eat apples but this supermarket doesn't sell them, so I have to go to another market to buy apples. Clearly, it's not convenient for me. It turns out that the E supermarket has an apartment to collect customer feedback. I'm on my way to write them a suggestion about considering to sell apples. Then there are some guys, who are buying oranges, comes and insists me that oranges' taste is so good, they have a lot of nutrition, why don't I eat oranges? why do I even suggest the supermarket to sell apples???

p/s: and I don't really care about the nutrition, I just simply enjoy the taste of an apple. 

[synapticsage 0]

Seriously, why is this not a feature yet? There's a reason computer file systems have settled on allowing stacked organization. We needed our file systems to match the shape of the information we planned to store. Then as now, the shape of information in our environment/workplace is nested. It's hierarchical and nested. Evernote will be at best an unsharpened blade until it has this feature.

[DTLow 5,736]

10 hours ago, Shellah said:

helpful

I'm not interested in boohoo posts; but perhaps we can learn from @Shellah and @Flier about being helpful

To indicate your support for this feature request, use the voting buttons in the top left corner of the discussion.

If you're interested in how Evernote can work for you, participate in the discussions.

[DTLow 5,736]

16 minutes ago, EnricoNahler said:

... horrible to use. Evernote has always been the the pioneer of shifting the paradigm of nesting sub-folders into sub-folders .

I agree, and am happy to have abandoned the folder paradigm,.
I use the tag hierarchy not as a tool to organize notes; it's a tool to organize the tags themselves.
With the new 1,000 limit on Notebooks, such a tool might be useful. 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

18 hours ago, OVPdev said:

I believe there are two categories of people: those who work on projects using Evernote, and those who don't.
And the last ones sincerely don't understand why is the feature they don't need is needed for anybody.
in my opinion, http://theguide.sourceforge.net/ had the best hierarchical structure view and the user experience for working on projects.

Well-said, and an excellent example.

I also believe it has something to do with how a person thinks.  Those that don't see the value in a hierarchical organization will likely never be convinced that there is a true need for some use cases.

[Flier 19]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Welcome to the discussion.

There is a request posted at the top of the discussions; you can indicate your support using the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

I question your estimate of "simple to implement".  This would require a major overhaul of the database structure, and the UI of each app.

It's not clear as to your "need".  Evernote supplies user with an infinite hierarchy via the Tag feature.

@TonyMontanaSlot, it is important that you understand that @DTLow must approve your need or it does not exist.  He is the self-appointed guardian of Truth and Light.  His position is that if a use case can be met by workarounds using tags, no matter how complicated and baroque, then the problem is with the user and not with Evernote.

I've been watching this thread for years, waiting for the announcement that Evernote has finally grasped the obvious.  No luck so far.

[s2sailor 2,185]

26 minutes ago, Flier said:

His position is that if a use case can be met by workarounds using tags, no matter how complicated and baroque, then the problem is with the user and not with Evernote.

The response was unsympathetically blunt but was accurate.  It would be non-trivial to implement and at least in the last 10 years I've been watching, Evernote has not shown any interest in implementing this.  Certainly go ahead and vote to show your interest but I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.  FWIW, if implemented I would use them too but I've long since stopped hoping it would come and have gotten along with what they provide.

[Shellah 9]

3 hours ago, TonyMontanaSlot said:

Every note can be tagged with many tags but only can belong to one notebook, so it's a more solid structure already. Of course, you might say that it's my problem that I won't stick to just 1 tag per note. But it's kinda limiting. Maybe I want to tag a note with "Summer", "Love" and "Sad" tags but at the same time I want it to be exactly in this Hobbies -> Art -> Music -> Songwriting -> My solo stuff -> Second album hierarchy. Of course, you can always find a thousand of counter-arguments to that, like "you can do basically the same with tags, blah blah blah", but no, it's not the same, even if you can achieve similar results with tags.

I'd say just give it a shot and give your users a little bit more freedom.

...

EDIT: Yeah, maybe convert those stacks to notebooks so that even the root object would be able to hold the notes in it. As well as notebooks. Basically what I'm suggesting is a folder-file approach, just like in Windows Explorer. We all know that notebooks in real life don't hold "sub-notebooks" in them but maybe make a poll and see if users would like this approach and you could get away with this concept. I'm not gonna suggest renaming notebooks to folders and files altogether as that will obviously make the brand name "Evernote" irrelevant

TonyMontanaSlot, I am agreeing loudly.  I follow this thread only because a while back (a year or more) an Evernote employee said something to the effect that the nested notebooks feature was being considered and was perhaps even coming.  In spite of repeated attempt, I find I cannot use Evernote efficiently and effectively without it.  (And I am specifically requesting DTLow not to respond to this message.)

[JoelArt 5]

On 8/18/2008 at 12:37 AM, engberg said:

We don't have sub-notebooks, but you can organize tags into a hierarchy. This may allow you to set up the organizational scheme you're looking for.

Last I checked this doesn't work on iPhones. So this is a non valid solution.

Also, there is no reason not to support both hierarchical folders and tags. Folder hierarchies give a better overview and it's easier to group them under a common subject and them split them into sub categories, It's way easier for me to find my way to an old note I didn't even know exists in this way. It's also way quicker to just put a note in a correct folder than it is to try and remember which tags I used on some earlier notes a while back in an attempt to group them together.

The fact that this and (other features) has been requested over and over gain since 2008 is so FRUSTRATING, Evernote ignores so many simple to implement requests like "Different Colors for Highlighter", "Control Which Image Shown in a Note's Thumbnail/Snippet View" and "Password Protected Notebooks". Either completely say no to them and give a believable and thorough explanation why not or just implement it. I can tell you if a another worthy note taking program showed up I'd switch in a heart beat just to spite you for not listening to your userbase requests.

[bpang33 1]

Someone in this thread mentioned Nimbus Note, which does exactly what we're all asking for here. I gave it a try last weekend, and have not looked back since. 

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

19 hours ago, bpang33 said:

Someone in this thread mentioned Nimbus Note, which does exactly what we're all asking for here. I gave it a try last weekend, and have not looked back since. 

Well, at least once...

[x9sim9 7]

On 2/4/2019 at 5:32 AM, bpang33 said:

Someone in this thread mentioned Nimbus Note, which does exactly what we're all asking for here. I gave it a try last weekend, and have not looked back since. 

 

 

this is exactly what I have been waiting for... an evernote clone that actually listens to user feedback... finally I can leave this crappy company behind :-)

[Shellah 9]

On 2/3/2019 at 4:32 PM, bpang33 said:

Someone in this thread mentioned Nimbus Note, which does exactly what we're all asking for here. I gave it a try last weekend, and have not looked back since. 

 

 

I too took a peek at Nimbus when it was first mentioned here.  Your recent comment, @bpang33 prompted me to look again.  I checked out some YouTube vids on it, explored the website, https://nimbusweb.me, downloaded the application and installed the browser extension.  Infinite nested folders from what I can see..  I'm sold.  I'm relieved.  I'm leaving this Evernote thread now.  No need to turn blue holding my breath, waiting for Evernote to respond to this request.  Thanks, @bpang33.  : )

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

3 hours ago, JD Santos said:

Googling for this question brought me here and I've had a very entertaining half hour reading through the waging holy wars on both sides.

Yep, it is truly amazing that after 10+ YEARS, 1,267 posts, and 302 votes, that Evernote has still declined to provide this feature.

It is also clear that this feature appeals to a wide variety of users with wide variety of use cases as evidenced by the many posts.  While you have had many different people asking for this feature, it is curious that the same small group (~5) feel compelled to keep repeating the same old reasons why users should just accept Evernote as it is.

[Vitor Arantes 1]

It would be awesome to have a stack in a stack. This was the main reason I've migrated briefly to Microsoft Onenote, but it also has limitations that bother me, like only insert excel file embedded, not as a shortcut, making difficult to work in spreadsheets that have multiple charts.

I hope evernote developers include this feature soon.

[jefito 5,589]

<<merging thread to mother feature request>>

Go ahead and add your votes to the request.

[saco-psc 0]

OMG,

now i resubscribed and forgot about the reason to go away, only the missing nesting notebooks.

I hope they cancel my subscription, it's useless without this very basic but missing feature

[gazumped 11,652]

On 4/25/2019 at 11:57 AM, saco-psc said:

I hope they cancel my subscription, it's useless without this very basic but missing feature

Evernote won't cancel your subscription unless you ask them very nicely to do so.  We're a -mainly- user-supported Forum so questions like that are well outside our remit.  See below for more on this...

 

[mastix 2]

Why is it so difficult to implement this feature when so many people ask for it. 2 levels is just NOT enough. When people are jumping to alternative organizing option I think it always comes because two main reasons. No option to nest beyond 2 levels and a poor visual implementation. it is 2019, people want a more visual approach than before. 

[IainBev 3]

Companies who don't listen to their users [ or worse... lecture them! ] are unlikely to do well. 

I use one more step with email and it works well for me - finding anything is easy. You can order by date. Outlook lets us search any search string for any directory tree [your Zip Code example].

I learned a long time ago that if you give the  same task/objective to different talented people thy often approach it differently. Even their use of software and tool preference is likely different. There is no right way, and rarely an 'only way'. Flexibility empowers people.

So many of your users have explained this, endlessly. Clearly you are not listening. 

You should be enabling users, not lecturing them.

Your approach however is to say … actually, doing that our side is hard - so you all adapt your working habits to us. 

Poorly done Pink Elephant. 

[IainBev 3]

I originally posted on this thread to support additional levels of note sorting [not using tags]. One additional level would be great - two would be fantastic. I like Evernote and have used it for years but have always found this restrictive. I had hoped that over those years Evernote might have effected this change [for people who don't use tags] but the repeated mantra of 'use tags to do it'  is, as may on here have commented, becoming somewhat tiresome. I do not wish to tag - I have years of notes that are not tagged - and the way I have ALWAYS worked is to drop something into the relevant 'directory'. It is a shame that even if it did require a major rework Evernote have not sorted this. Quite a number of users seem to feel the same way. The general consensus of the thread seems to be  'Use tags or use a different program better suited to you'. Thanks for that.

   

[Alias Rick 0]

Every year or two, I get all excited about the possibilities of using Evernote to record and organise my life, then I remember why I abandoned it the last time - it's so difficult to organise things.

Yes, there are tag-related workarounds, but why can't I do what I've been doing on my mac for the last 25 years - put folders within folders (or 'Notebooks' if you insist)?

By FAR the simplest and most intuitive method IMHO. 

Come on Evernote - people have been asking for this for YEARS!

[gazumped 11,652]

32 minutes ago, Ivanhoe115 said:

Hi Engberg!
Tags are great, but the are bit different:

1. Notebooks/folders are much more familiar for all the desktop computer users, because we all know folders and subfolders well. So multilevel notebooks hierarchy is kind of "essential" notes organazing.

2. If I am within a notebook, creating a new note will assign it to this notebook with no any extra actions. With tags, I shoud not forget to assign tag to the note to find it later.

P.S. BTW, is there an option to find "all notes without any tags" or "all notes without a specific tag"? This is to find such "forgotten notes" from (2)

Hi. 

1. You're referencing a 10-year old post and @engberg doesn't work for Evernote any more.
2. This is a 15-page thread and AFAIK all your arguments have been mentioned and debated before.
3. Hierarchy is not 'essential' to note taking - Evernote has 250M users without providing anything yet.
4. Most series of notes can be linked by title or content - look for reference numbers / zip codes / company names etc
5. Where you do use tags it's possible to set up a template containing tags or keywords and duplicate that for each new entry.
6. Search for all notes without tags is "-tag:*" (without the quotes)

See Tips for organizing notes, notebooks, and tags for more...

[srideou 0]

The two main reasons why I am currently looking to replace EV with another solution are:
1. Their refusal to take on this very popular and very longstanding sub-stacks request—or at least admit that they can't do so (if that's the case) rather than try to pretend it isn't a desirable feature.
2. Their automatic, irreversible and non-refundable subscription renewals, which may be legal but which nevertheless create a sketchy and exploitative vibe. It's not that I would have said "no" so far if they'd asked me to renew—it's just that I would have liked to have been asked.

[x9sim9 7]

27 minutes ago, Avi Lambert said:

Hi Engberg, thanks for your feedback. But again, the use-case I am looking for simply does not work for tags.

Tags are not Notebooks.

Notebooks work much better for my use case, specifically because of the actions that can be used within Evernote with notebooks. More to the point, you can't share an item, idea, picture, our audio to a tag, in the same way you can to a notebook. Also, in terms of organization tags are messy, while notebooks are clean, in my view. It is for that reason that I do not find the tag workflow as worthwhile as the notebook workflow. And, from the negative votes on your post, and the length of the comment thread on this post, it would be smart for Evernote to look to implement this in the feature roadmap. 

I still feel bad that people come to this post expecting things to change, they won't but there is a solution mov to something that works for you. For me I moved to Nimbus Note and exported all my existing notes over to their app. I ended up using them because they publish all their development for every user to see, and you can contact them directly and contribute towards their future development. Are they as big as Evernote, no. And their app is a little rough around the edges but they support both unlimited notebook levels and tags, so win-win for me. I hope this helps other people who come here looking for answers because you won't get anything useful posting here, this post is almost 10 years old... 

[jefito 5,589]

51 minutes ago, Avi Lambert said:

Hi Engberg, thanks for your feedback. But again, the use-case I am looking for simply does not work for tags.

You can reply to him all you want (and it's better if you learn to use the forum quoting system if you do reply to someone), but he''s not been around here for a long time (note the date on his post).

51 minutes ago, Avi Lambert said:

Tags are not Notebooks.

Sure. This is pretty well-known. Notebooks "contain", in that a note belongs to exactly one notebook at a time. Tags "label", in that a note may have multiple tags. In Evernote, notebooks are required for sharing a group of notes with someone else, or for designating local notebooks on a desktop computer, or offline notebooks on mobile platforms. You can't do that with tags.

Flip side, notebooks are also usable for partitioning your note set into discrete collections., but you can do that with tags, and moreover, you can organize those tags in a hierarchical fashion, which you cannot do with notebooks. Also because you can apply multiple tags to a note, a note can be categorized into several different categories, which is very useful, and no, you cannot do that with notebooks.

1 hour ago, Avi Lambert said:

More to the point, you can't share an item, idea, picture, our audio to a tag, in the same way you can to a notebook.

But you can certainly share individual notes.

1 hour ago, Avi Lambert said:

Also, in terms of organization tags are messy, while notebooks are clean, in my view.  It is for that reason that I do not find the tag workflow as worthwhile as the notebook workflow. 

Please define "messy" vs. "clean". And what are the tag and notebook "workflows"? Tags and notebooks are organizational tools; a workflow is a procedure for processing information.

35 minutes ago, x9sim9 said:

And, from the negative votes on your post, and the length of the comment thread on this post, it would be smart for Evernote to look to implement this in the feature roadmap. 

No question that this is long requested. Somehow Evernote has weathered the demand over the 10 years or so since the original request, and grown to over 200 million users.Should they add it? Probably. Is it necessary? Not for me to say (I wouldn't use it, but that's just me). It could happen in the future, but if you're basing your decision on whether to use Evernote on whether nested notebooks are implemented or not, I'd say at this point don't hold your breath.

[DTLow 5,736]

12 hours ago, Sarabeara said:

Is there any way we can get this prioritised??

There is a vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

>>Adding my vote. Being able to stack stacks is integral.

This request is for nested notebooks.  Perhaps submit a new request

<<I currently have a situation where I want to archive my stacks into one stack and start fresh ... the hierarchy that I have is important...

I prefix archived stacks/notebook names with an x
It moves the entry to the bottom of the list

[x9sim9 7]

On 11/26/2019 at 3:27 AM, Sarabeara said:

Adding my vote. Being able to stack stacks is integral.

I currently have a situation where I want to archive my stacks into one stack and start fresh..   but that's not possible.. and no I don't want to move all the notebooks inside into one stack, the hierarchy that I have is important...

Is there any way we can get this prioritised??

This is never going to change if you need this feature like I do, use Nimbus Note instead and import your evernote docs to that instead. This is never going to be implemented so its important people arriving at this thread are made aware of this.

[DTLow 5,736]

36 minutes ago, kimaldis said:

HIerarchical tags are poorly implimented, half baked.

Please add more detail
Issues I have
- Notebook hierarchy is 1 level (poorly implemented, half baked)
- Unable to access tag hierarchy on my iPad
  I understand this will be resolved shortly

Screenshot is from my Mac showing the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar

[Andrea Johnson 1]

I used to use EverNote for everything, using single-level notebooks and lots of tags. When they added the ability to stack notebooks, I was happy for awhile, but it really wasn't enough. I recently started using Bublup, which lets me nest folders as many levels deep as I want. This makes it very easy for me to organize things in whatever way works for those things. Any given folder can hold any kind of data: links, notes, images, files, even more folders. The only thing Bublup doesn't do is tags. But I've discovered that for almost everything I'm doing right now, I don't need tags, because I can set up multiply-nested folders.

So the only thing that I consistently still use EverNote for is collecting recipes and other food-related info. Everything goes into one folder, and I tag the heck out of it: meal category, ingredients, special equipment, tips, etc. I've found that tags work better for the recipe collection than multiple folders, because there's a lot of overlap. To get the same effect with folders, I'd wind up putting a copy of any given recipe into each of a bunch of folders. For example, a muffin recipe might be sweet or savory, it will have ingredients that I always have on hand (so I won't tag those unless it requires an unusual amount of something), but it also has ingredients that I don't always have on hand. Describing that recipe for search purposes is easier with tags; instead of putting it in a folder (Muffins/Sweet/Pumpkin/Sour Cream/Freezable), I can just tag it with all those characteristics. Then, when I have several cans of pumpkin puree and feel like making muffins that I can then freeze, I just search for the tags muffins + pumpkin + freezable, and I'm good to go.

Tags work really well for my recipe collection, but for everything else I'm doing, nested folders are so much easier to organize. If we could do multiple layers of nested folders (matryoshka folders, anyone?), then I'd probably go back to using EverNote for everything. I might even divvy up the recipe collection into folders, in addition to using tags.

[krestor2 7]

Add my voice to wanting nesting notebooks. I'm already drowning in tags. And I need to see the visual org of a particular project. 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

6 hours ago, CodyB1 said:

Yes, it's possible to use multiple tags/subtags and sub-subtags, but that is really only supported on the desktop version on not on the mobile version.

Hierarchical tags are NOT supported on the iOS platform, a very popular platform for Evernote.

Even if they were, using hierarchical tags, in lieu of true folder-like hierarchical Notebooks, is a poor second to a real NB solution.  I know because I have been using Tags in EN Mac as pseudo Notebooks for several years now.  There are two main issues with this technique:

1. Tags must be unique, so you can't have two child tags with the same name.
2. In EN Mac and EN iOS, there is no way to apply a Parent Tab to tag filters or tag search, and have it automatically include all of its child tags.

@Ian Small. So we really do need true, OS folder-like, hierarchical Notebooks.  There is no good workaround today.  As you design the new foundation for Evernote, please consider this.

[Ian Small 215]

On 3/7/2020 at 2:23 PM, JMichaelTX said:

I am NOT hijacking the discussion.  The topic title, "Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks" and "fully hierarchical Notebooks that work like OS folders" seem the same to me.

1) I would be legitimately interested in understanding what others think the difference between these two things are.  To me (admittedly, not having read the entirety of this 11-year-long forum discussion because I think the general drift is right there in the discussion thread title), they seem at first blush to be the same.  Note:  I think this is a question solely about notebooks, not about tags.

2) When we get on the other side of this huge lift we are in the middle of, I look forward to moving on to dealing with issues like putting this 11-year-long forum discussion to bed.  Not next week, not next month, but certainly not taking another 11 years to get there...  That's the kind of thing we're trying to free ourselves up to do - provide functionality improvements that are made impossible by the knots our current infrastructure and app layer has us tied up in.  But right now it's one thing at a time, and this first thing we're tackling is proving to be a difficult beast to tame.  Apparently, there's something to that thing they used to say on the Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Show:  "Watch that first step... it's a big one."

Back to lurking
ian

[gazumped 11,652]

7 hours ago, Ian Small said:

1) I would be legitimately interested in understanding what others think the difference between these two things are.  To me (admittedly, not having read the entirety of this 11-year-long forum discussion because I think the general drift is right there in the discussion thread title), they seem at first blush to be the same.  Note:  I think this is a question solely about notebooks, not about tags.

My humble(ish) opinion - it's a  mind-set difference,  not a real-world issue. 

Everyone is used to Folders (Notebooks),  because that's the way classic computing works. You have pigeon holes for apps and documents,  pictures and music,  because that splits your otherwise random pile of thousands of operating files into smaller portions. The list of possible hits is reduced to human-manageable lengths by segregation. Users extended this to manage files into work vs personal / insurance vs recipes and so on. 

Practical problems arise though when you get to some level of specialization - do you file that business meal receipt in your expenses folder,  or the tax folder,  or the Acme Industries (that's who you ate with) folder... and how about the next meal and the next one - do all the receipts wind up in the same place,  or did you file one in each option because you forgot what you did last time?  Then you use a search to track them all down.

Then there are tags.  Everything is in that one incomprehensible pile.  I have 49.3K notes and until recently (more on that in a moment*) they were mostly all in one notebook and identification was done by tags.  (Actually I use title words as tags so I can search intitle:<keyword>,  but it's the same thing really - I find that more convenient than tagging.) 

My three receipts would all have <Acme>, <receipt> and <food> tags,  but would otherwise be floating around in my default notebook along with thousands of other receipts and other tagged items.  Finding my notes requires a search first.

I think most long-term Evernote users took a while to get used to the lack of folders.  I know I tried to start using the service several different times over a couple of years before I 'got' it and piled on board.  Then I tried several different tagging schemes and forgot lots of tags - at one stage I had <banks> <bankers> <banking> options (don't ask) until I gave up on tags per se.

*Most of us 'old noters' have adapted things so Evernote fits into our activities in the way we feel most comfortable.  My system now involves a notebook for each contact point - suppliers / friends / projects - they all get a notebook to themselves so my 50K pile of notes is split into a smaller chunk of a few hundred.  This is mainly for search efficiency - I don't have to add that one term to my searches - all my notes related to Acme are in one spot,  regardless of what they contain.  I add tags to show <receipt> etc so I can winnow the 300-note pile down as necessary - but at least Search doesn't have to find 300 notes out of 50,000 to start with.

So:  TL:DR - Nestable Folders are familiar, tags requires a system.  Big advantage of Evernote - it's adaptable to pretty much any system: except for nestable folders...  I wouldn't use them now,  but lots of people would,  because they understand that process and don't need to develop new systems to use their data.

[Flier 19]

Ian, I am very happy to hear that this shortcoming of EN will be dealt with.  I have been monitoring this thread for literally years because a folder hierarchy is critical to my using it as a mainstream app.   I am just not interested in the tag workarounds repeatedly proposed by the fanboys.  As far a a use case, here is one of mine:

I travel quite a bit.  Root folder would be <travel> with multiple children <trip>.  Each <trip> would have children like <accommodations>, <flight info>, <itineraries>, <expense receipts>, etc.

Right now my use of EN is limited.  Essentially it is a junk box full of notes that do not have logical homes plus notes that are sort of one-off reminders for things I want to go back to.  An example s a folder <interesting restaurants> that contains mostly web pages.  That kind of use would probably not change as the trees are shallow.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

17 hours ago, Ian Small said:

1) I would be legitimately interested in understanding what others think the difference between these two things are.  To me (admittedly, not having read the entirety of this 11-year-long forum discussion because I think the general drift is right there in the discussion thread title), they seem at first blush to be the same.  Note:  I think this is a question solely about notebooks, not about tags.

Hey Ian, thanks for taking an interest in this topic, and for jumping in.  We all really appreciate the attention you are paying to a sound restructuring of Evernote.

Obviously I don't see a difference, since I made that statement.  😎

I have three succinct points about having Evernote "fully hierarchical Notebooks that work like OS folders":

1. This would be very intuitive for just about all users, since all of us have used either the Mac or Windows OS, and know how OS folders work.
2. They are essential for modeling real-world objects, like Projects, that are inherently hierarchical.
3. Their use with tags is very, very powerful,  allowing us to file Notes in an organized structure, while still allowing cross-cutting categories, easily overcoming the "where to file" issues several users have raised.  If you'd like some detailed examples of this please let me know.

Finally, if you do provide fully hierarchical Notebooks, I don't see a need to change how tags work in Evernote.

[CalS 5,280]

33 minutes ago, JMichaelTX said:

Finally, if you do provide fully hierarchical Notebooks, I don't see a need to change how tags work in Evernote.

Amen.

[gustavo_luiss 0]

I need folders to organize my notebook's this is a bullshit use only tags when we can have both.

[Bittersweet Colorado 0]

Clearly reasons don't matter after 10+ years, so I won't even bother.  This would be a great feature to have.  I find it difficult to believe customers would be turned off to EN if such a feature was implemented, yet many of us fight this lack of function all the time.  I will keep looking for a replacement.  Being a software developer, I find it hard to believe there is a technical reason to not implement this,  hence my reason not to even bother with reasons.  EN has to want to ....

Please implement more nesting in the stacks.  Thank you!

[Frederico Pereira 1]

Hi there probably this is an duplicated request

But here it goes.

The only feature that i really miss, and for that reason i use other tools for other type of tools is the lack of more sub folders.

I know the tags are very important but some times i just like to have everything tidy.

And more sub levels of notes its very important.

At this point evernote allows us to have 2 levels "Notebooks"->2 and ->3

But there is much need for more levels for instance.

Notebooks

                 2 -> Bills

                                  3- House Bills

                                                          4-> Whater Bills

                                                          5 -> Energy bills

                                                          6 -> Internet Bills

                                                          7 -> Phone Bills

So i can have this organization, i have to remove the sub folder to have all the bills folder under the Bills

But If i have Car Bills?, and place them under the "bills" will be in the middle of the House bills.

It will be Like this

        Notebooks

                         2->Bills

                                                         4-> Whater Bills

                                                          5 -> Energy bills

                                                          6 -> Internet Bills

                                                          7 -> Phone Bills

                                                          8-> Mechanic Bills

                                                          9 -> GAS Bill

                                                          10 -> TAX Bills

                                                          11 -> EZPASS Bill

Would be better organized if i could have another subfolder under "Bills" so i can have house bills, car bills, school bills etc.

Like this i have other examples. This is just one:)

The software is incredible and this is the only feature i feel that is missing (for me of course)

                                         

 

 

 

[FigueiredoLuis 2]

Unfortunately we can only have 3 levels of organization:

"Pile of notebooks > notebooks > notes"

This is a big problem for me. Thats the specific point i cant use evernote for everything. I cant understand why we cant have the option to create more levels

[kimaldis 1]

This has turned into a never ending cycle of "we want this thing", "you can't do that thing but you can do this thing", "No, that's not the same thing at all, I want the thing done properly", " no, you can't do that but you can do this", "face palm"

 

It's just insane that so many people have asked for a decent hierarchy in Evernote, only to be told that they don't really when actually, they do and it's not an ureasonable thing to ask. So I[m going to cut myself off from this discussion before the sheer stupidity of it explodes my head.

 

Byby.

 

[mpmahone 0]

5 hours ago, kimaldis said:

This has turned into a never ending cycle of "we want this thing", "you can't do that thing but you can do this thing", "No, that's not the same thing at all, I want the thing done properly", " no, you can't do that but you can do this", "face palm"

 

It's just insane that so many people have asked for a decent hierarchy in Evernote, only to be told that they don't really when actually, they do and it's not an ureasonable thing to ask. So I[m going to cut myself off from this discussion before the sheer stupidity of it explodes my head.

 

Byby.

 

100% this. We know what we need and we know what we're asking for. It's possible. Very unclear why Evernote won't deliver.

[kimaldis 1]

19 minutes ago, DTLow said:

And others will continue to assist users with their inquiries

By answering qeustions that have been asked and ansered dozens and dozens of times. It's a waste of time and it's poor forum etiquette. Most forums you wouldn't get away with it.

[x9sim9 7]

5 hours ago, Tazzz said:

Multiple notebooks need to happen as soon as possible.

Folders aka notebooks/stacks is the logical hierachical system that everybody knows and uses, no matter what OS or app they are using. I don't care how they are defined in the backend by developers, if they are "truly" folders or not. Nobody cares. If you get a new Evernote user and ask him to create a hierachical tree, he will do it like this. 99+ out of 100 people will do it like this, and see them as folders.

Tags are great, but not for this purpose. Trying to reinvent the internet in a dumber way and with no real benefit whatsoever is a fool's gambit. You only get user frustration, time waste and a poor user experience & usability.

PS - Humble oppinion of a UI/UX designer with about 15 years of experience under his belt.

 

The problem with Evernote as a company has always been the "you are just wrong" we dont care. Many, many, many people have wasted so much time trying to get Evernote to listen, but the harsh reality is they simply dont care about user feedback. Take it from someone who has been active on the en boards for almost 10 years, if you need this feature look at migrating your notes to another company like Nimbus Note, as this feature will NEVER be implemented EVER!

[Tazzz 21]

On 12/12/2020 at 6:34 PM, gazumped said:

Hierarchical folders aren't the invention of the internet - they're a reflection of how paper files were assembled in the days when offices had filing cabinets and shelving instead of terminals,  which in themselves were an interpretation of the really old days of pigeon holes and rolled parchments.  It's not a 'given' that things should be designed on that format,  but it was a design decision taken by Evernote in the early days

 

In the real world people have a hard time switching from iphone to android, windows to iOS etc., because of a few different buttons/options. You're trying to argue that changing hierarchical folders, which are used by everybody on all kind of terminals since the beggining of computers, is not a big deal for one particular app that is suppose to help you organize. Yeah, nothing in design is a 'given', but if you care about result, everything is.

 

On 12/12/2020 at 6:39 PM, DTLow said:

Wrong; Folders are a different filing method than the notebook/tag methodology used by Evernote
Users can emulate folder hierarchy by using the notebook/tag trees

No, you're wrong. As I stated in my previous comment and you failed to add to the quote, nobody cares how Evernote developers defined it in the backend. No user cares or should care. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Looks like a folder, acts like a folder, so it is a freaking folder. From the point of view of everyone that uses it.

 

[Tazzz 21]

8 hours ago, DTLow said:

As I said, use the the notebook/tag trees   
They pass the duck test

Except they don't

[Red Raven 0]

Please please please, add this feature. It is the one and only feature that is making me consider dropping my Evernote subscription and finding an alternative. It seems like a hugely popular feature. If it's never coming to Evernote, I think it would be nice to hear from someone as to why, especially considering I pay for the program every year.

[zubinabykurian 1]

I would really love to see this idea implemented. It would help A LOT. I would love to see concepts within notes treated as separate entities. I think this is the same as having sub notes. I want to be able to bi-link these concepts across notes and notebooks. I would also like to SEE the linked concept note /sub-note or even the note as a whole whenever I click on the link. This should appear as a side window and I should be able to edit it. 

This is a very powerful way to implement something like the zettlekasten method in Evernote. I hope I will get to see this feature someday. 

[mikefinleyco 52]

So bizarre that Evernote has a device they created themselves for learning from their user base how to improve their product and they have ignored the #1 request for 12 years? Hard to believe that nobody with a calculator at Evernote has ever figured out how much money they are costing themselves by forcing people to use a search hierarchy (tags) instead of a visual hierarchy (Folders) that is the norm for most of the planet. 

I would think if you wanted to increase market share and profitability simply bringing to the market the number one user feature request would be a no brainer.

I would love for Evernote to hire me as an outside consultant to increase their business. I'd submit a report and a bill for $50,000. The report would be one page and say:

"Once a year, develop the top 3 features desired by your customers, as indicated in your forum Called General Feature Request"

😆😆😆

Evernote as a product has so much positive going for it, just seems crazy they would shoot themselves in the foot and hold themselves back year after year by ignoring their number one customer request.

[mikefinleyco 52]

On 1/12/2021 at 9:37 AM, PinkElephant said:

 

If you love nesting of folders so much, you should probably move to another service.

If your only response to every post is "move to another service"  I would say obviously you have nothing constructive to say, try resisting the narcists in you and don't say anything.

I can't believe the stupidity of anyone continuously trolling the forums and cutting and pasting that to everyone on a daily basis as you do. Too much time on your hands?

Why would anyone with a life come into a thread where people are asking for an improvement in a product and you take the time to say "move to another service" that's really disgusting behavior and a waste of everybody's time and serves no purpose other than to act as a bully or you really must get a huge rush out of seeing your own typing. With over 4000 posts I guess that's a given.

 

[Flier 19]

10 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

@mikefinleyco Probably you should rethink your position.

You remember me of these thinkers of old age, that thought because they exist, the whole universe must rotate around them. Was proven wrong, just in case you were on sick leave when this was treated at school

 

Were  you reminded of that attitude when you looked in the mirror?  It's really tedious monitoring this thread (for years) to see the fan-boys explain over and over why those of us who need folders actually don't, then present baroque workarounds.  Keep your tags and eschew folders.  Fine with me.  There's no reason to ditch tags but these is ample reason to add folders.

It's been discussed before but my guess is that the oft-patched EN legacy code never anticipated how EN would be used but that the company is afraid to march into that swamp and try to make major changes.  The owners of EN are not stupid; they probably wish that the had folders for marketing reasons alone and regret the constraints keeping them from doing it.  So, I use EN primarily as a repository for web clips and maintain a weak hope that it will be made more useful to me someday.

[gazumped 11,652]

I'm glad to see we're having a mature,  reasonable discussion about this...  Just to restate the obvious - 

1. Evernote had (as far as we know) no way to provide nested notebooks up to the present.  They've never said they won't do it - just that they can't with the coding structure that was only replaced a few weeks ago.
2. Given that the previous public version had a whole range of features that were dropped for the relaunch and are now (mostly) being added back with each revision on a 2-week timescale,  it may be some time before they're in a position to start adding new major tricks.
3. Even if they do start that process,  with more than 200M current clients using the app 365/24/7 they're going to (hopefully) take some time to make sure that introducing a new feature will not stop other established services working. QA and beta testing may take some time.
4. Unless they already started working on this,  nested folders might make an appearance in a year or so's time if they have space in their schedule.
5. If you're prepared to wait,  then fine - please form an orderly queue.
6. If this is an absolutely vital feature that you cannot live without,  then unless your name is Harry Potter you're going to have to find it somewhere else.  Just sayin'.

That's not defending,  just stating the facts of life.  And I use a couple of third party apps for outlining (Workflowy) and folder structures when I need them (RightNote) but most of my 52K notes are in Evernote.

[Tazzz 21]

On 1/13/2021 at 11:56 PM, PinkElephant said:

Others like me prefer to connect information network-like, non hierarchical. We are happy with how things are structured right now - and think EN should put their resources into more productive features.

And others like me and God knows how many thousands other users are not happy with how things are, and want improvements. And many also think EN should put their resources into this as a priority, because sorting things based on tags is *****.

[Tazzz 21]

5 hours ago, DTLow said:

And many don't consider this feature a priority (in relation to other requests)

And many consider it a priority. We can do this all day.

[Tazzz 21]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

There are other views on this...

https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-tags-and-labels/

Sure. But the vast majority has the other view. What percentage of evernote users are using tags again?

[tavor 668]

9 minutes ago, Tazzz said:

Sure. But the vast majority has the other view. What percentage of evernote users are using tags again?

Ouch. Checkmate.

2% (or was it 5%) according to no less an authority than the CEO.

[Tazzz 21]

6 minutes ago, DTLow said:

No, they're not.  As I said, Notebooks and Tags are metadata fields

Yes, they are. From the user standpoint, which is what matters. Nobody cares how they are defined in backend.