Enshittification (and some deshittification) of note-taking software
December 1, 2023 6:39 PM Subscribe
It’s official: Evernote will restrict free users to 50 notes. After Bending Spoons acquired Evernote in November 2022, the company laid off 129 people in February 2023. At that time, a spokesperson told TechCrunch that the notetaking app has “been unprofitable for years and the situation was unsustainable in the long term.” I was lucky enough to see this in my news feed yesterday, and went into scramble mode. More luck: I quickly found noteapps.info, which not only catalogs the features of different notes apps, but also allows you to do side-by-side comparisons of the features, or dynamically filter your search by feature. I had to ask...who would go to all the trouble of making this, and why?
It turns out to be maintained by the makers of AmpleNote. Nonetheless, if they're putting their thumb on the scale, it didn't work in my case..but I'll save my plug for the comments.
After about a decade of grumbling about how Evernote keeps adding features that I don't want and taking away the ones that I liked, then reading people's arguments about it in the Evernote forum, I've had to accept that everyone wants something different from a note-taking app. notesapps.info seems like a great tool for finding the best fit for you!
It turns out to be maintained by the makers of AmpleNote. Nonetheless, if they're putting their thumb on the scale, it didn't work in my case..but I'll save my plug for the comments.
After about a decade of grumbling about how Evernote keeps adding features that I don't want and taking away the ones that I liked, then reading people's arguments about it in the Evernote forum, I've had to accept that everyone wants something different from a note-taking app. notesapps.info seems like a great tool for finding the best fit for you!
I canceled my Evernote sub as soon as I heard about the layoffs and told them that was exactly why they no longer had my business. I've since migrated all of my notes to the open-source Joplin app (featured on noteapps.info), which doesn't have as deep of a feature set, but honestly I never used 3/4 of the extra bells and whistles Evernote added over the years so nothing lost there. I also like how they allow you to sync between devices with via a variety of cloud storage services, including Dropbox.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:56 PM on December 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:56 PM on December 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I dropped Evernote (reluctantly, because it had been a great piece of software) several years ago when they limited the number of devices you could use. Since I had four (phone, ipad, desktop, and laptop) and wanted to be able to take notes anytime, it was frustrating.
I switched to Dropbox Paper, which isn't as feature-laden, but syncs everywhere, so I'm happy.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:58 PM on December 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
I switched to Dropbox Paper, which isn't as feature-laden, but syncs everywhere, so I'm happy.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:58 PM on December 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
I switched to Notion and am now moving over to Obsidian having learned painfully that any proprietary system will devour your archives from technical or business disasters.
Text text text and files in folders!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:12 PM on December 1, 2023 [32 favorites]
Text text text and files in folders!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:12 PM on December 1, 2023 [32 favorites]
I've tried many of the apps on that list. The best for Android is Bundled Notes.
For iOS, it's Drafts, which isn't even on their list, which is ridiculous. If I were designing a notes app myself, it would end up being Drafts.
Caveat: I hate Evernote and can't believe anyone uses it. I swore off it when they had that ridiculous Privacy issue in 2016.
posted by dobbs at 7:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
For iOS, it's Drafts, which isn't even on their list, which is ridiculous. If I were designing a notes app myself, it would end up being Drafts.
Caveat: I hate Evernote and can't believe anyone uses it. I swore off it when they had that ridiculous Privacy issue in 2016.
posted by dobbs at 7:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Obsidian and/or just .md files is what I landed on. I've been able to make dumb appending scripts with bash, something I'd never even thought of with Evernote or Paper.
posted by german_bight at 7:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by german_bight at 7:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
I am a longtime user of SimpleNote, which is currently owned by Automattic, and has -- blissfully -- relatively few features.
posted by feckless at 7:30 PM on December 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by feckless at 7:30 PM on December 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
I have used Evernote for years and hate it. Only reason I haven’t switched is that I barely use it, mainly to share grocery lists, and it can’t even do that very well. Maybe this is the impetus I need to final get off that shit.
posted by slogger at 7:40 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 7:40 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
vi and .md files will always be there for you
posted by Going To Maine at 7:54 PM on December 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 7:54 PM on December 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
QOwnNotes + Syncthing.
posted by genpfault at 8:12 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by genpfault at 8:12 PM on December 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Should any of this make me break my habit of just sending emails to myself?
posted by clawsoon at 8:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 8:15 PM on December 1, 2023 [28 favorites]
Should any of this make me break my habit of just sending emails to myself?
Nope.
I watched someone on Mastodon excoriating themselves for not "settling on a single note-taking system" because of all the lost opportunity it represented, and it made me sad for them. They drank the ridiculous Kool-Aid around Zettelkasten, convinced that if they'd only picked one thing to capture their thoughts those many years ago, they might be working on book no. 48 right now.
It's natural and healthy to move from tool to tool, periodically burn something to the ground or simply forget it exists, etc. etc. And it's definitely okay to just do whatever works for as long as it does.
(Emacs + Denote using org syntax is best, though.)
posted by Pudding Yeti at 8:39 PM on December 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
Nope.
I watched someone on Mastodon excoriating themselves for not "settling on a single note-taking system" because of all the lost opportunity it represented, and it made me sad for them. They drank the ridiculous Kool-Aid around Zettelkasten, convinced that if they'd only picked one thing to capture their thoughts those many years ago, they might be working on book no. 48 right now.
It's natural and healthy to move from tool to tool, periodically burn something to the ground or simply forget it exists, etc. etc. And it's definitely okay to just do whatever works for as long as it does.
(Emacs + Denote using org syntax is best, though.)
posted by Pudding Yeti at 8:39 PM on December 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
Should any of this make me break my habit of just sending emails to myself?
Actually don't even click send. I've had several years of grocery lists on a single email in the drafts folder.
posted by sammyo at 8:49 PM on December 1, 2023 [23 favorites]
Actually don't even click send. I've had several years of grocery lists on a single email in the drafts folder.
posted by sammyo at 8:49 PM on December 1, 2023 [23 favorites]
Should any of this make me break my habit of just sending emails to myself?
Not until you start demanding read receipts.
posted by fairmettle at 9:42 PM on December 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
Not until you start demanding read receipts.
posted by fairmettle at 9:42 PM on December 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
I love Obsidian. It is finally a notetaking tool that feels exactly right for my brain. Here's what I love about it:
* It's very easy to get a thought out instantly: ctrl-o and start typing to open a note. If a note with that title exists, it opens it. If not, it makes a new one with that title. Then start typing: it autosaves so you don't need to worry about switching to another note and forgetting to save.
* It is extremely customizable. For example: I have a plugin that searches the Board Game Geek database for a board game and makes a new note with a bunch of info about that game, which I am finally using to keep track of games I play. You don't need any of them to start (it's plenty useful out of the box!) but if there's something you want Obsidian to do, you can probably make it do it.
* All of the data is text files, in markdown format in a folder on your computer/phone. If they sell the program to a venture capital firm and they make it suck, I can just fall back to text
* Linking files together in a wiki-like format is as easy as putting [[brackets]] around a phrase, so it's easy to have lots of little notes that link to each other
* There's a pretty graph view that shows how your notes connect to each other. It's not that useful, IMO, but it is neat and it encourages you to interconnect your notes
* It is really fast--Evernote always felt slow, no matter how many times they rewrote it
* It is designed for a single user. Evernote and Notion and so many other apps fall into the trap of trying to be collaboration tools. That's not what this is for: this is for making an "external brain" that fits with how *you* alone think.
There is a cult of people who love the Zettlekasten system of note taking who also love this Obsidian. I read a book about it, and it seems great for academic writing! But don't feel like you need to do homework here: You can ignore all of that if you want. I would say, just play with Obsidian for a bit, and then adjust your approach as you find uses for it.
posted by JDHarper at 10:18 PM on December 1, 2023 [22 favorites]
* It's very easy to get a thought out instantly: ctrl-o and start typing to open a note. If a note with that title exists, it opens it. If not, it makes a new one with that title. Then start typing: it autosaves so you don't need to worry about switching to another note and forgetting to save.
* It is extremely customizable. For example: I have a plugin that searches the Board Game Geek database for a board game and makes a new note with a bunch of info about that game, which I am finally using to keep track of games I play. You don't need any of them to start (it's plenty useful out of the box!) but if there's something you want Obsidian to do, you can probably make it do it.
* All of the data is text files, in markdown format in a folder on your computer/phone. If they sell the program to a venture capital firm and they make it suck, I can just fall back to text
* Linking files together in a wiki-like format is as easy as putting [[brackets]] around a phrase, so it's easy to have lots of little notes that link to each other
* There's a pretty graph view that shows how your notes connect to each other. It's not that useful, IMO, but it is neat and it encourages you to interconnect your notes
* It is really fast--Evernote always felt slow, no matter how many times they rewrote it
* It is designed for a single user. Evernote and Notion and so many other apps fall into the trap of trying to be collaboration tools. That's not what this is for: this is for making an "external brain" that fits with how *you* alone think.
There is a cult of people who love the Zettlekasten system of note taking who also love this Obsidian. I read a book about it, and it seems great for academic writing! But don't feel like you need to do homework here: You can ignore all of that if you want. I would say, just play with Obsidian for a bit, and then adjust your approach as you find uses for it.
posted by JDHarper at 10:18 PM on December 1, 2023 [22 favorites]
Seconding SimpleNote. Kind of hard to take that noteapps.info overview seriously when it doesn't list the best, simplest note-taking app there is.
Search Mefi for previous mentions of SimpleNote. It's great, and has been great for a very long time. Plain text only, instant sync everywhere, iOS+Android+web.
AKnotepad, Snaptic, Catch ...
posted by intermod at 10:24 PM on December 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Search Mefi for previous mentions of SimpleNote. It's great, and has been great for a very long time. Plain text only, instant sync everywhere, iOS+Android+web.
AKnotepad, Snaptic, Catch ...
posted by intermod at 10:24 PM on December 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
I just cranked up foam for vscode/github but maybe Obsidian is going to be better….
posted by drowsy at 10:47 PM on December 1, 2023
posted by drowsy at 10:47 PM on December 1, 2023
Pick one that's easy to leave. If you can't automatically export everything to a standard file format that other applications can read -- or that you can read without using the app -- you don't want to use it.
posted by pracowity at 11:11 PM on December 1, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 11:11 PM on December 1, 2023 [21 favorites]
Joplin has been my choice recently. Very much an Evernote like app but open source. It even has a web clipper extension. It also has multiple sync choices for the backend (Dropbox, etc) and user created plugins.
posted by d_hill at 11:21 PM on December 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by d_hill at 11:21 PM on December 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Not sure if the people flocking from one proprietary cloud service to the next are learning the right lessons.
posted by donio at 11:38 PM on December 1, 2023 [29 favorites]
posted by donio at 11:38 PM on December 1, 2023 [29 favorites]
No matter how hard I try, I always just end up with notepad++ and a hundred tabs open on my desktop..
posted by sarahdal at 12:19 AM on December 2, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by sarahdal at 12:19 AM on December 2, 2023 [12 favorites]
One thing to do ASAP is to export each notebook from Evernote and put them somewhere safe - you can then import them into whatever other app you choose later, whatever Evernote does to your data. Evernote now seems to force you to export each notebook individually, I had about 150 of them so that was fun.
Apple Notes will import notebooks exported from Evernote but seems to lose the images, which isn't ideal.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:28 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Apple Notes will import notebooks exported from Evernote but seems to lose the images, which isn't ideal.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:28 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't blame Evernote's owners for wanting to make some money and boot the freeloaders (like me) who are never going to pay them. Just 50 notes? I'm out. I have thousands of texts written over a number of years. (All exported for backup before, and all exported again recently after reading this news.)
But simple text management tools are a dime a dozen. I have higher expectations of software these days. Sometimes I go back and surprise myself with things I don't remember ever reading, writing, or knowing. So I want a writing system that's smart enough to prompt me with more than a blinking cursor. It should be (if I don't turn this function off) a confidential secretary and research assistant and therapist. Have it read all my notes and "think" about them and help me organize them, talk to me about them, construct things from them, suggest new possibilities, work iteratively with me to help me widen or narrow things into productive avenues. And check my spelling.
To concoct an example, it looks at all my files and sees "alligators" and "sleep" coming up in clusters of untypically happy or comfortable texts compared to the corpus it knows. It shows me other concepts from my texts that might be related to one or both of them. It asks me if there's something pleasing or comforting about alligators and sleep (sleeping alligators? sleepy alligators? sleeping near alligators?). It starts a (spoken or typed) conversation with me. "Alligators make you happy, don't they? Did you have alligators, or one special alligator, in your childhood? Have you seen real alligators? Maybe in your dreams? Did you have a toy or stuffed alligator? Alligator pajamas or bed sheets? Do you remember any pictures or stories or songs or poems about alligators?" It knows when and where I have ever lived, when and where I was a child, so maybe it can come up with likely alligators from my past. "You visited Florida as a child. Did you see any alligators there?" It makes a file with quotations from my own stuff and links back to the original files and to other things, keeps a record of our conversations, and so on. The results might be stupid, might be fruitful. ("Alligator Pie! I forgot all about that.") If it's doing all the work and I can turn it off or steer it, anything's fine.
And it could also help with more prosaic stuff. If it's looking at previous shopping lists, it can make suggestions for the current list. "Bread. Cheese. Tomatoes. Probably running out of eggs and butter by now. Other suggestions: french fries, vinegar, peanut butter, tea. Take an umbrella. Store closes in 45 minutes."
posted by pracowity at 2:35 AM on December 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
But simple text management tools are a dime a dozen. I have higher expectations of software these days. Sometimes I go back and surprise myself with things I don't remember ever reading, writing, or knowing. So I want a writing system that's smart enough to prompt me with more than a blinking cursor. It should be (if I don't turn this function off) a confidential secretary and research assistant and therapist. Have it read all my notes and "think" about them and help me organize them, talk to me about them, construct things from them, suggest new possibilities, work iteratively with me to help me widen or narrow things into productive avenues. And check my spelling.
To concoct an example, it looks at all my files and sees "alligators" and "sleep" coming up in clusters of untypically happy or comfortable texts compared to the corpus it knows. It shows me other concepts from my texts that might be related to one or both of them. It asks me if there's something pleasing or comforting about alligators and sleep (sleeping alligators? sleepy alligators? sleeping near alligators?). It starts a (spoken or typed) conversation with me. "Alligators make you happy, don't they? Did you have alligators, or one special alligator, in your childhood? Have you seen real alligators? Maybe in your dreams? Did you have a toy or stuffed alligator? Alligator pajamas or bed sheets? Do you remember any pictures or stories or songs or poems about alligators?" It knows when and where I have ever lived, when and where I was a child, so maybe it can come up with likely alligators from my past. "You visited Florida as a child. Did you see any alligators there?" It makes a file with quotations from my own stuff and links back to the original files and to other things, keeps a record of our conversations, and so on. The results might be stupid, might be fruitful. ("Alligator Pie! I forgot all about that.") If it's doing all the work and I can turn it off or steer it, anything's fine.
And it could also help with more prosaic stuff. If it's looking at previous shopping lists, it can make suggestions for the current list. "Bread. Cheese. Tomatoes. Probably running out of eggs and butter by now. Other suggestions: french fries, vinegar, peanut butter, tea. Take an umbrella. Store closes in 45 minutes."
posted by pracowity at 2:35 AM on December 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
If privacy and security are important, Standard Notes is worth a look.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:53 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by Klipspringer at 2:53 AM on December 2, 2023
Ugh. Evernote owes me $6.52, because I paid for a month of Evernote Premium back in July so that Skitch would sync, and it never did. The nag popups have gotten off-the-charts obnoxious, making that app almost unusable, so I had finally decided to pay. But apparently whoever was in charge of paying attention to those purchases over there must have been laid off or something, because the forums all said someone had to manually do something after those purchases through the Apple Store to mark the account paid. It never happened.
Time to back up my data, I guess, and find a new cloud screenshot app. I basically figured Skitch had been abandoned, and nothing has really made me think otherwise.
posted by limeonaire at 3:20 AM on December 2, 2023
Time to back up my data, I guess, and find a new cloud screenshot app. I basically figured Skitch had been abandoned, and nothing has really made me think otherwise.
posted by limeonaire at 3:20 AM on December 2, 2023
Nextcloud plus its notes app for simple things like shopping lists and the collectives app for complicated project wiki type stuff. Very simply backupable and controlled by me not corporate whims. I am quite happy with it (and get a self hosted access anywhere file store along with it, which was the actual point in the first place).
posted by deadwax at 3:21 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by deadwax at 3:21 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I switched to Obsidian a while back and I'm happy enough with it. Evernote did some things very, very well, but I don't want to have my notes in anything I can't easily get them out of (without having to go through a process of converting and/or exporting—with Obsidian, they're just there on my computer).
It was clear to me based on the kinds of features that they were releasing and the pace of change that Evernote wasn't going to be able to keep up with the pace of change in notetaking and knowledge management apps, anyway. And the price is just exorbitant. I don't begrudge them charging for their app but it's definitely not worth it for the value they provide when there are so many other options out there.
posted by synecdoche at 3:34 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
It was clear to me based on the kinds of features that they were releasing and the pace of change that Evernote wasn't going to be able to keep up with the pace of change in notetaking and knowledge management apps, anyway. And the price is just exorbitant. I don't begrudge them charging for their app but it's definitely not worth it for the value they provide when there are so many other options out there.
posted by synecdoche at 3:34 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
DevonThink isn't cheap and it's a heavyweight Mac-only desktop app but it isn't enshittified. But it's "notes" in terms of research, not to-do lists.
There's also OmniGroup's apps (OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan)—but they're also expensive and their upgrade cycle feels kind of exploitative.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:18 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's also OmniGroup's apps (OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan)—but they're also expensive and their upgrade cycle feels kind of exploitative.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:18 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
(DevonThink will let you choose whether to import the files you add to its native database/folder structure, or index regular files and folders with DT just holding the metadata.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:30 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:30 AM on December 2, 2023
Have it read all my notes and "think" about them and help me organize them, talk to me about them, construct things from them, suggest new possibilities, work iteratively with me to help me widen or narrow things into productive avenues. And check my spelling.
So, ChatGTD, as it were.
DT's See Also and Classify features are kind of like this. Though in practice it's not as magical as the marketing (and tutorials) suggest. And not as capable as the current LLMs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:44 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
So, ChatGTD, as it were.
DT's See Also and Classify features are kind of like this. Though in practice it's not as magical as the marketing (and tutorials) suggest. And not as capable as the current LLMs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:44 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was a very early adopter of (and still subscriber to) Evernote, and the past few years have been frustrating from time to time. Especially irksome was that notes regularly would end up with conflicting changes, which, considering I am the only one editing and use only one device at a time, is rather galling, and speaks poorly of whatever they are doing at the backend. This is not something you want to see, when you are grading reports or taking notes during examinations!
In all fairness, in my experience, it has become a better application in the past year or so, but even so, I would like to keep my options open. To that end, I used to backup my Evernotes regularly, and I was frankly astonished when I realised that they had removed the ability to backup everything in one swell foop. I'm not going to backup each and every notebook by hand – that's a machine's work!
Luckily, I do not seem to be the only one with that problem: I just installed and ran evernote-backup, and it seems to work just fine. It even syncs your notes incrementally, as well as exporting to .enex files.
posted by bouvin at 4:51 AM on December 2, 2023
In all fairness, in my experience, it has become a better application in the past year or so, but even so, I would like to keep my options open. To that end, I used to backup my Evernotes regularly, and I was frankly astonished when I realised that they had removed the ability to backup everything in one swell foop. I'm not going to backup each and every notebook by hand – that's a machine's work!
Luckily, I do not seem to be the only one with that problem: I just installed and ran evernote-backup, and it seems to work just fine. It even syncs your notes incrementally, as well as exporting to .enex files.
posted by bouvin at 4:51 AM on December 2, 2023
What I've been wanting for years is an Android app that stores things directly in markdown and has a decent (ie graphical widgets, not just buttons that affect a big text field a la Markor) UI for lists and headings/subheadings. I've been using Orgzly, but it's org format and you're editing the database instead of the files directly so syncing with Syncthing gets messy.
posted by ropeladder at 4:59 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by ropeladder at 4:59 AM on December 2, 2023
It should be (if I don't turn this function off) a confidential secretary and research assistant and therapist.
[Clippy has entered the chat.]
posted by heatherlogan at 5:32 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
[Clippy has entered the chat.]
posted by heatherlogan at 5:32 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
I use Evernote, and I hate Evernote. It holds my recipes. But every single time I have ever used it, I've been harassed to buy it, at least once. If not twice. It's the only program thats ever been that relentless. I could feel this on the way. They do not believe it is a free tool, clearly.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:34 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:34 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
So, the "Ever" in EverNote just became like "unlimited" in Canadian English?
(after someone sued a phone company for providing an "unlimited" data package that had limits, our regulator the CRTC allowed telcos to effectively redefine the word to be "unlimited, within limits")
posted by scruss at 5:36 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
(after someone sued a phone company for providing an "unlimited" data package that had limits, our regulator the CRTC allowed telcos to effectively redefine the word to be "unlimited, within limits")
posted by scruss at 5:36 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
I also tried Joplin and moved back. Now I am very flummoxed. I have one note per recipe, thats it. What the heck am I going to use now? I don't need fancy features. Just want to be able to access notes on my phone if I'm at the store and want to check ingredients.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:43 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:43 AM on December 2, 2023
I've used Evernote since 2010, and I've been a paid user since 2012. Evernote got me, a returning adult student working a full-time job, through both undergrad and grad school by making it easy to create and organize notes for classes.
Evernote is the best note taking app I've used. It's easy to create a note, create a notebook, and add notebooks to a stack (which is how I organized my semesters). You can insert text, images, links, links to other notes, etc. It's a fantastic app.
But, I have been worried over the past few years about how long it's going to last and what I can go to next. And I'm not looking forward to porting my notes from one platform to another.
To be honest, a lot of the newer note taking apps seem like someone said "...I know, let's DISRUPT note taking..." and they had their VC pitch deck written before they had talked to a single potential user. I don't need shiny, I need a place to take notes that stays out of my way.
I might just give up and go with Apple Notes. I've been in the Apple ecosystem since 1996, so that might be the path of least resistance. But I'll be sad to leave Evernote. It's been a trusted friend for a long time now.
posted by ralan at 5:59 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Evernote is the best note taking app I've used. It's easy to create a note, create a notebook, and add notebooks to a stack (which is how I organized my semesters). You can insert text, images, links, links to other notes, etc. It's a fantastic app.
But, I have been worried over the past few years about how long it's going to last and what I can go to next. And I'm not looking forward to porting my notes from one platform to another.
To be honest, a lot of the newer note taking apps seem like someone said "...I know, let's DISRUPT note taking..." and they had their VC pitch deck written before they had talked to a single potential user. I don't need shiny, I need a place to take notes that stays out of my way.
I might just give up and go with Apple Notes. I've been in the Apple ecosystem since 1996, so that might be the path of least resistance. But I'll be sad to leave Evernote. It's been a trusted friend for a long time now.
posted by ralan at 5:59 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
So far "My Recipe Box" Recette Tek seems robust for my use...shows ads but is outright buyable for $8.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:01 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:01 AM on December 2, 2023
Another Obsidian fan. It's a very nice free app. The core data model is simple and they built a very powerful UI on top of it. If you look online you'll find a bunch of Note Enthusiasts with thousands of notes and zettlekastenspielmaschinelieber afficianados and pictures of graphical diagrams with zillions of lines crosslinking notes. Those people are nuts. Obsidian is also great for just a few notes, maybe a couple of folders, no need to complicate it.
If you do want to get fancy, Obsidian has a robust plugin library to add features. The only ones I use are an HTML export (for blog formatting) and a thing to use the Windows system tray.
The one downside / gotcha with Obsidian is while it works great for free, you'll end up wanting to synchronize notes between, say, your phone and your computer. There are ways to hack that for free, I used SyncThing to do it for awhile. But really you want to buy the service and it's kinda pricey at $8/month.
Simplenote is also very good. And recently they put some new developer effort into it, so it's been improving lately.
posted by Nelson at 6:04 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you do want to get fancy, Obsidian has a robust plugin library to add features. The only ones I use are an HTML export (for blog formatting) and a thing to use the Windows system tray.
The one downside / gotcha with Obsidian is while it works great for free, you'll end up wanting to synchronize notes between, say, your phone and your computer. There are ways to hack that for free, I used SyncThing to do it for awhile. But really you want to buy the service and it's kinda pricey at $8/month.
Simplenote is also very good. And recently they put some new developer effort into it, so it's been improving lately.
posted by Nelson at 6:04 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, that tears it. Deleting my data off Evernote is one of those chores you put off knowing full well that this will be happening at some point. When the legacy app got turned off I took that as the first salvo in this process.
Migrating Evernote, given how much I dumped data I dumped into it, was no slam dunk. I had whole workflows set up in there with all my notetaking archived in various notebooks and stacks. None of the hierarchies migrate so you end up with a big vault full of files that's searchable but the original presentation is lost. Some folks seem to have migrated stacks and notebooks using scripted mechanisms which I couldn't get to work. I feel okay that I can find the assoiciated PDF's and jpgs....otherwise searchable in Obsidian.
There's a loss avoidance cognitive barrier to deleting Evernote but anyhoos that's today's task. Long overdue and another lesson to not be overly reliant on cloud based platforms.....please Notion don't take the dark side!!
posted by diode at 6:06 AM on December 2, 2023
Migrating Evernote, given how much I dumped data I dumped into it, was no slam dunk. I had whole workflows set up in there with all my notetaking archived in various notebooks and stacks. None of the hierarchies migrate so you end up with a big vault full of files that's searchable but the original presentation is lost. Some folks seem to have migrated stacks and notebooks using scripted mechanisms which I couldn't get to work. I feel okay that I can find the assoiciated PDF's and jpgs....otherwise searchable in Obsidian.
There's a loss avoidance cognitive barrier to deleting Evernote but anyhoos that's today's task. Long overdue and another lesson to not be overly reliant on cloud based platforms.....please Notion don't take the dark side!!
posted by diode at 6:06 AM on December 2, 2023
*sigh* Look, man, I just want something that will clip recipes from the web and let me search full text afterwards. Is that so very much to ask???
posted by praemunire at 6:09 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 6:09 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Given that I’m entirely on Apple devices outside of work, Notes works for me fine. I have many, many notes there. Meetings? I take notes on my iPad with title of meeting and year-month-day as note title for easy searching. It works well.
On my work computer (Windows) it’s plain text in Notepad++. For an awful lot of other stuff on my own computer, I use BBEdit (free version) to make lists and notes and reminders for things.
Everything can be dumped to (or already is) plain text. My biggest issue really is that I usually use Unix line endings so sharing my notes with a colleague can result in them seeing it as a single block of text if I don’t remember to change to CR/LF before sharing.
I feel bad for people who are seeing their preferred app die a slow death due to enshittification. I feel lucky that I really haven’t ever needed more features to be happy in my own workflow. Looking at the feature compare in the FPP I can’t even begin to think how I’d use some of the features Notes.app is “missing” (I mean I do use the “scan to PDF” feature a lot but that’s built in to the OS, not necessarily into the Notes app itself)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:09 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
On my work computer (Windows) it’s plain text in Notepad++. For an awful lot of other stuff on my own computer, I use BBEdit (free version) to make lists and notes and reminders for things.
Everything can be dumped to (or already is) plain text. My biggest issue really is that I usually use Unix line endings so sharing my notes with a colleague can result in them seeing it as a single block of text if I don’t remember to change to CR/LF before sharing.
I feel bad for people who are seeing their preferred app die a slow death due to enshittification. I feel lucky that I really haven’t ever needed more features to be happy in my own workflow. Looking at the feature compare in the FPP I can’t even begin to think how I’d use some of the features Notes.app is “missing” (I mean I do use the “scan to PDF” feature a lot but that’s built in to the OS, not necessarily into the Notes app itself)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:09 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Been using InkDrop since moving on from Evernote back when they did the "can only be used on x number devices" thing. Have been satisfied with its features.
posted by snwod at 6:11 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by snwod at 6:11 AM on December 2, 2023
Bear notes for iOS
posted by sixswitch at 6:20 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by sixswitch at 6:20 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also not on the list is Dendron, which claims to be "for developers" but seems to me like the best overall choice for everyone.
Dendronposted by ob1quixote at 6:27 AM on December 2, 2023
Dendron is an open-source, local-first, markdown-based, note-taking tool. It's a personal knowledge management solution (PKM) built specifically for developers and integrates natively with IDEs like VSCode.
I just want something that will clip recipes from the web and let me search full text afterwards
For recipes and recipes only, check out Paprika. Good time too, the Black Friday sale is still on. The nice thing about Paprika is a very good recipe importer; you give it the URL for something and it parses it into ingredients, instructions etc. It also seems able to bypass paywalls like NYT Cooking. It does have full text search.
posted by Nelson at 6:48 AM on December 2, 2023 [9 favorites]
For recipes and recipes only, check out Paprika. Good time too, the Black Friday sale is still on. The nice thing about Paprika is a very good recipe importer; you give it the URL for something and it parses it into ingredients, instructions etc. It also seems able to bypass paywalls like NYT Cooking. It does have full text search.
posted by Nelson at 6:48 AM on December 2, 2023 [9 favorites]
i don't email myself but i txt myself stuff all the time.
i snip quotes out of books with my phone-camera, highlight the quote in edit, txt that to myself with a page number to write into a journal later has been good at helping organize this high velocity tsundoku i live amongst.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 6:53 AM on December 2, 2023
i snip quotes out of books with my phone-camera, highlight the quote in edit, txt that to myself with a page number to write into a journal later has been good at helping organize this high velocity tsundoku i live amongst.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 6:53 AM on December 2, 2023
Sticking to Evernote for now because I am only a light user and pay $5/mo for the personal version, but the recent brouhaha has convninced me to export everything and stick it somewhere safe for the inevitable day when I do need to do something else.
posted by briank at 6:54 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by briank at 6:54 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Other suggestions: french fries, vinegar, peanut butter, tea. Take an umbrella. Store closes in 45 minutes."
There is a fine line to tread there though. Step over it and you get clippy. Even worse everyone's line is going to be different. Something that is probably trainable but one would have to be annoyed until the application figures out what you want.
posted by Mitheral at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023
There is a fine line to tread there though. Step over it and you get clippy. Even worse everyone's line is going to be different. Something that is probably trainable but one would have to be annoyed until the application figures out what you want.
posted by Mitheral at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023
I miss OG Skitch.
posted by chronkite at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by chronkite at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Microsoft OneNote for me, and has been since (eek) 2003 and its inclusion in Compaq TC1000 with Windows XP Tablet. Okay that's far longer on the calendar than I though. The same two files (Notebooks) are still in use today, one for archive and one for active; and have synced pretty seamlessly between multiple mobile and desk-bound devices through the years. And for all the moves of Office365 to try and get my cash, OneNote remains part of the bundle but a consistently free part of it.
posted by ewan at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ewan at 7:29 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
I use Evernote multiple days a week, and MetaFilter is how I find out about this? Oh well, thankfully the import to Obsidian is going pretty well....60 more notebooks to go.
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm reading all this, mostly curious what you all are making so many notes about!
posted by SoberHighland at 7:55 AM on December 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 7:55 AM on December 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
43 Folders was last updated in 2011, but here's Alex Cox and Merlin Mann in Oct. 2023 on (among other things) FSnotes.
Some discussion of other apps, and some useful links in the show notes.
The organization/productivity discussion starts at 34 minutes.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:16 AM on December 2, 2023
Some discussion of other apps, and some useful links in the show notes.
The organization/productivity discussion starts at 34 minutes.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:16 AM on December 2, 2023
*sigh* Look, man, I just want something that will clip recipes from the web and let me search full text afterwards. Is that so very much to ask???CopyMeThat does a great job at quick clipping, even those recipe sites that drown the basic text in description and images. Has plugins for the major browsers and iOS, Windows and Android apps.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:19 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just as another data point for what people are using: like several above, I've been using Simplenote every day for years and have always been happy with it. Probably found out about it on Mefi. (Seems weird they're not included on noteapps.info!) I have very simple needs, though: I make to-do lists and lists of books and music I want to look into, and also I write down fictional arguments I'm having in my head with everyone and everything I'm angry with on the internet. This has been a successful way of keeping myself out of trouble in comment sections. I just use Simplenote as the comment box and keep it to myself.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:23 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:23 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
Another Obsidian user here. I tried dozens of note apps, writing apps, and personal wikis before finally landing on Obsidian. Nothing else comes close to it. Once you have learned to use it and customized it to suit your needs it is like unlocking a new part of your brain.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 9:06 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 9:06 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
I used OneNote for a long time, including much of grad school and a few jobs. But Microsoft's weird interface updates and hemming and hawing about whether they'd continue offering a desktop app made me jump ship for my personal use. For a time, I used folders and subfolders on my computer housing mostly text, word document, and spreadsheet files, which felt a little scattered and was difficult to search.
Then I discovered Obsidian earlier this year and moved everything into a vault with various folders and subfolders. I tried tagging and linking at first, but that never took off for me. Now the folder structure, headings and subheadings in individual files, and Obsidian community plugins for search and outlining are how I track and navigate information. I sync devices by housing the files in Dropbox. I'm not expecting Obsidian to last forever, and I'll miss some of the plugins and interface affordances when that happens, but the information itself is now in a more easily transferrable format.
posted by audi alteram partem at 9:07 AM on December 2, 2023
Then I discovered Obsidian earlier this year and moved everything into a vault with various folders and subfolders. I tried tagging and linking at first, but that never took off for me. Now the folder structure, headings and subheadings in individual files, and Obsidian community plugins for search and outlining are how I track and navigate information. I sync devices by housing the files in Dropbox. I'm not expecting Obsidian to last forever, and I'll miss some of the plugins and interface affordances when that happens, but the information itself is now in a more easily transferrable format.
posted by audi alteram partem at 9:07 AM on December 2, 2023
ob1quixote: “ Dendron”I should have included a link to the Johnny Decimal folder organization structure. I feel like Dendron markdown files stored in a Johnny Decimal structure is The Way™.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:27 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Using Johnny Decimal for personal documents is fine if that floats your boat, but trying to implement it in a shared/team area can be a recipe for strife, at best people will think you are slightly mad expecting them to memorise lists of numbers just to file things, at worst they will start swapping the numbers around just to mess with you.
posted by Lanark at 9:41 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 9:41 AM on December 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
My note taking app has been Visual Studio Code for several years now, using markdown files in a folder structure to keep everything organized. Imagine my surprise to discover Obsidian last week which is basically the same thing but with image support. Seems like this weekend is going to be deciding between Obsidian, Dendron, and BAU. Woo!
posted by edward_5000 at 10:03 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by edward_5000 at 10:03 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Johnny Decimal structure is The Way
Help it's pulling me in
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:43 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Help it's pulling me in
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:43 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Looks like maybe Bending Spoons is on an austerity tear this week.
posted by Pudding Yeti at 10:49 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Pudding Yeti at 10:49 AM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm reading all this, mostly curious what you all are making so many notes about!
At work, I need to document everything I do, because there is so little chance I'll remember it. While planning a project, I'll write down my thought process, and then need to strike out text when I realize that an idea was bad, or color-highlight important points so that I can easily find them later when I scan the text. Occasionally this might involve saving text from a web page, pasting an image into the note. Being able to hyperlink to web pages or folders on the computer is very useful.
For personal use, I make notes to keep track of what I planted in the garden, or to keep a list of board games I'm interested in buying, or to plan a home improvement project or a trip or save a recipe or a list of the 100 greatest animated films of all time that I found on Metafilter or...
posted by polecat at 11:10 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
At work, I need to document everything I do, because there is so little chance I'll remember it. While planning a project, I'll write down my thought process, and then need to strike out text when I realize that an idea was bad, or color-highlight important points so that I can easily find them later when I scan the text. Occasionally this might involve saving text from a web page, pasting an image into the note. Being able to hyperlink to web pages or folders on the computer is very useful.
For personal use, I make notes to keep track of what I planted in the garden, or to keep a list of board games I'm interested in buying, or to plan a home improvement project or a trip or save a recipe or a list of the 100 greatest animated films of all time that I found on Metafilter or...
posted by polecat at 11:10 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I felt a small temptation to switch to using OneNote, since it is supplied by my workplace. NotesApps.info makes it sound like the options for importing/exporting to other platforms are poor-to-nonexistant, so I steered away.
posted by polecat at 11:18 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by polecat at 11:18 AM on December 2, 2023
I'm reading all this, mostly curious what you all are making so many notes about!
On all kinds of things. I read on my Kindle; highlights get bumped to (now) Obsidian via Readwise. Or if I read a physical book I'll take notes on scrap paper and then digest them into Obsidian notes. I then sometimes start to turn those notes into writing of my own. (I use Obsidian as a zettelkasten but that's going down a whole other notes rabbit hole.
The thing I liked about Evernote was that it was very easy to get just about anything in there. As a capture app, it's still second to none, especially with how I was able to email something to an Evernote address and have it appear as a note. That's not worth the inflated price they charge, though, especially as I don't doubt at some point someone will figure out a way to do it with an Obsidian plugin, if they haven't already.
posted by synecdoche at 11:30 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
On all kinds of things. I read on my Kindle; highlights get bumped to (now) Obsidian via Readwise. Or if I read a physical book I'll take notes on scrap paper and then digest them into Obsidian notes. I then sometimes start to turn those notes into writing of my own. (I use Obsidian as a zettelkasten but that's going down a whole other notes rabbit hole.
The thing I liked about Evernote was that it was very easy to get just about anything in there. As a capture app, it's still second to none, especially with how I was able to email something to an Evernote address and have it appear as a note. That's not worth the inflated price they charge, though, especially as I don't doubt at some point someone will figure out a way to do it with an Obsidian plugin, if they haven't already.
posted by synecdoche at 11:30 AM on December 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
I was an early adopter of Evernote and it was great. Then they tried to change the user agreement to allow them access to all your data. I dropped it for OneNote, for no other reason than it was available at the company I worked for. But recently I got concerned about about data portability (OneNote is really poor at export) and looked at Obsidian and Joplin. I ended up using Obsidian. I really only use it for notes but I tell myself I'll fully explore all of its capabilities and extensions someday. Knowing everything's in Markdown format is comforting should I ever move onto something else.
posted by tommasz at 1:07 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 1:07 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I (heart) Zim. It's fairly basic, but that's what some of us want!
posted by Luddite at 1:21 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Luddite at 1:21 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I use evernote exclusively for saving recipes and I use only the web interface. Notes on my phone go to the iphone note utility for things like grocery lists and notes to self. But this post and comments have me looking for an alternative and my tech savvy daughter says the way to go it Notion. It looks pretty easy to migrate your evernote notes to notion as well so that's where I'm going.
posted by bluesky43 at 2:02 PM on December 2, 2023
posted by bluesky43 at 2:02 PM on December 2, 2023
So I've been using emacs and `/ssh:user@myserver:somefile....` for over 25 years. `dired` even works fine. Have I missed anything?
True, I don't have emacs on my iphone. But the Apple Notes app isn't bad, and synchs with my home laptop. For some reason my work laptop has its own world of notes, but the separation mirrors the work-life balance I've always tried to maintain.
posted by morspin at 2:15 PM on December 2, 2023
True, I don't have emacs on my iphone. But the Apple Notes app isn't bad, and synchs with my home laptop. For some reason my work laptop has its own world of notes, but the separation mirrors the work-life balance I've always tried to maintain.
posted by morspin at 2:15 PM on December 2, 2023
I switched to Obsidian but while people here are talking about how extensible it is, I use it because of how simple the base is. You can use it just like Notes or Keep or Notepad to dump a simple text note without any bells or whistles.
That being said, I have linked it to Readwise. Readwise acts as my web capture tool (and also pulls notes and highlights from my reading.) If you read PDFs, Readwise can be a godsend.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:21 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
That being said, I have linked it to Readwise. Readwise acts as my web capture tool (and also pulls notes and highlights from my reading.) If you read PDFs, Readwise can be a godsend.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:21 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh Readwise is also what I use for RSS.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:21 PM on December 2, 2023
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:21 PM on December 2, 2023
Seconding Zim - use that on Linux and its fine for my needs at home. Reminds me of the old Keynote app I used for many years. I use OneNote at work - does the basic stuff I need it too. I do sometimes miss the old Journal feature in Outlook that gave you a nice time-series view of stuff you did with Office but thats kind of been dead for couple of decades now.
I need to hunt for a personal Confluence style notebook/wiki at some point.
posted by phigmov at 2:31 PM on December 2, 2023
I need to hunt for a personal Confluence style notebook/wiki at some point.
posted by phigmov at 2:31 PM on December 2, 2023
Using noteapps I selected a bunch of features I felt were requirements. They can be summarized like so:
Back in the real world, Notion would be my go-to for all this if its offline functionality and smartphone UI wasn't lacking. I used it to plan a trip to Japan but then realized while I was there that if I didn't have a solid internet connection, interacting with Notion was really rough. I ended up copying some notes out into a separate place on my phone just so I could refer to it even if my internet connection died.
Ultimately I'm not sure if I should just forget note-taking apps altogether and try to find a good Markdown editor for Android and then cloud sync raw Markdown/image files.
posted by chrominance at 2:57 PM on December 2, 2023
- Import from Markdown
- Export to Markdown, with note structure, linking and images intact
- Works offline with most features, including reading (not necessarily writing)
- Works on Windows, Android and the web
Back in the real world, Notion would be my go-to for all this if its offline functionality and smartphone UI wasn't lacking. I used it to plan a trip to Japan but then realized while I was there that if I didn't have a solid internet connection, interacting with Notion was really rough. I ended up copying some notes out into a separate place on my phone just so I could refer to it even if my internet connection died.
Ultimately I'm not sure if I should just forget note-taking apps altogether and try to find a good Markdown editor for Android and then cloud sync raw Markdown/image files.
posted by chrominance at 2:57 PM on December 2, 2023
Long-time Evernote user here (2012-2023), and, like others, I used it as a second brain for storing everything -- weekly journal notes, shopping lists, research/web clippings, photos, recipes, receipts, documents (.docx, .xls). I used it in lieu of Dropbox for having access to files anywhere (computer, phone).
Like others, I got frustrated by the removal of features I used and the general dumbing-down of Evernote. Then the announcement of ending the Legacy version (which was the only way I could use Evernote, because the new shiny version was painful to interact with and s o. . . s l o w), and then the ridiculous price increase (from $35/year to $120/yr? seriously?), meant it was time to jump ship. I knew it was coming some day, but I dreaded moving the 9000 notes I had (with about 10% photos from travels).
As a Windows and Android user (and now Linux as well), I wanted something that would function across all platforms, and preferably be open-source and self-hostable (because I don't want to land in this situation again of depending on a company for my second brain), with a folder structure, and with the capability to share notes with another user.
Tried NotesNook, but that didn't work for me. Tried Obsidian, but that didn't work for me, either.
Ended up with Joplin and am happy with it. It is about 80%+ of what I had with Evernote. Moving notes over was fairly painless (Joplin has an 'import from Evernote' function that works well).
The only real negative is that editing within the Joplin phone app is not easy, so for notes that I need to edit while out and about (shopping lists), I use Google Keep. I've also learned to store my photos out of the note app. And a remote desktop to access documents.
It's a little more complicated, but it feels good to be out of Evernote since they are no longer a viable option. (RIP good/Legacy Evernote)
posted by sazanka at 3:13 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Like others, I got frustrated by the removal of features I used and the general dumbing-down of Evernote. Then the announcement of ending the Legacy version (which was the only way I could use Evernote, because the new shiny version was painful to interact with and s o. . . s l o w), and then the ridiculous price increase (from $35/year to $120/yr? seriously?), meant it was time to jump ship. I knew it was coming some day, but I dreaded moving the 9000 notes I had (with about 10% photos from travels).
As a Windows and Android user (and now Linux as well), I wanted something that would function across all platforms, and preferably be open-source and self-hostable (because I don't want to land in this situation again of depending on a company for my second brain), with a folder structure, and with the capability to share notes with another user.
Tried NotesNook, but that didn't work for me. Tried Obsidian, but that didn't work for me, either.
Ended up with Joplin and am happy with it. It is about 80%+ of what I had with Evernote. Moving notes over was fairly painless (Joplin has an 'import from Evernote' function that works well).
The only real negative is that editing within the Joplin phone app is not easy, so for notes that I need to edit while out and about (shopping lists), I use Google Keep. I've also learned to store my photos out of the note app. And a remote desktop to access documents.
It's a little more complicated, but it feels good to be out of Evernote since they are no longer a viable option. (RIP good/Legacy Evernote)
posted by sazanka at 3:13 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
For anyone who wants an oss/markdown post-notational velocity note app, I definitely recommend fsnotes.
posted by advil at 3:20 PM on December 2, 2023
posted by advil at 3:20 PM on December 2, 2023
I tried OneNote back in the day but never glommed on to Evernote or Roam, I finally started using Obsidian earlier this year. The open source plugins are great, and you can do all sort of nifty things with it like putting it in your monorepo and using it to view docs and run scripts through the terminal. I have one that pulls youtube transcripts and parses the docs into atomic Q/E/C notes. Smart Connections does a simple vector embeddings nearest neighbor search that is just fantastic.
If you want to take a look, ArchVault is a good example of a software architecture setup, https://github.com/futurearchitecture/ArchVault, that shows how you can setup the plugins.
And Obsidian supports sync through iCloud or other providers out of the box, ArchVault is actually meant to be used through a git repo by multiple people, but YMMV.
posted by daHIFI at 5:08 PM on December 2, 2023
If you want to take a look, ArchVault is a good example of a software architecture setup, https://github.com/futurearchitecture/ArchVault, that shows how you can setup the plugins.
And Obsidian supports sync through iCloud or other providers out of the box, ArchVault is actually meant to be used through a git repo by multiple people, but YMMV.
posted by daHIFI at 5:08 PM on December 2, 2023
I made myself a little leather notepad. It has a pockets for a Leatherman Micra and a mini Bic 4-color pen on one side, a pocket that holds the bottom of a 3x5" index card on the other, and the middle holds a few spare index cards.
Not going to win any beauty awards, but the battery life is incredible.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:53 PM on December 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Not going to win any beauty awards, but the battery life is incredible.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:53 PM on December 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
> As a Windows and Android user (and now Linux as well), I wanted something that would function across all platforms, and preferably be open-source and self-hostable (because I don't want to land in this situation again of depending on a company for my second brain), with a folder structure, and with the capability to share notes with another user.
Same here, but add in macOS as an additional operating system, the ability to work offline, and a lack of desire to pay for another storage solution beyond Dropbox.
I was tempted by Obsidian - more polish and more plugins than Joplin - but it's not open source, which worried me just enough to tip me towards Joplin. Goals and priorities change over time (as we saw with Evernote!) and with a less open app, that seemed riskier in terms of future lock-in. (I'll admit I didn't prioritize phone app quality at all - I found the Evernote one weirdly unintuitive and never got into the habit of using it. My note-taking is very text-heavy and phones sorta suck for that. I also didn't use Evernote collaboratively. So I have no idea how Joplin or Obsidian are on those axes!) Joplin's got a few rough edges, but it's under pretty active development, and while most of the areas where it's lacking would be nice to have, they're mostly not mission critical features for me. I'm OK waiting until they are implemented, or someone comes up with a plugin for them.
Man, though, I really did like the Legacy-era Evernote. Enshittification sucks!
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 7:54 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Same here, but add in macOS as an additional operating system, the ability to work offline, and a lack of desire to pay for another storage solution beyond Dropbox.
I was tempted by Obsidian - more polish and more plugins than Joplin - but it's not open source, which worried me just enough to tip me towards Joplin. Goals and priorities change over time (as we saw with Evernote!) and with a less open app, that seemed riskier in terms of future lock-in. (I'll admit I didn't prioritize phone app quality at all - I found the Evernote one weirdly unintuitive and never got into the habit of using it. My note-taking is very text-heavy and phones sorta suck for that. I also didn't use Evernote collaboratively. So I have no idea how Joplin or Obsidian are on those axes!) Joplin's got a few rough edges, but it's under pretty active development, and while most of the areas where it's lacking would be nice to have, they're mostly not mission critical features for me. I'm OK waiting until they are implemented, or someone comes up with a plugin for them.
Man, though, I really did like the Legacy-era Evernote. Enshittification sucks!
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 7:54 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you're looking for an iOS text editor, you need to check out iTextEditors. It has a handy chart that lets you quickly narrow down choices (click the top options to collapse.)
Need an iPhone/iPad compatible app that syncs to iCloud, does syntax highlighting, search & replace, and exports plain text? There's nine of them.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:14 AM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Need an iPhone/iPad compatible app that syncs to iCloud, does syntax highlighting, search & replace, and exports plain text? There's nine of them.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:14 AM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thank you for the news about Evernote and suggestions for backing it up. I'm trying out Obsidian. I mostly don't use these sorts of things any more, but having exported my Evernotes from long ago I can see I was getting more done, so maybe it's a way forward (I'm entirely burnt out and unemployed atm).
posted by lokta at 2:01 PM on December 6, 2023
posted by lokta at 2:01 PM on December 6, 2023
Not an option, as you can't create a new Backpack account anymore -- and Basecamp is too much for me -- but I have a legacy account and use that for certain things. Otherwise, I use Scrivener. I know, isn't exactly a note app, not open-source, isn't cheap, and syncing with devices via Dropbox is a 20-step affair for some reason, but it suits me as given that I'm writing every day. It fits my workflow.
That said, I also wrote a custom-built private web app so I have fallbacks. I realize that's not an option for most, though.
posted by gturner at 6:02 PM on December 7, 2023
That said, I also wrote a custom-built private web app so I have fallbacks. I realize that's not an option for most, though.
posted by gturner at 6:02 PM on December 7, 2023
Raindrop.io
Raindrop.io is a modern bookmarking app. Save, resurface and manage your collection privately from any browser and any device.posted by ob1quixote at 10:45 AM on December 8, 2023
What can I do with Raindrop.io?
Collect links, images, videos and books - save anything you come across while browsing or upload from a device
Tag and organize items into collections (with help of AI)
Highlight and annotate the web - save important passages
Search by page content and PDF's - look deeper beyond titles and tags, it's like your personal Google
Never worry about losing saved content - even if original web page is deleted or restricted
Schedule for later - never miss a thing by adding reminder to a bookmark
Edit together - plan next trip or gather ideas collaboratively
Create a public page (opt-in) - share with the entire web, sign-up is not required
Sync with 2,000+ apps
I fired Evernote a few months back and just got around to selecting and installing Obsidian. Dead simple to set up synching between MacOS and iPhone via iCloud. I used Obsidian's native Importer [community] plugin to import the Evernote content I had previously exported into .enex files. I was not an Evernote power user, but so far it looks like everything came over looking good, incl. attachments or embedded pictures/files. Creation Date of the Evernote files was maintained.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 9:35 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 9:35 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
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