Goodbye Evernote
Wed, Mar 23, 2022
I have been using Evernote since 27-March-2008. 14 years, almost to the date. We have finally parted ways. Evernote just doesn’t work anymore, and I can no longer wait for it to grow up.
What went wrong?
- Evernote is almost exactly the same, as it was 14 years ago. Nothing much has changed.
- Evernote did rewrite of their app in early 2020. As most rewrites are, this was a complete screw-up. Evernote is now a big, heavy blob, with many people complaining about it online.
What are the choices?
There are many choices, and I spent the last few weeks experimenting with almost each one. But they all fall short, in one way or another. Evernote does spoil you in some ways, which could make it hard to break up with it. But it’s not impossible.
Notion was the only choice that came VERY close to being my new love — but it didn’t work out. Notion didn’t satisfy me, like Evernote used to.
What’s the final choice then?
Obsidian. When you first start with Obsidian, it looks a bit overwhelming. I recommend you stick to it, and give it a few days. Everything falls into place very quickly. And once you have the hang of it, there is just no going back. I think it is impossible, to not commit to Obsidian — till death do us part.
What are the main advantages of using Obsidian?
1- It is free. Yes. Obsidian is 100% free to use. There are paid add-ons, like sync, and publish.
2- Your data is yours. It sits on your computer, or whatever cloud storage you use, like Dropbox, Google Drive, pCloud, iCloud, etc.
3- All your notes are in plain text (markdown for formatting) files. You can open them with any common text editor. Or markdown editor/viewer to stay with the formatting.
4- You can work edit your notes, with any app that you like, and Obsidian will continue to work with them. As long as they are plain text / markdown.
5- The endless expandability of Obsidian’s capabilities. Obsidian can be extended with community plugins, as well as your own plugins. At the time of this writing, there are 522 community plugins available. Even with very basic programming knowledge, the scope of manipulating your data, is endless. Something almost impossible with Evernote. Unless you want to use their API.
6- There are two plugins which convert Obsidian into a magic wand. Templater and Dataview. Templater can auto-populate your notes with endless information. Dataview can turn your note taking system into a database, which can be queried, and viewed, in myriad of ways.
What Evernote features are missing in Obsidian?
I speak only from my personal use habit. Obsidian currently has the following features missing, but I have found work-arounds for them.
1- Email-A-Note. With Evernote, you can send an email to a unique email address, and it would create a note with appropriate tags, folders, etc. I have solved this problem, for free, by using a Zapier zap. Since I don’t use this much, I manage with the free tier.
2- Search for text in images and PDFs. Evernote can search right into all kinds of media. I can manage without this, since both Dropbox and Google Drive, can search through media as well. Not an ideal solution. But it works for me.
3- Some people say they miss Evernote’s document scanner. I think it is one of the worst document scanners. Never used it anyway. These days, most phone camera apps have built-in document scanners. Google Drive, and Dropbox, also have very good document scanner features.
4- Evernote has a killer web-clipper. As good as this feature sounds, I hardly used it. And when I did use it, I think I created clutter, more than knowledge. You can imagine the thousands of web-clipped notes I have in my evernote, which have only become quite obsolete after 14 years. Also, practically, I google for information, before looking in my evernote. If you must clip websites, you can install a markdown web-clipper extension to your browser, and that would pretty much solve the problem.
Is the divorce final?
Yes. Almost.
I have cancelled my Evernote renewal. My notes won’t go anywhere, since Evernote can be used without the $9.99 per month (for extra quota, etc). I will continue to keep a second copy of my crucial information on Evernote, well. I don’t trust any one cloud service with my data. They have the capability of cutting you off, and that can be disastrous. So, I parallel store my data in many places. More about that in another post.
I look forward to saving $120 per year. I already spend too much on my technology subscriptions.
