Evernote..Anyone Still Using It?

This post summarizes in a nutshell why Evernote still is missing the curve. They are trying to solve collaboration “problems” that others like Slack, Google, Dropbox, Microsoft and even Apple long ago solved - and solved well. And they ignored the real problems like formatting(!) that have plagued their core pro “solo” users for years This gave rise to Bear and Apple Notes. If you put any more of your data in Evernote, you are risking getting it out into a form you can easily use elsewhere, IMHO.

Anything else besides collaboration? Anything focused on iOS?

Any word on an updated/refreshed Mac app?

We didn’t discuss that. We were focused exclusively on collaboration.

No, I’m afraid not. However, it would surprise me if they are working on it. I am very impressed with Chris O’Neil, their relatively new CEO. He is humble and listens well.

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I really keep my formatting to a minimum for the reasons others have described. I agree that this really needs to be fixed.

I am still using Evernote and can’t imagine a time when I won’t be. Having said that I Do worry about hearing some news some time about them shutting down because they are pretty bad when it comes to updates and fixing identified issues. Personally I use it as a kind of brain repository and less of a tool for creating anything. With that in mind I like to think of myself as someone with one eye on what’s next. I’ve been burying my head in the sand on this one so I am interested in how others feel about it too.

I, too, long term EN user. But I’m experimenting with Keep It. Using it for a few projects, and so far find it quite good. Also looking at Google Keep. Hm.

This whole external brain thing is a head scratcher…

Keep it looks great, but it doesn’t currently have some of the features that I really need from Evernote.

Ever looked in to DEVONthink? heard many good things.

I used to use DevonThink. It had some good features and I can see why people use it. It’s similar to EN but I have found that Evernote is way better at capture, or at least it was the last time I tried DT (years ago), and I feel like EN has a much stronger base, development, and support. That’s where I want an app where I store 90% of my thinking.

I’m still using EN, and OCR (I think that’s only on the Premium version now) is the primary reason why I continue to pay for a subscription and use the service, secondarily I like folders and Stacks for research projects (scientist) to keep things piled up together and accessible wherever I’m at. However, with iCloud getting better and better all the time, I feel like lately I’m running out of reasons to stick with EN, but have so much invested in it (nearly 3k notes at the time of me writing this: 2942) so whatever I move to would need to have the same OCR, search ability, and folder-type organization structure in order to get me to jump.

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I have been a long time Evernote user but about a year ago I started moving some things to OneNote. I really like the note organization capabilities of OneNote — I like them better than Evernote. The free form layout is sort of a mixed bag. I like the capability but find that it is difficult to control.

After a year I am moving away from OneNote (I never dropped Evernote, just using them for different things). Although I will miss the note organization features, OneNote on the Mac has a set of idiosyncrasies that I just got tired of. Just to name a few:

  1. Attached files don’t show their full file names. (I found a way around it but just more stuff to do)
  2. Attached files are not accessible from the web view. I distribute meeting minutes with attachments as a web link to my note and the attached files can’t be clicked on. So I have to upload them to the cloud and include a link in the minutes.
  3. You can’t share a note, just a full notebook. This is a pain.
  4. Printing to a PDF isn’t very good. I can’t control where page breaks are (nor in Evernote), but it seems to have a propensity for splitting a line of text horizontally (top half of letters on one page and bottom half on the next page :frowning_face:
  5. Getting stuff out is hard (which is one of my biggest complaints about Evernote, but why deal with the problem in two programs).

So, I am slowly migrating the stuff that I have been doing in OneNote back to Evernote. After about a year I feel like I gave it a fair shot.

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I came across this YouTube video with the Evernote CEO which gave me hope, but also caused me to wonder - are they focusing so much on team collaboration that they are ignoring those of us who use EN for a second brain?

At my job, we are completely Google Apps based, so I don’t see a need to move away from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. for an Evernote alternative. In addition, I’m sure our IT department does not want to pay for another subscription service when we already have alternatives that work in place. Curious to hear what everyone’s thoughts are? Do you think they are pivoting to a more corporate solution and away from their initial power users?

Terribly bad form to link to your own blog, I know, but I promise, it’s relevant to this discussion! I’m an academic who for many years used Evernote for all his notes and research material, but I’ve jumped ship to DEVONthink Pro Office, and life couldn’t be better. I have two articles which explore the problems I found with Evernote, and the advantages of DEVONthink (I also have a third about how you can use Evernote and DEVONthink alongside each other, but I can only post two links! You can find this one directly on Medium). I’d be very interested to hear what you guys think.

The Trouble with Evernote

DEVONthink: Escaping the Silo

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Here’s the third link:

Using DEVONthink and Evernote Alongside Each Other

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I will check these both out for sure, no need to apologize! Academics have to stick together and look for better ways of doing things this day and age :slight_smile:

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I’ve been a premium subscriber for years. But now that OminFocus has tags, I’m planning on going back to basic come re-up time

I have been an Evernote user for 10 years, and I admit I get tired of it and start to look around. I have just become so efficient with it by quickly getting notes into it and finding things with search that I stick with it (the paid version). Their app scannable works well and feeds directly into Evernote, same thing with Skitch. The little quick note tool on the menu bar gets used multiple times per day. I email into it, drag documents into it, and I share multiple notebooks with people. It all adds up to an essential tool.

Oh… and it has my “I’ve been hit by a bus” information in it. That note is shared with both my wife and daughter. Using it in life, and maybe death. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Looks like we have found out what Evernote has been up to recently. I was surprised when I saw an app update on my iPad for a new brand refresh for Evernote. They wrote quite a lengthy blog post about it here. Let’s hope that this means they are now back to improving features and workflows for users :crossed_fingers: