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

[Avi Lambert 12]

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. 

[DTLow 5,736]

35 minutes ago, Avi Lambert said:

Tags are not Notebooks.

As you  posted, Notebooks have special features.  They identify notes as

• Sync'd/local
• private/shared
• offline
• default (Inbox)

>>Also, in terms of organization tags are messy, while notebooks are clean, in my view.

In terms of organization, notebooks and tags are two fields assigned to a note.  They are interchangeable.

Please explain how field2 is messy, and field1 is clean

[Avi Lambert 12]

31 minutes ago, DTLow said:

As you  posted, Notebooks have special features.  They identify notes as

• Sync'd/local
• private/shared
• offline
• default (Inbox)

>>Also, in terms of organization tags are messy, while notebooks are clean, in my view.

In terms of organization, notebooks and tags are two fields assigned to a note.  They are interchangeable.

Please explain how field2 is messy, and field1 is clean

In reply to your query, the issue is not about field2 or field1. The missing feature is second level organization. The attached image explains was I am looking for, with the OSX/Linux operating system. I have also attached a short of my own Evernote account to show that I use Notebooks primarily and stay away from tags. I have used tags in the past, and I've been using Evernote for over a decade. 

Evernote would do well and be smart to update the Notebook feature for premium and business users. Ian the CEO and the team are more user focused than previously which is good, but the features, long asked for by users like second level notebook organization are still behind what they could be.

 

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, Avi Lambert said:

The missing feature is second level organization.

The request is for unlimited levels (Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks)

We currently have unlimited organization levels with tags; users are asking for the same with notebooks 

>>tags are messy, while notebooks are clean

Please explain.  I used your screenshop as an example

[Avi Lambert 12]

Just shared this on Twitter with the goal of increasing the votes up so it will be taken seriously and acted upon. Just used Adobe Cloud and was able to configure third and fourth level folders without trouble. This should not be an issue for the development team IMHO. Share this in your community to get it voted up also. 

[DTLow 5,736]

9 hours ago, Avi Lambert said:

Just used Adobe Cloud and was able to configure third and fourth level folders without trouble.

Adobe Cloud uses Folders and Sub-Folders?

Evernote uses Notebooks/Tags; some users in this discussion have problems adjusting to the name switch

We can emulate folders using the trees in the sidebar

• The notebook tree has 2 levels
• The tag tree has unlimited levels; I can easily go 4+ levels using tags

[gazumped 11,652]

12 hours ago, 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??

I'd hope it's been mentioned before in this thread,  but just to confirm - Evernote is based on a database layout which was originally designed in a specific way that does not - we've been told by people who work there - allow for a hierarchy of stacks or notebooks.  It would require a redesign of some underlying systems to allow that to be added.  The problem is that Evernote now hosts 250 million (or so) databases in that original format,  and making fundamental changes to the structure is not something that can be done lightly,  or overnight.  Regardless of the number of users who require that style of organisation,  it may simply not be worth it to Evernote to invest heavily in re-engineering the database and running risk of affecting their whole client-base.  Priorities are not involved here - it's like wanting to J-turn a cruise liner - a ship is not set up to make sudden turns and the passengers wouldn't like it if it did.

As to the archiving stacks question - as a subscriber,  you'll be able to switch between accounts on a desktop.  Why not set up your archive(s) in a separate Basic account to get them out of the way? 

[gazumped 11,652]

3 hours ago, x9sim9 said:

This is never going to be implemented so its important people arriving at this thread are made aware of this.

You are incorrect.  Evernote has not said that this will 'never' be implemented, nor has anyone else in this thread suggested that. 

Evernote staff have said that through an accident of design this feature is not available at this time.  Future changes may correct that.

Meantime I have an account of around 50,000 notes and an active 'getting things done' system which works very effectively for me based entirely on tags and a database of standard single-level notebooks.  If you are wedded to a system that requires a notebook hierarchy,  then you do need to look for another provider. 

If you are prepared to compromise your principles slightly in order to get Evernote's ease of use,  highly effective search system and multi-platform access,  then  a little experimentation may convince you that this is still a better solution.

Don't just take my word for it...  Steve Dotto likes Evernote too...

 

[gazumped 11,652]

<Sigh>  There has been - endless - discussion of this topic.  It's not currently available,  and is unlikely to become available in the short term...

[DTLow 5,736]

14 hours ago, Anton R said:

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

Evernote doesn't support a folder filing methodology
Instead, we get two metadata fields; Notebooks and Tags
imho  This is a superior organization method

Users can emulate folders using the Notebook/Tag trees in the sidebar
The Tag tree supports unlimited levels

[jefito 5,589]

14 hours ago, Anton R said:

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

Mod: Merging to the mother request...

[ipicle 0]

Tags would be workable as folders if they could automatically inherit the heirarchical labels. I mean if people don't want this then it could be toggled.

Otherwise I have to put all those in by hand separated by dashes, which is unwieldy and difficult to remember. If I tag a subfolder in work, I want it in work too.

[jefito 5,589]

2 hours ago, ipicle said:

Tags would be workable as folders if they could automatically inherit the heirarchical labels. I mean if people don't want this then it could be toggled.

Adding search syntax that takes into account tag hierarchy has already been suggested, from me (I could find it, with some effort), at least, somewhere around 8 or 9 years ago. The Windows client has this capability, but it's an all or nothing affair (global setting) rather than a change to the search language, which is what I prefer.

As it happens, though, I don't depend on hierarchical anything in Evernote, except for using a couple of stacks for organization. For me, the fact that a note can be categorized by more than one makes organization a lot easier and more flexible than with nested notebooks. *shrug* Horses for courses...

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, ipicle said:

Tags would be workable as folders if they could automatically inherit the heirarchical labels. I mean if people don't want this then it could be toggled.

Otherwise I have to put all those in by hand separated by dashes, which is unwieldy and difficult to remember. If I tag a subfolder in work, I want it in work too.

We can emulate folders using the notebook/tag trees in the the sidebar (Windows/Mac)

I'm a fan of indicating hierarchy in the notebook/tag names.   
I usually only type this on setup.      
To use the notebook/tags, I'm selecting from a filtered list

[Yiannis 4]

I fully agree and support this idea. Although we have been asking it for 10 years and nothing changed. 

I have been a veeery long user of evernote, for the last years a premium user. But it has started feeling dated. I briefly experimented with Notion lately, a breath of fresh air that is rapidly changing and improving. Most of the characteristics that I see being asked here, they are already present there or keep getting added by the month.

For the moment they lack a couple of things that Evernote does really well: 

- search function in EN is really top class. Can't be matched yet qua speed and accuracy

- snappy feeling for both desktop and mobile apps (one click better for EN)

- security with 2 step verification

- simplicity (Notion feels a bit complex to master and looks a bit cluttered especially if you are transferring your database from EN). Because of the different structure it would take me quite some work to properly reorganize 1500 notes.

For the time being I am staying with EN but it was a pretty close choice. My advice would be to check some characteristics and try implementing them asap, otherwise I see users flocking away.

[Avi Lambert 12]

A conversation I had on Reddit shows that the development debt is why we can't have second and third level notebooks. The following post on Reddit in the Evernote forum is added because of the clarity of the response.

I would prefer to stay with Evernote, but with so many openly talking about Notion and moving over to it, Evernote must do something about this before too long, or it will lose business users. Also it would be nice to not get the same catch-all answer "use tags". 
 

 

Quote

 

Komatik

Second level notebook stuff is probably discouraged not because they hate the idea, but because Evernote's databases are all flat - for any one user, there's a single, flat list of notebooks and a single, flat list of tags. It's why you can't have multiple notebooks with the same name or multiple tags with the same name even if they're in different parts of the "folder tree" - the data actually isn't a folder tree. With tags, they can do some shenanigans, but with notebooks that wouldn't be so easy.

But one level of notebooks is not really enough, so back in the day they added a data field to the notebook database. It's the notebook stack the notebook belongs to.

Notice something? There is no such object in the database as a notebook stack. The UI just groups notebooks with the same "stack" field together. This is why you eg. can't have multiple notebooks with the same name even if they're in different stacks (they're just a flat pile in reality) which is what you'd expect out of a real folder hierarchy, and it also means stacking stacks is pretty much impossible since they don't actually exist as any kind of object you might be able to organize.

So when people understandably ask for some kind of hierarchy - nestable notebooks, stackable stacks, something - well, given the company's new mindset of actually improving their product it may happen someday. But it will be a big, big rebuild under the hood.

These kinds of data structure restrictions pop up all over the place. Why can't you share live views into single pages in OneNote the way you can in Evernote? Well, Evernote has a database for notes and a database for notebooks, so they have single note objects they can manage. A OneNote notebook, it turns out, is a folder on disk that contains subfolders to represent section groups, and .one files to contain section data. The pages themselves are stored in the section files and there is no individual page file to share and permission. You might notice that they could manage sharing permissions for individual section files since they actually exist in the filesystem, and 'lo and behold they happen to be working on sharing single sections.

A lot of the time when devs just ignore requests, it's not because they hate their users or because they're stuffy ivory tower jerks. It's usually that design decisions were made years and years ago (OneNote was released in 2003, before the cloud was much of a thing let alone central to Microsoft, Evernote was released in 2008. They're ancient), sometimes under a time crunch that gets some feature shipped in time but comes to haunt the devs later on when the app isn't as adaptable as it could be. The industry term for this is technical debt, and Evernote among others has a lot. The folders issue is one case of it.

Having a lot of technical debt doesn't mean they can't get rid of it or improve the app, but solving tech debt means a lot of work that is invisible to users before you can even start taking advantage of the new, better structure to start developing new features that the users would see. Some stuff they've already announced like the editor changes they're building now are work in this kind of vein.

The best thing is to keep reminding the company that you're willing to stay, that you want the debt solved and the features implemented. From a company POV, it needs stability and patience. Customer, similar deal, and they have to understand that the architecture work isn't stagnation, it's building a solid foundation and replacing all manner of ugly, finicky hacks.

 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

On 12/17/2019 at 3:22 PM, Avi Lambert said:

A conversation I had on Reddit shows that the development debt is why we can't have second and third level notebooks.

Not clear about "development debt", but I know Evernote has implemented unlimited levels for note organization; check out the Tag field

>Well, Evernote has a database for notes and a database for notebooks ...Evernote's databases are all flat

On my Mac, Note content is not stored in a database; just folders in the OS for each note    
-  as posted, this organization is flat
Note metadata is stored in an SQLite database, in particular two fields; Notebook and Tags   
These fields are indexed and allow for organization of notes into levels   
The tag record includes a parent-tag, allowing for unlimited levels

[IainBev 3]

OK... here's an idea.

 

Instead of trying to get Evernote to do this (...with all the reasoning whey it's nigh on impossible)

… why not start from scratch?

Build Evernote as it should have been ( i.e. as many users want it to be) and enable an import rather than an 'update' with a simple set of instructions.

That should / could then populate the 'new' Evernote with all the old content (and set up hierarchies already established, this time as real not faux).

i.e. instead of trying to re forge an existing tool … start again. With all the knowledge and hindsight the development team now have, and listening to the feedback gained from USERS. 

In that way the new Evernote could / should be able both to hold it's users and steal a march on other newer systems?

Just my two pennyworth. 

"they would have to completely re-build it"

So go on then. 

 

 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

23 minutes ago, IainBev said:

why not start from scratch?

To start from scratch, export your notes  in HTML format  (Mac/Windows)    
You will then be able io organize your notes into folders;  as many levels as you like

[IainBev 3]

12 minutes ago, DTLow said:

To start from scratch, export your notes  in HTML format  (Mac/Windows)    
You will then be able io organize your notes into folders;  as many levels as you like

But that kills the Evernote functionality? You would have to continually sweep Evernote into these directories and manually re-assign... and not have the interface for quick access? Does not sound like a particularly workable solution. Evernote would simply become a harvesting tool... not an access / archive one. If however you could export and then re-import into a new Evernote with a proper hierarchy… that would be worth doing.

[jefito 5,589]

18 hours ago, IainBev said:

OK... here's an idea.

 

Instead of trying to get Evernote to do this (...with all the reasoning whey it's nigh on impossible)

… why not start from scratch?

Build Evernote as it should have been ( i.e. as many users want it to be) and enable an import rather than an 'update' with a simple set of instructions.

That should / could then populate the 'new' Evernote with all the old content (and set up hierarchies already established, this time as real not faux).

i.e. instead of trying to re forge an existing tool … start again. With all the knowledge and hindsight the development team now have, and listening to the feedback gained from USERS. 

In that way the new Evernote could / should be able both to hold it's users and steal a march on other newer systems?

Just my two pennyworth. 

"they would have to completely re-build it"

So go on then. 

There are many reasons why this is not a great idea. For a general overview, see the classic  https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/. This doesn't imply that Joel's analysis is completely correct  for all cases-- sometimes a complete rewrite is warranted -- but still, this article frames things a bit. 

Me, I doubt that a complete rebuild would be required, but certainly there'd be a pretty sizable level of effort involved, and right now they'focused on a different large product (https://discussion.evernote.com/forum/306-behind-the-scenes-series/)...

[Andre Doernemann 3]

I so much HATE Evernote as a company, for not answering to this really Basic Request, which so much of their competitors offer.

Just make a deeper hierarchy possible for people, that need it. And NO, i can not achieve the same with tags - not in my collaboration/Teamsetting and not in my preference of using, thinking and filing Stuff. 

It would be such a great App, absolutly unbeatable, if they woudl offer some Hierarchy, (and some Functionality in Tables; please look at Notion). And make the Dark Mode for Windows Users already; the Mac Users already got it!

 

As soon, as Notion improves their Android App and implement Handwiriting: i'm out. If nothing changes. And many others time by time for sure also.

[DTLow 5,736]

15 hours ago, Andre Doernemann said:

And NO, i can not achieve the same with tags - not in my collaboration/Teamsetting and not in my preference of using, thinking and filing Stuff. 

Please provide some details on your use-case and why it requires Notebooks instead of Tags
afaik  Tags and Notebooks are interchangeable (except for the share/sync/offline thing)

[CalS 5,280]

8 hours ago, Andre Doernemann said:

I so much HATE Evernote as a company

Life is way too short....

[x9sim9 7]

11 hours ago, Andre Doernemann said:

I so much HATE Evernote as a company, for not answering to this really Basic Request, which so much of their competitors offer.

Just make a deeper hierarchy possible for people, that need it. And NO, i can not achieve the same with tags - not in my collaboration/Teamsetting and not in my preference of using, thinking and filing Stuff. 

It would be such a great App, absolutly unbeatable, if they woudl offer some Hierarchy, (and some Functionality in Tables; please look at Notion). And make the Dark Mode for Windows Users already; the Mac Users already got it!

 

As soon, as Notion improves their Android App and implement Handwiriting: i'm out. If nothing changes. And many others time by time for sure also.

Its a case of evernote telling customers what it thinks is best rather than listening to customers, probably why they have had so much financial trouble in the past.

If it helps I ended up moving to nimbus note (which has unlimited folder depth), its not as well polished as evernote but you can actually email the developers directly and participate in its development which is definitely the right direction. If only evernote was the same way 😞

[kimaldis 1]

On 5/17/2018 at 3:02 AM, rocketguy said:

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.

I've just checked Quip out. It kind of leaves Evernote in the shade, doesn't it. I'm still messing with it but right now I see no reason not to make a move over to it.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, kimaldis said:

I've just checked Quip out. It kind of leaves Evernote in the shade, doesn't it. I'm still messing with it but right now I see no reason not to make a move over to it.

Looks like Quip is rather more expensive per user than Evernote.  It's aimed at a business market with spreadsheets and powerpoint-a-like features included.  If you need that type of thing, of course it makes sense to move over. Since I don't have time to road test new apps and Evernote (still) works for me...

[PinkElephant 8,077]

We are talking completely different use cases here.

Quip is an add-on tool for Salesforce-users, to get some document handling, edit and spreadsheet functions added to Salesforce. And secondly it is focused on being teamware, which means it is not created with an individual user in mind.

Prices start at 10$/user/month (with an advertised discount package of 30$/month/first 5 users, but only available with these 5 licenses as a block) plus one probably needs Salesforce. Many functions EN offers are not advertised, so probably they do not exist.

So everybody who wants to test it: Have fun.

[kimaldis 1]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

We are talking completely different use cases here.

Quip is an add-on tool for Salesforce-users, to get some document handling, edit and spreadsheet functions added to Salesforce. And secondly it is focused on being teamware, which means it is not created with an individual user in mind.

Prices start at 10$/user/month (with an advertised discount package of 30$/month/first 5 users, but only available with these 5 licenses as a block) plus one probably needs Salesforce. Many functions EN offers are not advertised, so probably they do not exist.

So everybody who wants to test it: Have fun.

It's free for personal use. I'm using it with no Salesforce account. It works fine for single users. It offers more of what I need than Evernote does and they seem to have a better understanding of end users' needs than Evernote does. Evernote isshowing it's age and there's no sign that anyone treats that seriously.

 

[Avi Lambert 12]

The switching costs of going to another application are too high. I just tried Nimbus Note, which does a fair job. But the things that Evernote has in my workflow just aren't worth switching to another app. Therefore it's very much a circumstance lock-in.

In which case, until Ian leads the development to make numerous sub-folders in stacks, I'll stay with Evernote. At which point hell might freeze over. 

Here are a three points where I'm confident Evernote creates value above the competition:

1. Encrypting text
2. OCR and Screencapture
3. Integration into OSx

 

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, kimaldis said:

there's no sign that anyone treats that seriously.

This request has over 400 user votes
however there's a skeuomorphism problem; they want an organization hierarchy and it must be called Notebooks, no other name is acceptable

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

[kimaldis 1]

53 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Please add more detail

tags have to be uniquely named. So I can't have 2 nodes both with, say, a notes tag undereneath. Why wouldn't I want to have identically named nodes in several places in my note structure? I know there are naming workarounds but they're just that, workarounds. It's kludgy and I don't want to have to deal with it.

consider this structure:

• aaa
  • bbb
  • ccc

If I select tag 'aaa'in the sidebar it only shows notes contained in 'aaa'. It should show notes in the child tags

The full path of any given tag doesn't show in the note header. This doesn't seem like a problem now but it is if non-unique tag names are allowed.

Why can't I create and rearrange notebooks and tags by D&D in the sidebar. Who would anyone miss that out?

[DTLow 5,736]

19 hours ago, kimaldis said:

tags have to be uniquely named

Confirmed - Unique names is a restriction Evernote applies to Notebooks/Tags    
Personally, it works for me; for example I assign notebook/tag "Insurance" to a note without caring about it's place in the tree

[kimaldis 1]

49 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Confirmed - Unique names is a restriction Evernote applies to Notebooks/Tags    
Personally, it works for me; for example I assign notebook/tag "Insurance" to a note without caring about it's place in the tree

sure, and that's how tags should be. There's the problem, though, they've shoe-horned a partially hierarchical system into tags when really notebooks are more suited. So they have a half hierarchical notebook system - only two levels - and a half-hierarchical tag system, neither of which provide much of why anyone would need a tree structure for thier notes. It's like nearly everything in Evernote; done in the most unhelpful possible way.

[DTLow 5,736]

18 hours ago, kimaldis said:

... are more suited

Please add more details - these are two fields in the note metadata - interchangeable for most uses

Notebooks are required in Evernote for sync'd/local, private/shared, offline

I think your intent is to assign notes to folders    
There is no support for folders in Evernote    
We can emulate folders somewhat using the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar

[jefito 5,589]

17 hours ago, kimaldis said:

and a half-hierarchical tag system, neither of which provide much of why anyone would need a tree structure for thier notes.

Sigh. Had this discussion with someone else recently. Uniqueness of tag names does not make the Evernote tag tree any less hierarchical than if duplicate tag names were allowed. It's still a hierarchy, much as say, a company org chart that organizes employees into a hierarchy is still, yes, a hierarchy. Splitting hairs a bit, but the tag tree is not a "half-hierarchy".

That being said, sure, it might be convenient to have multiple instances of the same tag name in the tag tree, but what are the implications? Is tag "A" in one part of the tree the same tag as tag "A" in another part of the tree? If you want that, then some things need to be changed. Tagging becomes a bit more complicated, since you're now tagging with is what is in essence a tag path, so you need to disambiguate. How does this affect search? You'd probably need ways to treat a tag as a path or as a pure label (which it is now). It all seems kin of awkward to me.

In the end, the Evernote tag tree can be used to navigate your notes if you want (and you're careful and disciplined), and people do (but I don't, being more lazy than disciplined when it comes to organizing my notes), but it's antithetical to the primary notion of a tag in Evernote. A tag is not a container; it labels a note. A note can have multiple tabs, and that's a strength. Flip side, a note belongs to exactly one notebook, much like a fil ein a file system (modulo hard links, etc.), so I think it's far more likely that Evernote will eventually go to some form of nested notebook structure, rather than  allowing tags to live in multiple parts of the tag tree. I don't really count stacks; they're helpful to some degree, and I use them a little, but I don't use a lot of notebooks either (< 25 across two accounts). For my money, tags are a better way of organizing my notes than yet another hierarchical system to traipse up and down. As usual, YMMV...

[CalS 5,280]

9 hours ago, kimaldis said:

There's the problem, though, they've shoe-horned a partially hierarchical system into tags when really notebooks are more suited.

The contra is actually the truth in my view, users have shoehorned a hierarchical system into tags.  Tags in and of themselves are just that, tags.  They have no structural component.  You can nest tags but that is pretty much just an organizational thing group all accounts together under Accounts for example (other than the option to find all notes for the parent tag and its children). 

You get the same "node" on notes by using the same tag on notes.  So every project doesn't have to have a training tag.  One training tag will do paired up with the appropriate project tag to find all training notes for a project.  It's a tuple view vs a hierarchical view.

[Mike P 2,627]

21 hours ago, kimaldis said:

If I select tag 'aaa'in the sidebar it only shows notes contained in 'aaa'. It should show notes in the child tags

In the windows client there is an option "automatically select child tags" which works perfectly.

[DTLow 5,736]

42 minutes ago, Mike P said:

In the windows client there is an option "automatically select child tags" which works perfectly.

We don't have the child option on other platforms, but I replicate the hierarchy in my notebook/tag names   
For example  tag:Budget and child tags Budget-House, Budget-Food, Budget-...

I can search for tag:Budget* 

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, Mike P said:

In the windows client there is an option "automatically select child tags" which works perfectly.

Unfortunately, this is a bad, or at least misguided feature in the Windows client, for a several reasons:

• It's a global setting: you cannot choose to make a search be a subtag search if the option is off, and you cannot choose to make a search be an exact (i.e., no subtags) if it's on
• The search semantics (i.e., results you get) when the option is on will not match the results in any other client, and also do not match the documented search language (https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php). So your saved searches may not work the same on non-Windows cients.
• If you are adding tags by choosing tags by clicking them from a list with the option on, you can get a big surprise if you add tags that have subtags: all of the subtags are added explicitly to the search (i.e., you see them in the search info), *and* it turns your search automatically into an ANY search, even if it was an AND search (the default). Surprise!

I'd say that this works much less than perfectly. I  think that someone on the Windows team thought that with would be a clever hack, but it was far too clever for its own good. A much better way to have implemented this would have been to add a way to specify subtag search in the search language (e.g., via something like a +tag:AParentTag term) , and support it everywhere so that searches work the same on all device types. Then you could use it, or not, in specific searches, and also achieve a new set of AND/OR searches by specifying a subtag search term in a standard AND search, much like wildcarded text searches in Evernote work.

[mixpix 0]

My apologies if I am repeating what anyone else has said/asked... I simply do not have the time to read through all 15 pages of this discussion! One thing I did notice is people saying they would rather use OneNote because of this feature lacking. Idu... OneNote has notebooks, sections, and pages; EN has stacks, notebooks and notes - what's the difference?

I am a PhD level researcher and have tried every piece of note-taking/annotation software/app to annotate, keep and organise hundreds of academic papers and journals. Some do some things well, but EN has the most of the different functions I need in one place (not ALL, but it minimises the amount of different programs I have to jump between to do different things).

I currently use tags to label notes with areas in the research they are relevant to, but I would like to create another layer(s). Could someone please explain how tag hierarchies are created, or point me to somewhere where it is explained in detail? I do think another level of subnotes would be great, so upvoted this fwiw, but could use some help making what is available work for me in the meantime, thanks!

 

 

 

 

[Mike P 2,627]

20 hours ago, jefito said:

Unfortunately, this is a bad, or at least misguided feature in the Windows client, for a several reasons:

• It's a global setting: you cannot choose to make a search be a subtag search if the option is off, and you cannot choose to make a search be an exact (i.e., no subtags) if it's on
• The search semantics (i.e., results you get) when the option is on will not match the results in any other client, and also do not match the documented search language (https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php). So your saved searches may not work the same on non-Windows cients.
• If you are adding tags by choosing tags by clicking them from a list with the option on, you can get a big surprise if you add tags that have subtags: all of the subtags are added explicitly to the search (i.e., you see them in the search info), *and* it turns your search automatically into an ANY search, even if it was an AND search (the default). Surprise!

I'd say that this works much less than perfectly. I  think that someone on the Windows team thought that with would be a clever hack, but it was far too clever for its own good. A much better way to have implemented this would have been to add a way to specify subtag search in the search language (e.g., via something like a +tag:AParentTag term) , and support it everywhere so that searches work the same on all device types. Then you could use it, or not, in specific searches, and also achieve a new set of AND/OR searches by specifying a subtag search term in a standard AND search, much like wildcarded text searches in Evernote work.

It's not a feature I personally use for many of the reasons you outline. If I do need to select all the child tags I manually select them by clicking the parent tag and then shift + clicking the last child tag in the list and then changing "all" to "any" in the search details. 

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, Mike P said:

It's not a feature I personally use for many of the reasons you outline. If I do need to select all the child tags I manually select them by clicking the parent tag and then shift + clicking the last child tag in the list and then changing "all" to "any" in the search details. 

Yup. I thought the idea was cool when it was introduced, but too many times I clicked on a tag with subchildren without realizing, and got my search filter bombed with all of those tags (sometimes 20 or more). I don't use the tag tree for hierarchical searching, just to organize them loosely. If Evernote ever offered better tools to do hierarchical tag search, I'd consider using them, but I seem to be doing OK as it is.

[Eldorado 26]

On 1/25/2020 at 10:55 AM, mixpix said:

... Could someone please explain how tag hierarchies are created, or point me to somewhere where it is explained in detail? ...

 

Simply Right-Click on an already created tag and select 'Create tag in "<this>"...' to create a sub-level tag (if you are a Windows user - if not, I'm sure that other platform offer similar functionality 😉).

 

I've done so with groups of tags to describe note attributes like "When?", "Who?", "Where?", "Type" and so on. My current tag tree looks like the following:

 

You can find a more-in-detail description of this methodology in http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/114779-using-tags-to-implement-dynamic-todo-lists/. This makes it completely unnecessary to structure notebooks in deep hierarchies.

 

I've around 10 stacks of several notebooks organized by tags like described above. Nobody needs more. Full stop 😉

[gazumped 11,652]

On 1/25/2020 at 9:55 AM, mixpix said:

My apologies if I am repeating what anyone else has said/asked... I simply do not have the time to read through all 15 pages of this discussion! One thing I did notice is people saying they would rather use OneNote because of this feature lacking. Idu... OneNote has notebooks, sections, and pages; EN has stacks, notebooks and notes - what's the difference?

I am a PhD level researcher and have tried every piece of note-taking/annotation software/app to annotate, keep and organise hundreds of academic papers and journals. Some do some things well, but EN has the most of the different functions I need in one place (not ALL, but it minimises the amount of different programs I have to jump between to do different things).

I currently use tags to label notes with areas in the research they are relevant to, but I would like to create another layer(s). Could someone please explain how tag hierarchies are created, or point me to somewhere where it is explained in detail? I do think another level of subnotes would be great, so upvoted this fwiw, but could use some help making what is available work for me in the meantime, thanks!

Hi.  You've not said what device(s) or OS('s) you're using,  which is a relevant factor in that some OS's show tags in slightly different ways,  and mobile OS's generally don't support a tag hierarchy (TH).  You'll get a flat list of all tags regardless of parent/child relationships.  TH's are otherwise pretty simple - it's possible to 'nest' tags as deeply as you'd like,  so subtags down to 100 levels could be set up,  if rather impractical. 

Plus.  searching for a sub-level tag can also display all 'parent' levels.  Or not - it's an option.

The Note options you have are:

• Stacks - contain notebooks only: no notes (selecting a stack gives you a listing of all notes in the notebooks in that stack)
• Notebooks - contain notes only - no 'deeper' level
• Notes - various types of content - can be linked directly to other notes

Tags and note titles add extra dimensions - forinstance I always start note titles with the date the contents were created in yyyymmdd format.  That date is likely different to the created date of the note,

Another grouping of notes can be engineered by Tables of Content - also referred to here sometimes as 'dashboards'.  Maintenance is an issue,  but I use an app Filterize to automate that.  I have one notebook for Dashboard notes and one dashboard note with links to all the others which is the ultimate parent reference point.

From that note - call that 'level one' - I can choose any of the others (level two) which contain links to notes anywhere in my database (level three) which can also be local dashboards for more specialist subjects (level four) which can also be dashboards... ad infinitum until you eventually get to an actual note containing data!

[gazumped 11,652]

3 hours ago, Andrea Johnson said:

for everything else I'm doing, nested folders are so much easier to organize.

If that's your personal experience,  then it's absolutely fine to use whatever method you prefer.  It's a fact that Evernote does not currently directly support 'nesting' notebooks beyond Stacks > Notebooks > Notes.  There have been hints that they might change the system used for the application's administration of notes to allow more flexibility,  but we don't yet know what that might look like.  Meantime there are 'work arounds' like tags, tables of content etc which may or  may not apply to your use case.

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, Andrea Johnson said:

I don't need tags, because I can set up multiply-nested folders...        

If we could do multiple layers of nested folders...

Notebooks, Tags, Folders;  they're just labels for an organization tool      
Evernote supplies us with two note metadata fields; Notebooks and Tags 
For this discussion,  the important thing is hierarchy (nesting)

For myself, the important thing is identifying the categories that apply to a note   
Do the Bublup folders allow for multiple assignments?

[Andre Doernemann 3]

On 1/13/2020 at 4:54 PM, DTLow said:

Please provide some details on your use-case and why it requires Notebooks instead of Tags
afaik  Tags and Notebooks are interchangeable (except for the share/sync/offline thing)

That's it; i need to share many notes and we want to have a structure.

2.) I don't want to remember my tags. When i create a Note, i have to tag it by typing, thus remembering the explicit Tag for the usecase. That is not practical, cause Evernote is for storing Information so i don't NEED to remember everithing. 

 

I just would like to store/file away like i do with my Files in my Computer or in my Head: in Categories and folders. Someones with a flat Hierarchie, cuase simple and some with a deep hierarchy, cause complex.

 

Used Evernote for 3 Companys and private and need more Power...

[Andre Doernemann 3]

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.

Not if you want to share

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, Andre Doernemann said:

Used Evernote for 3 Companys and private and need more Power...

Sounds like you might need Evernote Business - it still doesn't support nested notebooks,  but there's an additional option called spaces that might help...

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, Andre Doernemann said:

I don't want to remember my tags....

You prefer "remembering" notebooks?

>>I just would like to store/file away like i do with my Files in my Computer

Thats Folder methodology   
It's not supported in Evernote; we get Notebooks and Tags    
Some users emulate folders using the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, krestor2 said:

And I need to see the visual org of a particular project. 

Is that a reference to the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar?

[CodyB1 0]

There needs to be a better way to store your notes besides a simple notebook and a notebook stack. I have multiple subcategories that necessitate a better folder/subfolder structure. Only being able to stack notes under two categories is inadequate. 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.

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, CodyB1 said:

There needs to be a better way to store your notes besides a simple notebook and a notebook stack ... 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.

Evernotes primary organization method is the Tags feature   
From the latest beta testing, tag hierarchy will be supported on other platforms

I merged your post with an ongoing request discussion for this feature

[jefito 5,589]

5 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.

If your mobile version is Android, then multiple tag filtering is supported, as is navigating through the tag tree.

[DTLow 5,736]

10 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

So we really do need true, OS folder-like, hierarchical Notebooks

I disagree;  I'm very happy not using true OS folder-like notebooks 
I'm content with flat storage for my notes; tagging where approriate   
Let's just stick with the notebook hierarchy request

>>Tags must be unique, so you can't have two child tags with the same name.

This is an artificial restriction imposed by Evernote    
If duplicates are allowed, we would have to quote hierarchies with each notebook/tag reference

btw  Using shared notebooks can result in duplicate notebook/tag names

>>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.

Child search is an Evernote/Windows option;   and only not available for notebooks
We can implement child search on a Mac with scripting for both notebooks/tags

I prefix my tagnames to replicate the hierarchy; for example Colour, Colour-white, Colour-red   
I can search for    tag:Colour*

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

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.

Child search is an Evernote/Windows option; and only available for notebooks  

Child tag search in Windows is a hack and a botch and ultimately a misfeature in Windows, as far as I'm concerned (and have whined elsewhere).Implemented properly, as a part of the search language, it could be quite useful to some folks (I still would probably not use it due to the way I use tags).  Unfortunately in the Windows application it's implemented as a global flag in Options, and supplies some pretty good UI surprise if you accidentally add a tag that's a parent tag to your search.. It should never have

Actually, I don't know what t "only available for notebooks" means: it fails just as poorly in "All Notes", too.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

I disagree;  I'm very happy not using true OS folder-like notebooks 
I'm content with flat storage for my notes; tagging where approriate   

It is not a matter of agreement.  What some of us need, others do not.  That applies to many features of any app.  There are some users who prefer to use only plain text files for their notes.  Others of use see the benefit of rich text, hyperlinks, tables, and attachments as being part of our Notes.  Use of most features is optional.

I have proven, at least to myself and a few others, that using Mac Finder Folders (which are fully hierarchical) WITH Finder Tags (which are not hierarchical) is an extremely effective and efficient method of organization. If you, or anyone, do not see this benefit, or do not need it, that's fine.  Many of us do see the benefit.

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

I have proven, at least to myself and a few others, that using Mac Finder Folders (which are fully hierarchical) WITH Finder Tags (which are not hierarchical) is an extremely effective and efficient method of organization.

I'm a Mac user, and interested in Mac Finder Folders; not too interested in Finder Tags

However the purpose of this discussion is Evernote and Notebook hierarchy (Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks)

Evernote Notebooks are not fully hierarchical, hence the above request.   
Evernote Tags are fully hierarchical, each tag record stores an optional parent reference

>>If you, or anyone, do not see this benefit, or do not need it, that's fine.  Many of us do see the benefit.

I see the benefit; hierarchy is an "extremely effective and efficient method of organization" for our notebooks/tags

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

However the purpose of this discussion is Evernote and Notebook hierarchy (Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks)

Glad you recognize the purpose.  Unfortunately you seemed to have missed the point of my analogy and testing.  But let's not digress into a side issue.

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Evernote Tags are fully hierarchical, each tag record stores an optional parent reference

Perhaps the tags themselves are hierarchical, but I'm sure you know that hierarchy (i.e. its child tags) has no influence on the selection of Notes  are assigned to the Parent tag.  To be clear, we expect that if a Parent tag is selected, that all Notes with the Parent tag and any its child tags are also selected, just like when we select a Stack, it includes all Notes of its NBs, or if we select an OS folder, it includes all of its files and the files of its sub-notebooks.

If we had fully hierarchical NBs, then we would not necessarily need for hierarchical tags to behave in this manner.  I can see the benefit of having the tag structure as we have it now in that case.

So the focus is, and remains, on the request for fully hierarchical Notebooks that work like OS folders.

[Mad Gemini 3]

For now we can use only one stack which looks like this:

• Old Stack (Customers)
  • Notebook: Customer 1
    • Note: Analyse
    • Note: Todos
    • Note: Plan
  • Notebook: Customer 2
    • Note: Analyse
    • Note: Todos
    • Note: Plan

Can you please make the stacks multilayered looking like this:

• New Stack (Customers)
  • Notebook: Customer 1
    • Notebook: Analyses
      • Note: Analyse 1
      • Note: Analyse 2
      • Note: Analyse 3
    • Notebook: Todos
      • Note: Web
      • Note: Accounting
    • Notebook: Plans
      • Note: Web Workflow
      • Note: Ads Workflow
  • Notebook: Customer 2
    • Notebook: Analyses
      • Note: Analyse 1
      • Note: Analyse 2
      • Note: Analyse 3
    • Notebook: Todos
      • Note: Web
      • Note: Accounting
    • Notebook: Plans
      • Note: Web Workflow
      • Note: Ads Workflow

Thanks :)

[DTLow 5,736]

On 3/4/2020 at 5:19 PM, JMichaelTX said:

So the focus is, and remains, on the request for fully hierarchical Notebooks that work like OS folders.

No, the focus is, and remains, "Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks"   
It's written at the top

Instead of hijacking this discussion, post a separate request for "like OS folders" and "child search"

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

No, the focus is, and remains, "Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks"   
It's written at the top

Instead of hijacking this discussion, post a separate request for "like OS folders" and "child search"

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.

[stuzz 0]

Yes! This is what I'm looking for.

[DTLow 5,736]

16 hours ago, Ian Small said:

I would be legitimately interested in understanding what others think the difference between these two things are... Note:  I think this is a question solely about notebooks, not about tags.

Yes, solely about notebooks.

Tags get mentioned because    
1. Both notebooks/tags have been implemented as fields in the note metadata    
2.  Tags are a hierarchical model with unlimited levels in the tag tree   
Folders get mentioned because    
1. Users are familiar with folders,    
2 . Users relate folders to notebooks (but not tags)   

Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks

• The same feature we have with Tags (hierarchy)   
  Unlimited levels supported in the Notebook tree instead of the current Stack/Notebook levels

Notebooks that work like OS folders

• The same feature we have with storing files (hierarchy)   
  Unlimited levels supported in the Notebook tree instead of the current Stack/Notebook levels
• Folder names don't have to be unique   
  Instead of assigning notebook zzzzz to a note      
  the note is filed in folder pathname  aaaaa/bbbbbb/ccccc/.../zzzzz
• There was an indication that child search is supported

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour 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.

Same thing.  I think that folks see OS folder systems and nested notebooks as the same hierarchical structure.  They've been using the structure forever and are comfortable with it.

Not pertinent to your question but I'm not one of those.  I'm less concerned about where I put it but more about how I find it, which is where EN's search capability and tags excel.  With very few notebooks.  🤷‍♂️

[jefito 5,589]

9 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.

No difference as far as I can tell.

Tags come in very early, right from the first reply, which was from Dave Engberg himself, as a workaround for lack of nested notebooks, with a hint of tags being TheBetterWay^TM. (I have to confess that i think they are, too, but I like to think I'm less militant about it now). Certainly the return to tags in the topic.is due to folks who understandably haven't read the whole thing and have missed the tag workaround, and so it gets repeated in various formulations every so often. Also, as the tag concept seems to be less widely understood  as compared to the nested folder model, some explanation about how they work relative to nested folders is sometimes also required.

Explanation about  the 2 level stack / notebooks vs. a full-blown notebook hierarchy also seem necessary at times.

11 hours ago, Ian Small said:

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."

No question that adding a fully nested notebook structure would be a big architectural change for you all (and us). I'm doubtful that I'd take much advantage of them, but I'm not ruling it out. My biggest concerns / curiosities are about how they fit into (or take over) the existing architecture:.

• What happens to stacks?.They have always seemed like a bit of a quick&dirty hack, but they have their uses -- even by me.  But they exist, even if they're only a special attribute of a notebook, and they're supported in the search language. Maybe they just turn into notebooks?
• One of the iron-clad rules with notebooks currently is that their names must be unique in a single account (duplicate names, standard example, my Work "Todo" notebook shared to my personal account which also has a "Todo" notebook, can come in via sharing, but that makes things confusing). But we all know that file systems allow for the same name to be used elsewhere in the hierarchy. And that affects search, which is a real strength of Evernote. 
• More on search: if duplicate notebook names are allowed, then a search like "notebook:abc" becomes ambiguous if there are multiple notebooks named 'abc'. Yes, we cope with this in our file system browsers, but gosh, I don't really want to have to use another tree browser in application (though they're not unknown, as I fully understand, say in GIS, where I work as a developer). Is this an opening for hiearchical search, e.g. the ability to search a notebook and all of its subnotebooks? And can we then get hiearchical tag search, e.g. a search for a tag and any of its subtags?
• Export and sharing: can we export or share a notebook without any if its subnotebooks,? Or all of its subnotebooks?  

Anyhow, good puck pushing forward on your current road. After 12 years, Evernote still does it for me. I look forward to improvements, when they come. Cheers, and carry on!

[011011011 0]

When will this be implemented?  I've seen posts over a decade old asking for this functionality.

I've switched to Notion for now. Takes some getting used to after using Evernote for 8 years, but it allows nested notebooks and helps immensely with keeping my classes and lectures organized.  I cancelled my Evernote sub and signed up for Notion's premium.  Might check back on Evernote in a few years if it's still around to see if they added this, because aside from missing this feature, Evernote is pretty great.

[gazumped 11,652]

20 hours ago, 011011011 said:

When will this be implemented?

Hi.  If you read any part of this thread (or many other related ones) you will know that Evernote has never commented on when, whether,  or how they would try to implement any kind of a further hierarchy in Notebook structures.  There have been many requests and arguments,  but this is a normal user-provider situation; users can request any and all features be added,  but the provider is not obliged to listen or comment.  A major refit of all clients is under way,  but we'll only find out if a hierarchy is possible when it's available to be used.

[DTLow 5,736]

20 hours ago, 011011011 said:

When will this be implemented? 

Evernote has not indicated an interest in expanding Notebook hierarchy
Evernote's hierarchy focus has always been centered on the Tags element.

For the Notebook element, we have only seen the Stacks implementation

[jefito 5,589]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  If you read any part of this thread (or many other related ones) you will know that Evernote has never commented on when, whether,  or how they would try to implement any kind of a further hierarchy in Notebook structures.  There have been many requests and arguments,  but this is a normal user-provider situation; users can request any and all features be added,  but the provider is not obliged to listen or comment.  A major refit of all clients is under way,  but we'll only find out if a hierarchy is possible when it's available to be used.

Well, there was this:

On 3/12/2020 at 12:21 AM, Ian Small said:

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. 

So I think that the intention is there, but it's not going to be for a while...

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, gustavo_luiss said:

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

Evernote has notebook and tag fields; no support for folders

This discussion is for the addition of hierarchy (levels) for the notebook field     
Yes, this can be useful for both fields

[YBowers 0]

Yes!  I need that hierarchy as well.

[Me_in_VA 0]

I would love to see EN add the ability to create sub-folders. It would be a great addition to using tags in keeping my data organized. I've been using OneNote for a long time and I like how I can have a notebook with different sections and then different pages in each section.

 

The ability to have a main folder for a specific topic and then to have sub-folders in the main folder allows me to place all my data concerning the main topic into separate folders according to sub-categories. Once I have these sub-folders filled with some data I can add tags to help me locate what I need.

 

The way I used OneNote, and how I would use EN with sub-folders: I process commissions for employees where I work. Each year has a main folder. Then each month has a folder in the year's folder. Then I have sub-folders in each month's folder for each category of commissions that gets paid out. In the year folder I also have a folder for each employee. If EN were to enable sub-folders, I would be able to switch over to it and leave OneNote. I like OneNote but it has its limitations. If EN can make it happen, I would definitely use it a lot more.

[gazumped 11,652]

On 4/19/2020 at 4:24 PM, Me_in_VA said:

If EN can make it happen, I would definitely use it a lot more.

Well,  they may be in the process of expanding the options available... or they may not. We won't know until the next iteration of the Editor is launched onto an unsuspecting world.  Have to say that I feel I could manage your situation in one notebook with tags for years,  months and categories and saved searches to generate 'virtual' folders for (forinstance) Gaz for the month of April 2020 and commission for 'random replies'. But that's just me.  (Oh - and the saved searches could be made into Dashboards showing the constantly updated status of each employee for all their commissions with an add-in called Filterize... if you wanted.)

[DTLow 5,736]

On 4/19/2020 at 8:24 AM, Me_in_VA said:

I would love to see EN add the ability to create sub-folders. It would be a great addition to using tags in keeping my data organized.

Evernote has no support for folders 

Instead, Evernote has two metadata fields; Notebooks and Tags

>Each year has a main folder. Then each month has a folder in the year'sfolder. Then I have sub-folders in each month's folder for each category of commissions that gets paid out.

You can use multiple levels in the Tag feature   
Folders can be emulated using the TagTree in the sidebar

[jefito 5,589]

On 4/19/2020 at 11:24 AM, Me_in_VA said:

The ability to have a main folder for a specific topic and then to have sub-folders in the main folder allows me to place all my data concerning the main topic into separate folders according to sub-categories. Once I have these sub-folders filled with some data I can add tags to help me locate what I need.

Tags can be used across notebooks, and are an effective way to group related notes, wherever they are. One other option: if you have a main note, you might want to turn it into a "table of contents" note by using note links to directly link to other, related notes. I use a combination of tags and note links myself.

 

[mpmahone 0]

I use OneNote for personal notes and lists specifically because of the page feature within each note. It's a game changer. That platform isn't supported by my organization and I almost lost a ton of days when I started using it for work notes. So I switched to Evernote, which is supported. As soon as my org starts supporting One Note, which or plans to do, I will be switching back. OneNote not only has the page feature, it also allows you to type or handwrite anywhere on the page--just like in a paper notebook. It's so great! Evernote catch up and I can stay with you.

[h-o-m-a 6]

I am organizing my EN-Notebooks via STACKS. Stacks usually are based on anchor topics under which I organize particular notebooks (threads). Over time, for me it became apparent that it would help if there were the possibility of a >STACK Hierarchy< meaning >a stack in a stack in a stack< .... the depth of 3 would be my best guess.... after that it gets hard (at least for me) to manage oversight.

Appreciate your consideration.

h-o-m-a

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, h-o-m-a said:

it would help if there were the possibility of a >STACK Hierarchy< meaning >a stack in a stack in a stack< .... the depth of 3 would be my best guess

I've merged your post with the discussion for Notebook hierarchy.  
Stacks were never implemented as a defined entity and a stack hierarchy is impossible
(a stack with no notebooks doesn't exist) 

Currently, the only hierarchy supported is the Tags feature, with an unlimited hierarchy

[DTLow 5,736]

16 hours ago, FigueiredoLuis said:

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

Notebooks can be organized into stacks   
For unlimited organization levels, use the Tags feature

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, kimaldis said:

It's just insane that so many people have asked for a decent hierarchy in Evernote

@h-o-m-a is a new user to the forums, and seems unaware of the Evernote feature-sets 
The user is asking for assistance in using levels of organization

>>So I'm going to cut myself off from this discussion before the sheer stupidity of it explodes my head.

And others will continue to assist users with their inquiries

 

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, mpmahone said:

100% this. We know what we need and we know what we're asking for.

There is a request posted at the top of the discussion.  To indicate your support, use the voting button at the top left corner

Discussion is not required

>>It's possible.

Agreed, it's quite do-able;    
Evernote has already implemented a hierarchy with the tags feature, the same technique can be used for notebooks 

[DTLow 5,736]

5 minutes ago, kimaldis said:

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.

From the forum Code of Conduct

9. Do not chastise new users/newbies for asking questions or posting comments that may already be answered elsewhere. We get new users in the forums every day.

[mikepvr 0]

That's the question. If it's not possible, please consider that for next updates.

[DTLow 5,736]

Evernote has a Stacks feature (stack of notebooks)   https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314158-How-to-organize-notebooks-into-stacks
That's it - 2 levels

For an unlimited hierarchy, look at the Tags feature

I've merged your post with an ongoing request discussion for this feature

[Abu.Aabdullah.Ahsan 0]

In fact this is the feature i miss in evernote.
I waitied and hesitated more than six months to move from OneNote to Evernote only because Evernote does not have this feature.
But due to OneNotes non-userfirendly mobile app, finally i had to move to Evernote. Since then I have been longing for this feature.
Now, the moment I get this from RELANOTE, I will defintely jump out unless Evernote bring this Sub-Folder features very quickly.

 

[x9sim9 7]

2 hours ago, Abu.Aabdullah.Ahsan said:

In fact, this is the feature (more Sub-Folders of NoteBooks) i miss in evernote for last 3 years.
I waitied and hesitated more than six months to move from OneNote to Evernote only because Evernote does not have this feature.
But due to OneNotes non-userfirendly mobile app, finally i had to move to Evernote. Since then I have been longing for this feature.
Now, the moment I get this from RELANOTE, I will defintely jump out unless Evernote bring this Sub-Folder features very quickly.

I stuck with Evernote for almost 3 years waiting for this to arrive, then I found Nimbus Note imported everything from Evernote and switched over. Annoyingly I still have to use Evernote as I have an Evernote scanner but cancelled my premium account. This thread was started well over 10 years ago now, this is just never going to happen, I feel sorry for everyone who has stressed their frustration and the response on the forums has always been the same. You are wrong you don't need subfolders, tags is amazing, its so sad when a company lectures their customers instead of actually listening. I had an issue with Nimbus a while back, emailed them and got a response back straight from the development team, was fixed a few weeks later services just does note compare with Evernote!!!

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, x9sim9 said:

the response on the forums has always been the same. You are wrong you don't need subfolders, tags is amazing, its so sad when a company lectures their customers instead of actually listening.

I think the response is correct - subfolders aren't absolutely necessary for everyone - I manage 50,000+ notes happily within this current system.

But some users clearly feel that they're essential to their particular workflow,  which is perfectly reasonable - except that Evernote never has had subfolders and has never suggested that subfolders will be available in future.  It's fair enough to request that a new feature be added,  but whether or when that gets done is up to the company. It's entirely their choice.

As to lecturing users,  Evernote -as is their normal position- has never made any comment about whether subfolders are good or bad,  other than for one of their employees to point out that the design structure of the base database prevents them from adding a hierarchy in the same format as a tag hierarchy. 

Evernote currently service a community of users something like twice the population of Mexico spread around the world.  Changing the structure of a database in daily use by so many would be like changing the tyres on one race car while it's fully committed to overtaking another.

Ironically Evernote are (they say) in process of completely re-coding all of their apps for all operating systems (See the Evernote Blog), so they may have already included some feature upgrades. But they don't preview details, so we'll probably have to wait until the new versions hit the streets to see what new features exist.

...And while new players in this market with way fewer users can react to individual comments,  Evernote simply have too many users to respond individually - hence this forum.

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, x9sim9 said:

its so sad when a company lectures their customers instead of actually listening. ...subfolders...

I don't see Evernote "lecturing", but it's true the product doesn't support folders/subfolders
Users requiring this legacy methodology should be looking at other products   
fwiw  Some users emulate folders and subfolders using the notebook/tag trees

I merged these posts with the primary discussion for this feature

There's a story about Henry Ford not listening to customers - they were asking for faster horses   

[tommy@tommybalassa.com 0]

In reading the Posts in the subject of Sub-Notebooks / Nested Notebooks I noticed that these requests go back to 2006/2008 with little if any response from Evernote. I hate tags. They don't work and they are a pain to try and use. They don't work for me. I've tried. It isn't logical and doesn't make sense. I need to be able to see and move around in the hierarchy so that I can properly manage my content. I'm not sure why this is so difficult for Evernote personnel to understand that we all have different needs and ways of doing things and thus Evernote shouldn't seek the lowest common denominator, but rather EN should seek to expand OUR options so that Evernote becomes more flexible and tolerant of it's customers needs. 

My need is to have are as follows. Hopefully someone at Evernote will respond with a respectful,  customer-centric answer

Folder one with Subject name 

+1. Manuscripts = Folder

         +1. Non-Fiction = Folder

               +1. Coding = Folder

                        +1. PHP = Folder

                                   +1. Custom Reference = Folder

                                           Form Handling = Document

                                           Functions = Document

                                           OOP = Document

                       + 2. Javascript

                                   +1. Notes

                        +3. Python

                       + 4. React

                        +5. JQuery

                        +6. JSON

                        +7. MongoDB

                        +8. Ruby

        + 2. Fiction = Folder

                  +1. Literary = Folder

                          + 1.Titles = Folder

                                  +1. Cold Springs Farm = Folder

                                        +1.Characters = Folder

                                           + 1. Charlotte Parker = Folder

                                                        Backstory = Document

                                                        Personality traits and descriptions  = Document

                                            +2. Raymond Stiles

                                        +2. Locations

                                             +1. Cold Springs Farm

                                             +2. Parker County Court house

                                      

                                  +2. The Lighter Side of Death   

                           +2. Reference

                   +Genre

                          +SciFi

                          +Thriller

                          +Fantasy

                          +Romance

 

If there is a way I can see this type of visualization with TAGS, and since I've paid, someone at EN can tutor me in how to use tags to achieve this visualization of the nested folders, then by all means please show me how to do it. Otherwise, nested folders are what is called for and is what I need. 

Thanks 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, tommy@tommybalassa.com said:

I need to be able to see and move around in the hierarchy so that I can properly manage my content.

Not a function I need, but the notebook/tag trees should be useful

>>I hate tags. They don't work and they are a pain to try and use. They don't work for me. I've tried. It isn't logical and doesn't make sense. 

Notebooks and Tags are two fields in a note's metadata   
I successfully make use of both fields

Tags are Evernote's primary tool for organization   
I see advantages    
- multiple assignments to notes        
- hierarchy for unlimited levels   
- 100,000 limit

 

I merged your post with the primary discussion for this feature   
To indicate your support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

[iamjd 0]

Can we have sections in the notebook...?

Like for example there is a topic of say "Chess" and I've some classifications like Journal of ChessLog of my activities, some tactics study, some foundational study, books on chess and my notes on them and so on... As of now If I put them all in one notebook these are gonna get a lot messy - I can use tags but they do not completely serve the purpose... another way is to create a stack of notebooks and create one notebook for each of the mentioned sections... but there's a certain form of hierarchy where a few sections can be clustered into a single notebook which I will have to struggle from within the stack... Having sections IMHO will enhance a better clustering of notes...

It's a feature request...and not something that is totally a blocker. 

[CalS 5,280]

13 hours ago, iamjd said:

Can we have sections in the notebook...?

Requested many times.  Search for nested notebooks and put your vote there.

[DTLow 5,736]

13 hours ago, iamjd said:

Can we have sections in the notebook...?

Evernote supports two levels of organization for notebooks; Stacks > Notebooks   
For unlimited organization levels, Evernote supports Tags and hierarchy

I merged your post with the ongoing  request discussion

[umtpro 0]

Just want to add to this thread again to bring some more notice to it but nested notebooks would be so very helpful. Most people have multiple areas of their lives and it would be nice to organize our notes based on those areas. In our daily lives we might have notebooks for different occasions, but I wouldn't carry all of them to every event. I would put my school related notebooks in a backpack, and my work related notebooks at my office desk, my notebooks for doodling would be in a crafts cabinet, etc etc. With the current layout we just aren't able to organize as much as we would be with Microsoft word documents in folders on a computer. Just as an example of how I would use this, if I had this functionality I would organize my notes similarly to this: 

School 

     Stats

          Homework Notes

          Class Notes

     DatabaseDesign

          Class Notes

          Lab Notes

          Homework Notes

     Government Class 

          Class Notes

          Homework Notes

     Archived School

          2020

               Spring

          2019 

               Spring

               Fall

          2018

               Spring

               Fall

Work

     Meeting Notes

          Weekly Team Meeting

               8/25/2020

               8/17/2020

    Software Packaging

          Training

               MSI/MST 

               EXE Packaging

               .Jav Packaging

... 

This would make evernote so much more productive. I agree that Tags are super handy, but don't completely add this functionality. 

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, umtpro said:

Most people have multiple areas of their lives and it would be nice to organize our notes based on those areas

Evernote's primary organization tool is the Tags feature.    
It supports a hierarchy with unlimited levels

>>With the current layout we just aren't able to organize as much as we would be with Microsoft word documents in folders on a computer

Word documents can be stored as note attachments      
Some users emulate folders using the notebook/tag trees

>>I agree that Tags are super handy, but don't completely add this functionality

imho Notebooks don't completely add this functionality; tags are a better tool

>>nested notebooks would be so very helpful

There is a request posted at the top of the discussion   
To indicate your support, use the vote button at the top left corner

[lemonsalt 2]

Another vote for this feature. It seems clear to me that Evernote will never make this available, and they don't care how many customers they lose. I'm a paying customer, and I'm leaving because of this. Notejoy, Nimbus Note, OneNote and a host of others let you nest about as much as you want. Even 1 extra level of nesting from Evernote, and I'd stay because their web clipper is by far the best. Still, it's easier to work around the web clipper issues with another product (and hope it develops the features I need eventually) than deal with not having nested notebooks.

Nested folders are how we have all learned to use computers. Search fails if you can't remember the exact words, so effective browsing will always be necessary. And that needs at least one more level of subcategorization than Evernote is apparently willing to give. I don't get it.

[olek3a 2]

9 minutes ago, lemonsalt said:

Another vote for this feature. It seems clear to me that Evernote will never make this available, and they don't care how many customers they lose. I'm a paying customer, and I'm leaving because of this. Notejoy, Nimbus Note, OneNote and a host of others let you nest about as much as you want. Even 1 extra level of nesting from Evernote, and I'd stay because their web clipper is by far the best. Still, it's easier to work around the web clipper issues with another product (and hope it develops the features I need eventually) than deal with not having nested notebooks.

Nested folders are how we have all learned to use computers. Search fails if you can't remember the exact words, so effective browsing will always be necessary. And that needs at least one more level of subcategorization than Evernote is apparently willing to give. I don't get it.

That obsolete paradigm is used by OneNote, those who need it are not Evernote customers. If you can classify things thoroughly before capturing them, you just chose the wrong tool. I want to capture quickly without thinking what folder should I choose first. Or putting new notes to inbox and sorting them manually later. For effective browsing I learned advanced search in Evernote and it helps a lot. I only wish they wouldn't discontinue search by geolocation. 

[gazumped 11,652]

23 minutes ago, lemonsalt said:

It seems clear to me that Evernote will never make this available, and they don't care how many customers they lose

Evernote have never given any indication of approval or otherwise.  One of their techs has commented that adding a hierarchy to their current structure is IMPOSSIBLE,  so I don't think they can do anything about losing customers for the moment.  There is however a major restructuring going on which may improve things from your point of view.  Meantime I'm managing to maintain a database of 51,000 notes and I can find what I need,  when I need it, with very little difficulty. 

If you don't get on with the flat database style though,  that's fine - there are lots of options for you.