Microsoft Launches OneNote Import Tool to Help Mac Users Transition From Evernote

[MacRumors]

Microsoft today announced the launch of its OneNote Import Tool for Mac, which is designed to allow Mac users to quickly and easily transfer all of their notes from note-taking app Evernote to Microsoft's own note-taking app, OneNote.

Transitioning from Evernote to OneNote is as simple as downloading the import tool, letting the app locate Evernote notebooks, signing into your Microsoft account, and hitting the import button. From there, all of your Evernote content is available in OneNote.

Microsoft's OneNote Import Tool is timely because Evernote recently made a policy change that has pushed users into seeking other note taking services. As of late June, customers who use a free Evernote basic account are only able to access their notes on a total of two devices. Accessing Evernote content on more than two devices now requires an Evernote subscription, priced at $3.99 per month or $34.99 per year.

OneNote requires notes to be stored using Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service (which comes with 5GB free storage) but there are no restrictions on accessing notes across multiple devices. OneNote also offers many of the same features that are available in Evernote and it can serve as an alternative to Apple's own Notes app.

OneNote lets you work the way you want. You can get your ideas down in a range of ways that include typing, inking, embedding videos, recording audio, or clipping web content. If you prefer to use paper and pen, you can even scan that content with OneNote to make it digital, searchable and available from your phone to your laptop. We've heard that many Evernote users rely heavily on their clipper. OneNote has a great clipper for all major browsers, available for free at OneNote.com/clipper.

Microsoft's new OneNote Import Tool can be downloaded from the OneNote website for free.

Article Link: Microsoft Launches OneNote Import Tool to Help Mac Users Transition From Evernote

 

[S.B.G]

I did this on my Windows PC (OneNote import tool) the very day Evernote announced the premium price change. While I love Evernote, the increase in price was more than I was willing to justify when other options, like MS OneNote are available.

So far, I've been able to assimilate and accomplish everything in OneNote that I did in Evernote.

 

[Zirel]

Microsoft can import my ass.

For what!? To make me an hostage of their platforms?

Like they said in their ad "the iPad doesn't run the full Office, but only the App version".

That's another way of saying "if you want to use your Word and Excel documents, you need to keep buying Windows PCs and paying us a subscription for Office".

 

[duervo]

If it's anything like its Windows counterpart, I'm not sure it's a good thing.

I have over 4000 notes in Evernote, split across over 50 notebooks. The Microsoft tool imported them all, and left things on the OneNote side in such a mess that it will take me hours, if not days, to make sense of it all and where it put everything.

 

[marvz]

Hm Im really thinking about switching to OneNote. Only thing that's bothering me is the web clipping capabilities of OneNote... Last I tried them it wasn't comparable to Evernote. Any experiences from "recently-switchers"?

 

[thisisnotmyname]

I did this on my Windows PC (OneNote import tool) the very day Evernote announced the premium price change. While I love Evernote, the increase in price was more than I was willing to justify when other options, like MS OneNote are available.

So far, I've been able to assimilate and accomplish everything in OneNote that I did in Evernote.

Yeah, I had already transitioned to using iOS/OS X Notes when they released the updates in iOS 9 but when they pushed the prices up I took the final step and removed Evernote from all my devices and requested my account be deleted.

 

[Telos101]

Same here. I'm considering this as well, but I'm scared OneNote's gonna freak up all my Ever-notes and tagging etc. Love to hear reports from anyone who braved the switch...

 

[marvz]

Microsoft can import my ass.

For what!? To make me an hostage of their platforms?

Like they said in their ad "the iPad doesn't run the full Office, but only the App version".

That's another way of saying "if you want to use your Word and Excel documents, you need to keep buying Windows PCs and paying us a subscription for Office".

Because right now you aren't a hostage of Evernote?

That quote is out of context. Their point is that their Surface is running full windows (on Intel cores) so it's better than MS Office versions on iOS (and Android).

 

[Zirel]

Because right now you aren't a hostage of Evernote?

That quote is out of context. Their point is that their Surface is running full windows (on Intel cores) so it's better than MS Office versions on iOS (and Android).

Their point is BS! iOS can run full Office, there's nothing relevant that Intel cores can do, that ARM CPU's can't, and there's nothing that Microsoft Office can do, that iOS can't!

 

[nightcap965]

I love Evernote, I'm moving to DEVONthink, but I'm always willing to try new things.

The importer app crashed and burned halfway through importing 4,000 Evernote notes.

 

[kc2kth]

I've never used Evernote, but I've been using OneNote for several years. Never on a Mac, but definitely on PC, iOS and Android. I'm definitely a fan of OneNote!

 

[Sandybox]

Don't touch Onenote, even on Windoze. It's integration with onedrive (or rather the lack of) lost me an important file which I had saved on my local disk but which was removed in it's (automatd) attepmt to migrate the file to onedrive. Utter rubbish to be trusted in any way, shape of form. Onenote used to be a great app until they messed with it. When are they going to understand that if they want us all to move to cloud-based storage it needs to be absolutely bomb proof reliable AND we need to be in charge of where files and their backups reside. Morons!

 

[tgara]

Don't touch Onenote, even on Windoze. It's integration with onedrive (or rather the lack of) lost me an important file which I had saved on my local disk but which was removed in it's (automatd) attepmt to migrate the file to onedrive. Utter rubbish to be trusted in any way, shape of form. Onenote used to be a great app until they messed with it. When are they going to understand that if they want us all to move to cloud-based storage it needs to be absolutely bomb proof reliable AND we need to be in charge of where files and their backups reside. Morons!

Sorry, but that sounds like user error. I've moved many notes from Evernote to OneNote, and everything has gone just fine, including Syncs.

The fact is that Evernote has been scaling back its apps (Skitch etc.), and has switched to a pricing model that many find does not justify the utility of the app. Many of the people I know who use it have already switched to something else, or are looking to. Unless there is a major intervention, Evernote will be on the ash heap soon.

 

[Zirel]

Because right now you aren't a hostage of Evernote?

That quote is out of context. Their point is that their Surface is running full windows (on Intel cores) so it's better than MS Office versions on iOS (and Android).

Evernote doesn't make me buy Evernote PC's to have access to the full version...

 

[Jeff Flowerday]

Evernote doesn't make me buy Evernote PC's to have access to the full version...

Or you could install Onenote on your OSX machine but what ever you have to believe to make you hate Microsoft the most.

 

[AllergyDoc]

Import crashed on the first run but did fine on the second. I wouldn't minimize the importer when it's running.

I used Evernote mostly for my recipe collection. It did a decent job web clipping or saving through the Share function on my iPhone and iPad. I had the importer import using Evernote's tags and that may have been a bad idea. While the files imported fine, the organization is a bit of a mess and will require some time to sort out. But, at least I can access my stuff on all 3 of my devices.

 

[macphreak2011]

Is there an easy way to annotate an image or PDF within OneNote for iPhone? That is one thing I always do with Evernote and haven't found a good workflow in OneNote yet.

 

[Sandybox]

Sorry, but that sounds like user error. I've moved many notes from Evernote to OneNote, and everything has gone just fine, including Syncs.

The fact is that Evernote has been scaling back its apps (Skitch etc.), and has switched to a pricing model that many find does not justify the utility of the app. Many of the people I know who use it have already switched to something else, or are looking to. Unless there is a major intervention, Evernote will be on the ash heap soon.

It happened when I logged into onedrive from onenote. It said it was moving the file, froze and that was it for the file. I did a search online but it wasn't looking good for retrieval from my hard disk because onenote doesn't store a set of files openly on os x. So it wasn't a evernote migration in my case...i've never tried that so can't comment.

 

[fhall1]

I did this on my Windows PC (OneNote import tool) the very day Evernote announced the premium price change. While I love Evernote, the increase in price was more than I was willing to justify when other options, like MS OneNote are available.

So far, I've been able to assimilate and accomplish everything in OneNote that I did in Evernote.

Did the same thing on a Windows VM in Parallels back when Evernote first starting screwing around with taking away and charging for previously-free features. Haven't looked back - OneNote has been fine for my purposes and works just as well as Evernote across OS X, iOS, and Windows.

 

[Remmy70]

I've been waiting for the Mac version of the importer to come out so was very glad to hear it's here. Now I have a problem: when I go to the download page, I'm redirected to the Dutch version of the site, and when I click on the link to download, it's still only the Windows importer, I get an error message it's not available for 'my platform'. I don't mind downloading an english version of the converter, any way I can get it?

 

[2457282]

Is onenote not part of 365 that requires a subscription? And isn't that like $9.99 per month? The evernote subscription at $3.99 seems cheaper to me, but then again, I will never pay subscription for these kinds of utilities so I may be missing something here.

 

[AllergyDoc]

I don't pay anything for OneNote and don't have an Office subscription (or Office software). I have a Microsoft account from back in my Windows days and a OneDrive with 30GB of space.
[doublepost=1471547647][/doublepost]

I've been waiting for the Mac version of the importer to come out so was very glad to hear it's here. Now I have a problem: when I go to the download page, I'm redirected to the Dutch version of the site, and when I click on the link to download, it's still only the Windows importer, I get an error message it's not available for 'my platform'. I don't mind downloading an english version of the converter, any way I can get it?

The direct web address is:
https://aka.ms/downloadonenoteimportermac
Don't know if that helps.

 

[Jeff Flowerday]

Is onenote not part of 365 that requires a subscription? And isn't that like $9.99 per month? The evernote subscription at $3.99 seems cheaper to me, but then again, I will never pay subscription for these kinds of utilities so I may be missing something here.

No, it doesn't require an Office 365 subscription but will use Onedrive(free) for syncing across your devices.

 

[chrisscottuk]

I don't pay anything for OneNote and don't have an Office subscription (or Office software). I have a Microsoft account from back in my Windows days and a OneDrive with 30GB of space.
[doublepost=1471547647][/doublepost]
The direct web address is:
https://aka.ms/downloadonenoteimportermac
Don't know if that helps.

Thanks for the direct link, that downloads v 1.01. Microsoft seem to have pulled the mac version from their public website as it now goes onto windows versions. It's currently only accessible via this direct link. Perhaps they've identified a problem, so proceed with caution.

 

[iHamish]

My company won't allow OneNote for Macs because you can only save the files on Microsoft's OneDrive cloud service. As far as my company is concerned, it's an insecure storage mechanism.