Notebooks is cross platform, iPad, iPhone, Mac and PC.
Lots more listed here. With more Windows-capable than you’ll probably hear about from folks here.
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I like Bear a lot. I know it’s really designed as a writing app, but I use iA Writer for writing, and Bear’s worked well for me as an Evernote replacement. Plus it’s only $15/year.
There’s no PC version and no web interface though, so your PC will be left out in the cold, which may be a dealbreaker.
Edited to add: Bear provides an explanation of how to import from Evernote that includes both tips for an improved import experience and cautions about the limitations of the process.
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Unless the Notes importer has been greatly improved in the last couple of years, all I can say is it is better than nothing. I too had a ton of pdf files and all survived the import. Text documents lost a lot of formatting, no spacing between paragraphs, etc. Bookmarks were basically worthless after import.
I later moved all my PDFs from Notes to Google Drive because the full text search is much better than on my Mac or IOS. I still keep some text in Notes, my lists & bookmarks are in Google Keep.
It’s a shame what happened to Evernote. They really were the best at what they do. If they can get their problems sorted out I might be tempted to get them another try.
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My question would be, “How much of that is still relevant?” I’ll bet that if you spend some time to go through all this stuff and weed out what you haven’t looked at in years and what isn’t even there anymore, that you could realistically cut it significantly. That would leave much less to export and maybe open your options for other platforms.
Just save an .enex file with everything in your current account for an archive and put it aside. Then begin cleaning house in Evernote and see what options open up for you.
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For people with a lot of PDFs, I would recommend using a reference manager like Bookends.
I suppose its utility might depend on what the PDFs are for. If the metadata stored by Bookends (author, title, year published, abstract, etc.) doesn’t fit the PDFs, something like DEVONthink might be more appropriate.
Dumping everything into Notes doesn’t seem like a good fit, IMO.
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I jumped from EN to DevonThink Pro and used this forum to help me do it.
The import ENEX tool was slick. The learning curve is steep but doable. I have been happy over-all. The new version 3 betas have some nice improvements, but mostly they modernized the UX.
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Wow…this program is LOADED with features. I just purchased it…thanks for the heads up.
I don’t know if I want to replace Evernote with it, but it may take over a prominent place in my writing workflow.
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I too moved from EN to DevonThink. It is a great app.
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I have moved to Notejoy. It has a clipper like Evernote but currently only for Chome and Firefox and also like Evernote you can email in notes.
Keep It should be a good alternative. I’m going to make that switch soon as well
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Keep It recently, finally clicked for me as a repository for reference material. Reliability and speed of sync have improved a lot. The near parity in features between iOS and macOS, along with the nicer UI/UX makes me prefer it to DevonThink. Being able to create saved searches on iOS is particularly nice.
I do not use it for notes much, though. Support for Markdown could use some enhancements:
- Preview of linked images stored in Keep It. DevonThink and Notebooks have this feature.
- Making folders available as locations to text editors such as iA Writer or 1Writer. This might be an iOS Files limitation.
- Per-item or per-folder specification of a stylesheet. The stylesheet is currently set globally. DevonThink lets you specify the location of CSS in a header, and Notebooks allows you to set it up on a per-item or per-folder basis.
Good to hear. Right now I’m still mostly using Mac-only EagleFiler, and have dipped my toes in the Notebooks water, but haven’t fully gotten wet yet.
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DEVONthink is a real power tool.I would go for that
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Notebooks looks interesting however essentially they have the same business model as Evernote - they are a ‘pure play’ notes application/company. If Evernote struggles making their business case work is there any reason to think Notebooks will not eventually have the same problem. I am heavily invested in Evernote and prefer to migrate to another notes app one time. In other words, I’d hate to migrate to Notebooks then have to migrate to another note platform in the future. (Of course, nothing in certain with OneNote or Apple Notes too).
I tried whole-heartedly to move to DT, but it just seems like overkill for my needs. It worked well, but with the upgrade to DT3, I just can’t justify the expense.
Also tried Notebooks, but something just doesn’t click with me, don’t know what it is, but stuff just didn’t go in easy or come out easy.
For now, my bucket is EagleFiler, like @bowline It just needs an iOS client…
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Apples and oranges, I think (maybe apples and ceviche): one’s a service with server costs and thousands of employees, the other is a typical indie developer. And the products are different too, despite their commonalities. Dinging Notebooks would also be dinging apps like Keep It! and even DevonThink.
For now I’ve just decided to keep using EagleFiler on the Mac, and either migrate files to it from iOS when needed, or else I use Apple Notes (and Google Keep, and Ulysses) for cross-platform stuff.
I’d love to find a single replacement for EagleFiler (as the dev has expressed zero interest in an iOS app) but with the periodic reports here and elsewhere of sync issues with some apps using iCloud, and my not wanting to upgrade my Dropbox account, I’m content to make do for the time being.
I have Notebooks and the latest version is quite nice, but I’m just really conservative about switching, and I’ve had three good years with EagleFiler (and nine mixed years with DevonNote/DevonThink/DevonThink Pro before that).
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Any commercial app can go away with no warning at any time. Apple Notes is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. When Apple decides to sunset the app they will have a replacement. For those reasons, if I were in Bernt’s position I’d be moving to Notes (or One Note for its PC compatibility).
To cite David, .txt, .pdf, and .jpg are formats that will last, proprietary formats will only last as long as the developer wants it to.
I was highly invested in Evernote and broke away four or so years ago. I was having problems using Evernote and couldn’t quite put my finger on what the issue was. Then I came across this article by Alex Payne and was really persuaded by his argument:
After studying that, I abandoned Evernote and developed a system using the file system, purpose-specific database tools like Zotero for reference material (where the files are still just saved in my file system), Lit Softwares suite of apps for my trial practice; Logos for theological materials, Paprika for recipes and cooking-related howtos and information, and others. I realized in using Evernote that I was not doing anything with information other than collecting it. Now, I actually process the information I obtain and synthesize it into my broader knowledgebase. There have been a lot of really positive effects for me. First, I have an easier time finding things. Second, I get more use from the information I have (e.g., as a trivial example, building out my Paprika database has paid great dividends when it comes to ease in planning, shopping, and cooking). Third, I don’t have to re-process the information I have collected every time I need to use it. I processed it at the beginning, so the next time I need to do something with it, I can build on top of what I have rather than rebuild.
So, my thought is that if you are going away from Evernote, don’t replace it with another Evernote. Build a system based around tools that maximize your ability to quickly access and extract useful insights from the information you are keeping.
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