Evernote 4+

J’ai instaler Evernote sur plusieurs ordinateurs Windows et plusieurs smartphones androïde sans problémes, MAIS sur Appel (Mac mini) Evernote me donne le message d’erreur : la comminication avec Appelstore est impossible. Je passerais donc par la page web directement mais c’est bien dommage.

I loved Evernote when it came out. It was easy, fast, lightweight and functional. They also kept improving it in the 5 years I’m using it. The thing that killed it for me is the day they forced me to either take a ridiculously expensive “Premium” subscription, or remove it from all but two devices. Well that kind of was the point of no return. I experimented with some other alternatives and now I migrated all my data to Microsoft OneNote. Very sad that Microsoft gives me a better deal than Evernote. What were you thinking? Sad also that what got me thrilled in Evernote now is available for free in OneNote, plus an extra level of grouping notes. You should have given me limited experience on all devices with ads, and an option to remove the ads, but for a cheaper price (don’t need premium for private use). That would have worked for me. No problem to pay for good apps, but this subscription was too expensive.

I was introduced to Evernote, by somebody taking notes at a conference. I decided to give it a shot, as I started to notice that countless files and mindmaps weren’t easy to retrieve. The first few notes take quite an effort as the real value only appears after you have about 50 notes. Decide on a few big categories and create notebooks for them. I have one book for my work at the University and one for my other work. Another for Home and a fourth for my main topic of interest. Inside these notebooks, you can define a few sub notebooks, like projects, research, meetings…
Don’t fret on it too much, as it is still possible to reorganize afterwards. Add a few thematic tags, but I suggest to have them generic (not project-specific), so they make sense over many different notebooks.
Add text, use simple formatting (I stick mostly to bullet and number lists, checkbox, paste in pictures and add a ruler here or there). Some bold text is fine. A simple table is also often very handy.

And a handy tip: add at least a picture in each note. This gives the list a small thumbnail and makes notes stand out much better. Small square images work fine. E.g. I paste in a software logo on my notes for a program I’m often using and teaching.

The biggest feature, after a while: all your notes are there. You can search quickly and retrieve meeting notes, comments on a thing you are figuring out etc… I use it to outline my classes, document things I’m trying, make notes during meetings, …

After 4 years, I did subscrive to Evernote Plus, as I was having problems with 60MB per month, especially as Skitch was also dumping all screenshots in Evernote and they can become a bit heavy on a Retina screen. I use it sometimes in my iPad and iPhone, but more to find things than to really make extensive notes. Being synced helps, but you have to be online (offline is supported with Plus and Premium).

Final documents usually end up in either Word, LaTeX or Scrivener (which I’m trying now), but they usually start in Evernote.

Update 2020: The new update end of 2020 is not without problems, but they added my major wish: "headings" and a style for code blocks. Still have to see if they work well, as some of the fast interaction and shortcuts are not there (yet?). The new look is OK, although not fundamentally essentials. Having tags at the bottom of the note is OK, but again, nothing essential.

P.S. At work, I rely more on OneNote as that is shared with colleagues, but Evernote is more refined in many ways (but seems to copy some aspects of OneNote now)