Evernote Slashes Premium Subscription Rate Amid Reports of Company 'Death Spiral'

[richinaus]

How is Bear's file attachment support these days? Attaching PDFs to my notes and seeing them right there (as opposed to a separate floating preview) is the main thing I do with Evernote. Being able to search through all my notes and all the attachments within them is very important, too.

Bear is not an Evernote replacement if you are a heavy user. It is really a simple notes app.

I am an extensive Evernote user and would be sad to see it go. All my reference images / PDF etc are on there. It is awesome for me but it depends how heavy your use is. There are loads of good notes apps like Bear, but not many like Evernote which is more a place to keep all information and reference materials. One note is just as good or better though........

 

[jbryant705]

I’ve been thinking about bailing, but I need shared notebooks for my company. Been looking at OneNote since we already use Office 365, but it still sucks ass. You can’t even select multiple notes and move them to another notebook in batch. And the migration tool from Evernote does a terrible job.

Anyone have any other recommendations for companies?
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Bear is not an Evernote replacement if you are a heavy user. It is really a simple notes app.

I am an extensive Evernote user and would be sad to see it go. All my reference images / PDF etc are on there. It is awesome for me but it depends how heavy your use is. There are loads of good notes apps like Bear, but not many like Evernote which is more a place to keep all information and reference materials. One note is just as good or better though........

I disagree. The OneNote app’s functionality is atrocious. I hear people say this and I’m absolutely stunned.

 

[johannnn]

A question for you power users: What service/app can I switch to that will convert EVERYTHING over, including yellow highlights I've added to text, file attachments (images and PDFs), AND that also has a browser plugin that can capture web pages into the app? I'm hoping there is another complete solution...
I never enjoyed using Evernote, but I figured it was "too big to fail" so I doubled down on it. Now I'm sorry.

Bear and Notion are both getting good reviews. But I'm afraid to commit to another young service if MS or Google will crush it in a few years.

If you aren’t willing to give up any of the features you listed, the ONLY option for you is Evernote. Evernote obviously have the most features, but it failed because of jack of all trades master of none.

I think you should check out Apple Notes and MS OneNote if you also want a good mobile experience. If you only care about macOS, also check out DevonThink.

Myself? Apple Notes and Notability. Both are actively developed and work great in the Apple universe. I use Apple Notes for notes, images, recipes etc, and Notability for drawing and pdf markup.

 

[NovemberWhiskey]

Evernote! Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

 

[longtimelurker]

My App Store review of Bear
[additions added for this forum are in brackets]:

Better than everything else

I’ve used Evernote Plus and Premium for a few years on Windows and NeverNote when on Linux, OneNote, Google Keep, SimpleNote, then fully on Apple Notes for a few months when I switched to MacOS/iOS.

Evernote is looking for a purpose; they say they are a memory aid, so why Team Chat? Folders and tags together are confusing. [Which feature is used where? How do I decide?] And it’s a large program. OneNote has a wonderfully flexible canvas for creatives, but not as quick to use for writers. [it’s also a large program. Syncing isn’t too reliable. And what’s up with that omnipresent purple badge following me everywhere??] Google Keep is simply Post-it Notes. SimpleNote has no formatting, but it’s fast. Apple Notes can’t be exported in an editable format, but only as individual PDFs. Many others are distraction-free, but they have no interface as a result.

Bear is lightweight and focused on simplicity. Tags and nested tags are the only option for organization. The formatting is in PolarBear, but it understands Markdown, too. Many typography options and useful themes for visibility, so your text looks the way you want. Much, much cheaper subscription! It doesn’t force a workflow on the user; you don’t have to use a feature and there are no forced suggestions. Sharing, backup and export are easy and flexible.

Well worth it; I’m home at last!

(End of Review)

For webpage archiving, I use my browser’s reader view to simplify the page, Control + A to select all and Nisus Writer Pro’s right click Service “Send Selection to Nisus Writer Pro” to dump it into a NWP RTF document. Kill the unneeded pictures, format and save in its folder. If there are graphics that help tell the story and need to be kept; Export as PDF. Simple.

Very helpful review and recommendations and appreciated!
I admit to being a bit panicked right now about the potential collapse of Evernote -- I've used it a whole lot and stored tremendously valuable data and documents on it for over six years. I simply can't afford to lose it!
OK, I've got to move "my stuff" or at least duplicate as much as possible and transfer and retain/archive. Bear looks feasible and will likely try and test that in the coming days.
As for Nisus, would their Writer Express suffice or would you advise moving up to the more expensive Pro for doing the webpage archiving? I don't do a whole lot of word processing, but saving revised formats on webpages is essential so I'd move up if necessary.
Thanks in advance for your reply.

 

[djs71a]

Has anyone tried cloudHQ to move data from Evernote to another service?

 

[sgtaylor5]

Very helpful review and recommendations and appreciated!
I admit to being a bit panicked right now about the potential collapse of Evernote -- I've used it a whole lot and stored tremendously valuable data and documents on it for over six years. I simply can't afford to lose it!
OK, I've got to move "my stuff" or at least duplicate as much as possible and transfer and retain/archive. Bear looks feasible and will likely try and test that in the coming days.
As for Nisus, would their Writer Express suffice or would you advise moving up to the more expensive Pro for doing the webpage archiving? I don't do a whole lot of word processing, but saving revised formats on webpages is essential so I'd move up if necessary.
Thanks in advance for your reply.

I don't think I'd try to store everything in Bear, like people tend to do with Evernote. I don't think Bear's made for that. Bear is made for text storage, not graphics storage. I'd use Finder for nested folders of receipts, and the like, and use Preview to look for what you want.

Nisus Writer Express would do just fine, in my opinion. The core of both programs is identical; the only difference is Nisus Writer Pro has features designed for the professional writer.

I am forever cross-platform because I only use old computers. So I need to store documents in a format that will work in any system. RTF's with graphics don't work in Windows, because the graphics don't appear. So I had to move my RTF's with needed graphics to PDF one afternoon. It's just as easy in my case to search in the finder as it is to search in Evernote, because I'm thinking for the correct title of the document (that I've designed to be searchable) and don't need to search for content in the document.

 

[Kirb112]

I agree. In fact the UI today seems more convoluted and less productive in many ways than it did several years ago in earlier versions.

I still use Evernote because it’s a great way to scan and archive old statements, documents, receipts etc. But as there is less and less paper in our lives these days, this use-case is slowly fading away.

it was never a “note taking” app for me.

I use it for both note-taking (a little bit), but mostly for scanning, or importing important documents; Documsnts that is like quick and easy access to, even years down the road.

 

[ignatius345]

I'd love it if Apple had the TextEdit app on iOS so I could open and actually edit my .txt files in iCloud. I wouldn't need the Notes app at all then.

Try “Textor”. It’s a free iOS app that plugs into iCloud and edits .txt files natively—not as slick as TextEdit would be but definitely workable.

 

[Lioness~]

Almost forgot about this app.
Didn’t fill any big part of my life, at all.
It think I'll check what old notes I saved in it, can be fun.

I save notes today in Apple’s app, some organized in MacJournal, some tagged more random, but sometimes more immediate in DayOne. Ah, well not since 3.0, as sharing possibilities is distorted very strangely.

But Evernote, sorry but I won’t miss you. Maybe DayOne should watch and learn, in a few yrs it might be their time.

 

[ViktorEvil]

Try “Textor”. It’s a free iOS app that plugs into iCloud and edits .txt files natively—not as slick as TextEdit would be but definitely workable.

thanks, works great

 

[ignatius345]

I messed around with Evernote for a while but frankly found the UI too complicated and messy. I just use Notes now and find it does everything I need quite well.

I used Simplenote for a while too (which is very good) but wanted a bit more than plain text/markdown.

 

[Ener Ji]

I have allllll of my stuff on Evernote, but this Bear thing is looking good. It gives you directions on how to transfer from Evernote to Bear. https://bear.app/faq/?q=migrate

Worth a shot!

I've heard great things about Bear, but until they release a functionally equivalent Android app, it's a non-starter for me. One of the great things about Evernote is that it's equally good (or average/bad depending on how much you like EN) on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

I think Evernote has way too many users to disappear forever. Their apps are decent to good, their sync technology is great, and they have had 200 million+ users try them out at one point (I believe current users are not disclosed but surely at least in the tens of millions). They also have good brand recognition. All these things would surely be attractive to another company, so rather than shut down I expect them to be bought if they run out of cash.

 

[maflynn]

So Evernote is surprised that not too many people want to pay 80 dollars a year to take notes, when there are other less (or free) expensive options. This is just the start of people pushing back on subscriptions. Its not the end of subscriptions, but people will start being more picky on what they choose, imo.

 

[rhett7660]

I have been using Evernote premium for man years. Someone please explain to me how Apple notes is considered an alternative. Can I make stacks and store all my PDFs and have them searchable?

If EVERNOTE fails, how do I transfer my years and years of content?
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Is OneNote only partnof Microsoft Office or can it be purchased separately? How would one transfer from Evernote to OneNote?

Has anyone tried cloudHQ to move data from Evernote to another service?

This is what I used to get all of my notes out of Evernote. Now keep in mind it saves them as a PDF, or at least the version of saving did.

I was a pretty big Evernote user for years, paid user. I had over 1500 notes. One thing that always bothered me was the work around you had to do in order to get your full note or notes out of their product. I stopped using them a few years back when they raised the price. The cost of using the product out weighed what I was using it for. So I stopped using it.

I have pretty much switched over to Apple notes and Onenote for work.

 

[djs71a]

This is what I used to get all of my notes out of Evernote. Now keep in mind it saves them as a PDF, or at least the version of saving did.

I thought I read CloudHQ could create a Google Doc for each Evernote note. I'll have to look into this more.

 

[rhett7660]

I thought I read CloudHQ could create a Google Doc for each Evernote note. I'll have to look into this more.

They probably could, I chose the PDF version since I do not use google docs. I think there are a couple of formats you can pick.

Since I had so many notes, it did take them a while to sync over all the notes.

 

[jonnysods]

I used their service for 4 years, but the prices were so high I paid for office 365 and switched to one note. Evernote are way better, but bang for buck I had to go the Office route.

 

[lbdesign]

Evernote are way better, but bang for buck I had to go the Office route.

That's how Microsoft crushed Lotus, Adobe Persuasion, etc. Bundling and distribution.

 

[jonnysods]

That's how Microsoft crushed Lotus, Adobe Persuasion, etc. Bundling and distribution.

You're absolutely right. It was just a matter of costs. I prefer Evernote to One Note, but I only wanted to pay for one service...

 

[maflynn]

That's how Microsoft crushed Lotus, Adobe Persuasion, etc. Bundling and distribution.

Lotus failed for one simple reason, thy misjudged the allure of windows. They were late to the game, and when they finally did roll out a version, for windows it was a dog.

Lotus was huge back then and MS was not, Lotus had the distribution, make no mistake.

 

[Brenster]

Lotus failed for one simple reason, thy misjudged the allure of windows. They were late to the game, and when they finally did roll out a version, for windows it was a dog.

Lotus was huge back then and MS was not, Lotus had the distribution, make no mistake.

When I started in Tech support in 1994, the government agency I worked for was WordPerfect 5 then 6.0/6.1, Lotus 123 4 and 5, Harvard Graphics and Groupwise email together with Novell Netware 3, 4 and NDS. By 1998 we were Office 97, Exchange and mixed Netware & NT Server. By 2001 we were a pure Microsoft.

Volumes have been written as to how Lotus/IBM, Novell and Corel flushed their respective dominance away and it wasn’t solely down to Microsoft’s tactics. The Windows 95/98 era software all three made were buggy, horrible products that failed to improve in any appreciable way. Each gifted Microsoft their particular markets.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I love the Evernote program but started cringing when they increased the premium fees. I left it for OneNote and used that for almost a year and hated OneNote so much that I went back to Evernote.

However my disdain for the premium pricing continued to bug me. I'm not a heavy user of Evernote in terms of daily use, but I kept a lot of important stuff in there that I might need to reference at various times.

Recently I converted all of my Evernote stuff to Apple Notes and canceled my premium Evernote subscription.

The subscription model bothers me a lot with many pieces of software. It gets ridiculous having a sub for this, and a sub for that. I've been paring down all the places where I have a sub for something because it feels like I'm being nickled and dimed to death on my budget.

My notes are more for storage than daily functionality which is why I switched to Apple Notes, at least for now.

I did the exact same thing, and I was a premium member since at least 2010, if not before. Got tired of the BS.

 

[lbdesign]

Lotus was huge back then and MS was not, Lotus had the distribution, make no mistake.

Sure, Lotus had distribution, but MS had the OS and Word. They undercut by bundling acceptable substitutes with Word and catering to cost-conscious business users. There was no good argument for keeping multiple software vendors when a cheaper single-source option was available.

 

[BorderingOn]

I have been using Evernote premium for man years. Someone please explain to me how Apple notes is considered an alternative. Can I make stacks and store all my PDFs and have them searchable?

If EVERNOTE fails, how do I transfer my years and years of content?
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Is OneNote only partnof Microsoft Office or can it be purchased separately? How would one transfer from Evernote to OneNote?

OneNote is stand-alone, multi-platform, and free. I dumped Evernote a while back and found a utility that created OneNote notes from my Evernote notes. I only had a few hundred to move over. Do a search and I’m sure you’ll find one that works for you.