I’m a long time Evernote user. I use it cross platform, at work, individually and with my family. I use it as a reference store for lots of e-mail and online things - receipts, useful articles I want to make sure I always have a copy of. It’s OCR feature is invaluable for much of the content that goes in and whilst I don’t feel the need for a personal journal, it is my work journal for everything I’ve done that day.
Whilst I could accomplish much of the above with a file system and a comprehensive system search function, I’d miss out on the simple content sharing, the web clipping and the OCR of things like images of whiteboards that I add into it.
I haven’t seen anything that comes anywhere appreciably close to matching these points. I guess Google Keep and Microsoft One Note would be the closest. But many of the favoured Mac options are confined to the Apple-sphere and whilst I love my Apple Tech I work with and across a variety of platforms and I want to be able to get my suff wherever and whenever.
That’s not to say there aren’t some annoyances of course. The ENML note format is nice in many respects and frustrating in others. Code and Markdown are not things that in my experience are well handled by this platform.
I’m a long-time Evernote user and haven’t seen a need to change, although Bear and Apple Notes seem like good alternatives if I ever felt like switching. Like @Eurobubba, I really enjoy the Evernote web clipper! I also appreciate the fact that there’s a web interface, so I can use Evernote even if I’m not on my own computer. (Well, yes, I could use it on my iPhone, but I’m a poor phone typist and I often use Evernote for writing.)
I use it daily. Cross platform, great clipper and Scannable integration. I use OneNote at work but Evernote stands out really in one area, search. Search is great on the apps and computer, and hits are shown when you are searching google.
I’m doing a web development course and have gone back to it for that reason alone. I’m saving snippets of information relating to various things I discover along the way. I tried using it as an everything bucket some time ago and ended up hating it so now I have a very specific use case and I find that’s better.
I signed up for Evernote a few months after they began in 2008. I played with it for quite a while until I finally understood what it was and how to use it. I think it was great in the beginning and it was constantly getting better and i think was a technology leader. I was a paid subscriber for years and was very happy with it.
But a few years ago things really started to radically change all of a sudden. The CEO left the company which he always stated he was building a 100 year company. The monthly and yearly subscriptions have gone up and I believe they had some privacy issues. I also dont like that it is so hard to get your stuff out of Evernote if you want to bounce to another platform. And with the free account you now can only have two devices that sync your account. It just doesn’t work for me anymore. I do still use it for one feature as when i take a picture and want to have a caption for it. And i might jut start using apple notes for that.
I use it because it’s the only thing that Noteshelf2 auto-publishes to. Also, nice support with IFTTT/Zapier makes it easy to run some workflows (for instance, all my liked Tweets are in one notebook).
I’m a long time user of Evernote. I use it for filing all my documents (bills, contracts, receipts, correspondence), but also use it as my note taking application (in combination with the Apple Pencil). Still happy with the product and a paying customer for years now.
I’ve been using the free version of Evernote for a few years and am very happy with it. I’m surprised that it gets compared with Notes as I’ve always thought of Notes as a much more barebones app that complements something like Evernote but is not a replacement for it.
As such I use Notes as a scratchpad to scribble things down and make rough drafts as it’s faster and easier to access. @Bmosbacker’s term quick notes and short bits of information, which I’ve just come across describes my use of Notes perfectly. On the other hand, I use Evernote for storing records (mainly text ones like subscription information, lists etc; not many PDFs or images) and notes I want to keep long term. I also like the web clipper but end up using it rarely.
Notes has always felt too basic and informal to store anything important/long-term and Evernote, though not perfect, has worked well for me.
Still using Evernote especially with Scanner Pro on iPhone. Scanner pro comes with their own workflow-like scriots that can move scanned docs to Evernote and Dropbox. I don’t really use it for note taking as much. For that I use apple notes on the Mac or iPad. Also I’m finding I journal business and personal items more often in Day One lately instead of EN.
I actually just went back to Evernote after a few years off. During that time, I tried:
Apple Notes
Bear
Ulysses
Plain text w/ nvALT
Simple Notes
None of those ever felt right, whereas Evernote just seems to click. Although for most of my writing I prefer Markdown docs, rich text for notes is a big win. The readability and options to add actual tables can’t be beaten. Plus, Evernote’s Web Clipper is easily the best tool of its type. Indispensable for everyday browsing and clipping information I want to reference later.
I really like Evernote, love the easy way you can get emails into it into the correct notebook with the correct tag. Like any app I use it could do with some improvements but it’s the best filing cabinet I’ve found so far and I’ve been looking a very long time.
There’s a lot of good in Evernote. I used it and tried to like it for a long time.
I just don’t like using it. The feel, the look, and when they switched the default linking so it opens on the web vs. in the app, that was it for me.
Something else I’ve realized about myself is that I dislike notes apps with inboxes and note counts next to folders. Apple Notes, Evernote, and DEVONthink all do this. When they become bloated, you can see the bloat.
I like being able to shove a ton of stuff into Bear and Bear never makes me feel bad or unorganized if I haven’t had time to organize.
But I realize this is all personal to me and my usage.
I just don’t like using it. The feel, the look, and when they switched the default linking so it opens on the web vs. in the app, that was it for me.
When you’re using Evernote on the Mac, if you Control+Click on a note you’ll see an item that reads “Copy Note Link”. If you hold down the ⌥ Option key, this will change to “Copy Classic Note Link”. The resulting link will open the native Evernote app, instead of Evernote Web.
Something else I’ve realized about myself is that I dislike notes apps with inboxes and note counts next to folders. Apple Notes, Evernote, and DEVONthink all do this. When they become bloated, you can see the bloat.
You can easily turn off these note counts in Evernote by going to Evernote > Preferences and unchecking “Show note counts in sidebar”. I have my note counts turned off.
I’m very concerned about the future of EN. Wish we could get a concrete answer about where they are going. Their mobile strategy going forward. Upcoming features roadmap. Etc
I currently use DT, but used EN for years and still like the app.
Thank you for this reminder…Move the rest of my files out of Evernote. It’s been a chore to do, and feels a bit like a hostage situation, but I really should clear this task from my docket.
I like the whole external brain concept, and have wanted to love Evernote, but find it to be a solution looking for a problem. I’m happy (perhaps even a bit envious) for those who have developed an Evernote workflow, but it hasn’t been a good fit for me.
