It's official: Evernote will restrict free users to 50 notes | TechCrunch

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 389 points – It's official: Evernote will restrict free users to 50 notes | TechCrunch
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It's official: Evernote will restrict free users to 50 notes | TechCrunch::Days after Evernote started testing a free plan with access to only one notebook and 50 notes, it has now made this change for all free users

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It's official: note taking app with 0 advantages over just plain ass notes synced via cloud signs death warrant.

For real, FOSS software that saves to a file folder and does all of this exists. They are just chasing us into their arms.

If you're looking for a name drop, Joplin does nicely for my uses.

I also use Joplin!

I've heard Joplin is good. Also Obsidian is apparently amazing with plug-ins. I'm leaning towards Obsidian myself. But between Google and MS, I figured Keep and Evernote would've been impossible to challenge.

+1 for Obsidian, I wrangled long with the fact it is not open source, but since it handles file with markdown formatting and saves them openly accessible, I gave it a try anyway. Really like it but will definitely never be open to pay a subscription for it. One time payment, absolutely!

Another +1 for Obsidian. Will never go back. For anyone running into Notion, it doesn’t work offline (that I last checked.) bit me in the ass one time. Obsidian is all markdown locally available.

I self host a lot of shit, but after almost a year of using Obsidian I finally paid for their sync feature for one reason: iCloud sync to iOS is painfully slow.

I was sometimes waiting 30-45 seconds to jot down a note just waiting on the app to open with iCloud sync as my backend. Now, with Obsidian sync, the app is ready-to-go in seconds.

Now if you're only going to be using on desktop, I would definitely consider a git-repository based sync, but if you're gonna use mobile I'd recommend you at least consider Obsidian Sync

I already have Syncthing up and running so its not an issue for me right now and I don't need to share notes.

Does it support drawing on tablets? Also, if I wanted something to use to create handwritten digital notes, how would I go about that. Not that many good degoogled tablet options out there and linux tablets aren't there yet. I can only think of a wacon or huion connected to my linux laptop. However, this will result in very poor battery life.

Thanks! That is good to know. I will check it out. I was thinking of creating one that allows you to BYOC. I need something that is free, cross platform, auto saves, and can keep offline copies. All for just basic note taking.

No way in hell I am going to pay a ton of money to store a bunch of text. I don’t even need any of the advanced functionality, not even images, just a dumping ground for text notes I take on my phone.

I haven't used Evernote in at least a decade, I didn't even think they were still around.

Yay FOSS. But RE: death warrant…
I can imagine it being a decent money move.

You have a big user base that maybe isn’t really growing anymore. Anybody who wanted your shiny optional features is already paying for them. You’re not monetizing your free users.

What to do?

Kick everybody off the platform unless they pay up!

Now everybody who can afford your subscription but isn’t technical enough to search “migrate Evernote” is a customer.

And that’s probably more than like seven people too!

Obviously I’m not evaluating any business ethics here… just moneyyy!

Evernote still exists?

I can strongly reccommend logseq its a foss alrernative to obsidian. Its getting betger eveey day and i can definatly say the new database version is going to be awsome.

It does not work exactly like obsidian as it is an outliner. I use both on the same vault and logseq is slower on larger vault.

Logseq is very adaptable u can use pages and journals for more structured working and use whiteboards for more freeform notetaking .Performance thats why im excited for the database version

They're adding a database to Logseq? As opposed to being purely plaintext?

Its in testing now i believe but its a database backend instead of markdown its wayy fast removes document size limmits etc. Im more excited about the interfacing opertunities interacting directly with the db tho.

1 more...

Lol, tried them about 10 years ago, wasn't impressed.

They're still around, and think this is a good move? So many other, WAY better notebook apps.

MS OneNote works well on all platforms (except Linux!) for several years now, and blows Evernote away (it's my Achilles heel).

And now apps like Joplin, Obsidian, etc, are closing fast on OneNote (and even better in some ways), and can sync with tools like Syncthing.

Obsidian + ExcaliDraw is mind-blowing. The integration is absurdly good! It can even render entire PDFs for highlighting (a bit slow but usable).

Only thing I don’t like about Obsidian is the UI. It’s just kinda clunky and obtuse. I find navigating around consistently confusing. Which sounds like a small gripe but if I can’t just open up a note taking app and get rolling I’m just less likely to take them in the first place.

Yeah, even the startup time needs some work. It's more useful for when I'm doing other work that's more involved.

Having used both OneNote & Obsidian extensively, OneNote is like a children's colouring book in comparison IMO.
Not that it's bad, it serves plenty well for most people.

Not an unfair comparison, though I find Obsidian overly complex/convoluted. But I think that comes with the territory when your design philosophy is very open extensibility and using standard document types rather than a proprietary binary format like ON.

Plus OneNote is 20 years old now, was extended (after MS bought it) to integrate with SharePoint (maybe it was designed that way, I don't remember), so really is a 20th century piece of software. There are add-ons that greatly extend its capability (Onetastic, Gem, etc). So in a business environment the full desktop app with SharePoint is pretty impressive. To it's credit, I have 15+ years and gigabytes of data in it, and have never (knock on wood) lost anything, moving it across perhaps a dozen systems.

All that said... I'm moving to Joplin, lol. Trying to get away from dependence on apps I don't control (and I want a notebook that works on Linux too).

To sync to mobile devices, OneNote requires Onedrive (or setup your own SharePoint server, uggh). At least with Obsidian/Joplin, etc, I get to manage how things sync. And if I'm happy with the features in my current setup, I never have to change anything. Never know when MS will fuck up Onedrive sync, requiring a version of OneNote I can't run, or has issues.

I think OneNote is potentially a good middle ground between something like Obsidian and something much simpler like Google Keep, but for me it adds complexity without adding enough functionality to justify it.

MS OneNote lags 200-300ms on M1 pro CPU...

Ugh, Syncthing. I bet it works well for syncing between Linux boxes or even MacOS, but when I tried using it to sync between Windows and a couple of Android devices, it was incredibly clunky. I found it confusing and obtuse even though I've been a software engineer for over 20 years.

Rant over.

I keep hundreds of gigs in sync between 4 windows computers and about 5 phones, including iOS (on iOS it's Möbius). SyncTrayzor for Windows is really helpful.

It rarely has issues, when it does it notifies you of a sync conflict (it's always a result of me doing something that's bad practice, such as disabling sync for weeks on one device and making a bunch of changes).

Give it a try again. I especially recommend Syncthing-Fork for Android, it moves sync conditions into the individual sync jobs/folders. This enables me to have my DCIM folder sync to home, regardless of network or power conditions, so I never lose pictures, while allowing me to set my media sync folder (music, videos, etc from my home desktop) to only sync while on wifi, and other jobs to only run while connected to power and wifi.

Resilio is another great sync tool, works differently than Syncthing by using the bittorrent protocol. It has Sync-on-demand, which is great for grabbing media from my desktop from anywhere, Syncthing would only permit Syncthing the entire folder, with Resilio you can browse the share from your phone, pick files, and have it sync them right now.

I'd use Resilio more, just for that feature, but it kills memory on a phone because it keeps the sync database in ram when running, while Syncthing relies on files for indexing. So ST is my daily driver, and load up Resilio when I need to grab specific files.

I ended up using a combination of Obsidian sync and Google drive to do what I wanted, and it was much easier.

I'm all for people using Syncthing in cases where it meets their needs, but when you're mainly syncing notes, I think it's overkill and doesn't pull its weight in terms of its learning curve and the potential to screw things up with an incorrect configuration.

Another issue I ran into was that the devices have to be awake at the same time to sync between them. Using a cloud based solution makes that problem go away. Syncthing might be worth it for me if I ever get around to setting up a Linux media server, but I've been resisting it because I don't want another machine to maintain. I still can't help but think of an old job I had where we were almost unable to do a big demo because it relied on a server at a coworker's house that was accidentally unplugged.

Good point about being awake at the same time, and have sync conditions met.

I deal with that by using a computer at home as the always-on cloud.

Definitely something to consider for sync jobs.

Interesting, because my experience with it has been smooth, no problem at all. I let it running on my phone and laptop basically all the time.

re: OneNote

Although not a replacement for OneNote on Windows 10/OneNote in Microsoft 365, you can get Waydroid and run OneNote's Android app with it.

I don't have a stylus so I'm not able to check if everything works, but if it does, it'll hopefully feel better than the web client, which wasn't able to keep up with stylus strokes last time I checked. The number of pens is lacking though, even the iPadOS version is better...

I've always run the full desktop app on Windows (Office 2016 at this point). Pretty sure it supports writing/stylus.

I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, when MS borks something with Onedrive so I can't sync with this old version any more. Fortunately that will only impact mobile devices, my laptop/pc's will continue to sync with each other.

They're clearly pushing us away from full desktop apps, wanting us to use 365/SaaS instead. No thanks. Web apps/UWP suck.

For using onenote in Linux, I just made an app out of the web version in Epiphany/GNOME Web. It's not as smooth as a real app, but it's functional. I expect you could do it with Chromium too.

Joplin is a solid alternative. It even supports latex through a plugin. You can edit your notes in an external editor which is awesome for an Emacs fanatic like me. Combine that with a great Android app + syncthing, I don't know what more one can need.

I have been using Joplin with Dropbox sync. Syncs between my Desktop, Android, and iOS devices. Switched from Google Keep a few months back. Great app.

yup, do the same and its ALL encrypted so no snoop snoop by anybody.

Try using Syncthing instead of Dropbox. Direct sync between all devices, encrypted, no cloud required.

iOS version is called Möbius.

I was using nextcloud at first but kept having sync issues. I use syncthing to sync my Libre office docs and it always disconnects on my Android. I bought Mobious a few months back to sync photos from my iPhone and it always disconnected. So I switched to photosync. So in other words syncthing hasn't really been reliable for me. I use a free Dropbox account and haven't had any issues since. And the best thing about Joplin desktop is there is a Backup plugin, so if my Dropbox ever went down, I still have multiple Backups saved locally and on my Proton Drive.

I’ve never understood why anyone uses Evernote. Just use a folder with Markdown files. Or Obsidian. Or VS Code with plugins. Or EMacs org mode. So many good FOSS options out there (yes, I know VS Code isn’t FOSS but VSCodium is) that don’t lock you in. Hypocritical of me to say as an Apple user, but I hate when companies’ business models are to lock in consumers. Just make a better product that’s worth paying for.

It's simple. The people using Evernote didn't care about being locked in.

Same shit will happen to all those people building their shit on the back of Discord.

At some point all the people who paid for it will want to see some returns, and suddenly it's costing you $30 a month to access your own content.

Obsidian is awesome. It won't meet everyone's needs, but I love the lightweight simplicity of it. But it's also extremely extensible with add-ons if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

100% agree. I personally haven’t got a use case that fits very well with it (maybe someday when I build a Zettelkasten), but I can see why the community loves it so much. Open source and a great library of plugins.

Edit: Turns out it isn’t open source and their terrible misunderstanding of open source doesn’t help.

deleted

Is that very hard to do? Right click, save as html. Does obsidian only save references to files outside the vaults? I thought it made a copy of external files inside the vault too.

I hit the 50 cap, then deleted about 30 unnecessary notes, and STILL couldn't create more notes.

I replaced it with Draft Notes.

I mean, it doesn't 50 active notes so I guess they decided that creation of 50 notes is what's allowed regardless of how many active you have left.

...or it's a bug, but generally I tend not to give businesses the benefit of the doubt.

Evernote used “Subscription model”. It hurt itself in its confusion.

I was a paying customer and would not have been affected by this. But it seemed like a crappy move and I didn’t support it, so I ended my subscription. I’ve switched to Obsidian, which is significantly better.

Best thing about Evernote was its web clipping extensions... anyone use one that's as good or better..?

joplin

The only advantage of Evernote over everything else is it's scanning of the contents of PDFs. I scan all my paper documents and stored them in Evernote for easy searching. Since I moved away from Evernote (to Joplin) that's the only thing I missed. If anyone has a suggestion for replacing this I'd be very happy.

I think OneNote can transpose text from images, but it's been a while since I used the feature.

Yeah, it seems to work now. Didn't used to work reliably a few years ago. Now, text within any document I save seems to come up in search shortly afterwards.

Most new phones camera app does that too. You van even search Google photos for specific documents by name like "passport" etc.

The app native to your phone is likely just as good and can “share to” your note app of choice. Microsoft Office Lens is still best in class for this , IMO though.

And here I was a sucker for using Simplemote this whole time. I missed out on my opportunity to get charged

Old news, they already have implemented it around 2 weeks ago. I moved to LogSeq, it's a bit more complicated than Evernote but it's a really good alternative. Open source too.

Don't forget to delete your account on your way out.

Standard Notes for secure note taking.

It's my favourite aswell. Unbelieveable how difficult it was to find an alternative to google keep that's just a simple notebook with no bullshit features I never need.

Since no one has recommended, I would recommend Notesnook. Open Source app with Encryption. They are also planning to open source the Sync (afaik) part too.

Another option is AnyType.

Another option is Notion (not open Source/encrypted).

The article is from November 29 and the change is to take effect on December 4, which is a bit late for this post.

Dumb question, evernote has a feature to embed audio recordings within the notes, and, synced across devices

How could this be replicated with something like obsidian/rome/typora/notepad++/notion/something/joplin? any suggestions?

That's not a dumb question. Of the ones you listed I've only ever used Obsidian and Notepad++. I'm not sure notepad++ can do that, but Obsidian can I think. Obsidian has a core plugin (expansions made and supported by the developers that ship with the program by default) that allows for audio recording and embedding in your notes. I think that by default you have to go and turn it on in settings, but once you've done that you should be good to go.

No idea about the others but you can embebbed videos and audio on Joplin, or other types of files. For videos and audio it shows a player to play it, not sure if it supports all formats or what tough...

That said it doesn't have a nice recording button or similar I don't think so. You need to record with something else and then add the file on the note. Maybe a plugin adds something like that to record directly no idea.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The notetaking app said that this change will be applicable for all new and existing free users starting December 4.

Going forward, new and existing Free users will have a maximum of fifty notes and one notebook per account.

These limits refer to the number of notes and notebooks a user can have in their account at one time: you can always delete unwanted content to remain below the threshold,” the company, owned by Milan-based Bending Spoons, said.

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.”

While Ian Smalls, who was appointed Evernote CEO in 2018, managed to get the company to $100 million in recurring revenue, the app has fallen behind newer competitors like Notion.

For users who might want to look for alternatives, Notion, Microsoft OneNote and Zoho Notebook offer generous free tiers.

The original article contains 361 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Hey everyone. I own a Synology and run evernote on it. Can someone recommend a good note app that isn't Synology Note station that I can run on my Synology? I don't really want my notes on the internet so OneDrive is not an option. Thank you for your recommendations.

I use Joplin its 100% Foss and has multiple sync options

I think the markdown files are stored locally and on their cloud. I rather have it on my server. Thank you!

You don't have to sync it to their cloud you can sync it to your own actually. I use my bextcloud server to sync it and they have other options like WebDAV as well

Edit to add: they also let you self host the server they designed as well

Personally, I really enjoy Obsidian ( obsidian.md ), its been fantastic for my notetaking on my PC.

Now, I will admit I haven't tried it myself but it can apparently work on Synology, so that might be an alternative. Best of luck finding one!

Obsidian This sounds like a solution for me. I'm going to try and install it on my box. Thank you!

you can use logseq (opensource) on all your devices and sync the markdown-files with Synology Drive

Thank you. I'll check this out!

I use SimpleNote, which is really close to the default MacOS note app (my goal was exactly to find something similar for Windows).
Note list on the left, note's content on the right, no bullshit, no clutter. You can pin notes, you can add tags, stuff is cloud-synced.

whats the point of a note taking application? Either keep the note in a .txt file for long term, or write it on pen & paper for short term.

What's the point of an app to keep temporary notes?

Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter

They offer additional features. One Note ties into the MS eco-system in an okish way. Obsidian is basically text (actually md) in a folder/folders but supports plug-ins that can do a lot. Notion is backed by databases. Others run in the terminal and can support plug-ins. Evernote was one of the first to offer additional features and offered syncing and connections to other apps (seems a lot of that has been restricted in the last 15 years).

sometimes low-tech is best... https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/11/why-the-office-needs-a-typewriter-revolution

Dude you’re on a platform for people who go out of their way to find their own artisanal social media network.

I'm on a platform because it is free of corporate company control. There is no better security than hand written and properly disposed of notes.

Retaining digital notes in a massive notepad does nothing but add digital mental clutter. Notes are meant to be temporary fleeting thoughts.

I think you're misunderstanding what people mean by "notes" in this context. They're not meant to be temporary.

The author of that article seems completely out of touch with the requirements of a modern office. Also, that is in no way related to a note taking app.

I do agree with the sentiment that low tech can be good. While I find note taking apps helpful, I also like a notebook and pen (even lower tech than a typewriter).

Does anyone believe taking notes makes them smarter?

It absolutely does for me. I don't remember much of what I hear, and only the gist of what I read, but if I write something, it's in there. I'll even take notes on my own thoughts to help me remember details as I work out complex problems

I have pages and pages of notes laying around...I almost never read them, but taking them definitely made me smarter

Seeing all these recommendations for all these note taking applications makes me feel so out of touch lol like I literally just use Discord for short-term scrap notes and then I use txt files for long-term notes (synced to my Dropbox), like you said.

I'm probably missing out on some features but honestly I have instant cloud syncing for my short-term and long-term notes and it works well enough for me, plus with 2FA it's generally secure enough. Anything sensitive would be encrypted and probably stored locally only. It works well enough for me.

I'm with you there, I carry a small notebook with me everywhere I go and write notes about everything. I remember things that I wrote on paper more easily than inputting them on an app. I guess notetaking apps like logseq has a lot of advantages, like displaying and auto-formatting your notes in a nice way, but for me it's not really useful. I don't look at my notes everyday. Also it's nice to do something without requiring looking at a screen once in a while!