- You may have read about the ongoing changes occurring with Evernote. It seems as though every year a change occurs with the company behind Evernote that results in speculation that its demise is imminent. I've been using Evernote nearly since it first became a product and while I don't use it for writing notes it evolved into my document repository. The fact that Evernote runs on every computer platform I use and the web means I can access anything I store in it from any device I use in any place I may be. Evernote has what may be the best web clipper that I have used over the years to capture clips of receipts and any other information on the web that I may want to store. The clipper is available as an extension/plugin for all the major browsers and also exists in the Share functionality of both Android and iPadOS. #
- Moving away from Evernote to another product, or products, is a two step process. One step is importing all of the current notes with the fidelity needed for them to be useful, by which I mean embedded images and PDFs need to import into the same documents so that I can find and read them in the same was as I do today with Evernote. The second step is picking and using a replacement web clipping and mobile sharing application. Ideally, both of these steps involve the same application and work in the same way as Evernote.#
- I think the biggest challenge will be with finding another app that runs on all of the platforms I use: MacOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, Linux, Firefox, and Chrome, and it is accessible from anywhere via the public Internet. I could live with only using an web application if I have to, but prefer native applications for at least MacOS, iPadOS, and Android. I don't have a problem moving the current archive of notes from Evernote to a separate application from what I will use going forward, so the replacement app can start with a clean slate. #
- Over the past years I have done research and testing for possible replacements. Two years ago or so I imported my Evernote notes in to OneNote and found that it worked pretty well except for one quirk in that it imported ever 100 notes in two separate sections, for example I end up with a section named "Pages 1-100" and another section named "Pages 101-200" and so on. It's not a show stopper because I use search more than navigation, but an oddity none the less. OneNote is accessible on nearly every platform I use but the OneNote Clipper is no longer supported as an extension in Firefox, which has become my main browser. I could move back to Chrome but I find it frustrating it is not on Firefox. #
- This past week the Linking Your Thinking YouTube video had a video on switching from Evernote to Obsidian. I think the pitch being made in the video to replace Evernote with Obsidian is a bit over the top but it provides what turns out to be simple instructions for importing Evernote Exports in to Obsidian using the Importer community plugin. I followed the instructions to create a Evernote folder in my main Obsidian vault (I don't use Obsidian much so this vault doesn't have much in it) and then create subfolders for each of the imported Evernote notebooks. The key thing is that web clips that became embedded images or HTML linked images import with the same fidelity as they appear in Evernote, so the result is I now all of those notes in a new app so if for some reason Evernote were to just down tomorrow I will not have lost anything. (The first thing I did when I heard about the latest news was create a fresh export of all my Evernote notes I want to be sure to note lose.)#
- Problem is, these Evernote notes are only accessible in my Macbook. Obsidian does not store notes on a server accessed via the Internet, but it does provide a form of peer synchronization between instances of the app running on different platforms. I don't pay for the synchronization add-on because I don't need it as so far I have only dabbled with Obsidian. #
- A interesting upside is that the Obsidian importer actually converts each Evernote note to a markdown file that is stored in a folder named by the notebook in which the note was contained. Any embedded or attached items are stored in another folder and the importer creates a markdown link to each of those items. I should able to copy the entire folder structure from the home folder on my Macbook to a file sharing service like Google Drive or OneDrive and at worse case be able to find the markdown file and open them using any text editor. #
- By the way, I had found a MacOS command line tool called evernot2md that converts Evernote notes to markdown files but it does not handled embedded images consistently and so I decided it does not fit my need. #
- I now am going to shift my focus on finding a replacement for capturing and storing web clippings. First, I am starting with OneNote. I've created a new notebook in OneNote to store all of my new web clips, but as I said it doesn't work in Firefox so that forces me to pre-plan or take an extra step with my web clipping. If I am on a PC I could always print to a PDF and store the result. #
- I am also going to take a look at what web clipping options exist for Obsidian, although I have doubts about mobile. I found an app called mymind that is optimized for web clipping, works on the important platforms I use, but I am not thrilled with the idea of paying for a subscription. I think I could also clip to Roam, but while that is what I am using for my personal notetaking I am not sure I want to use it for storing web clips.#
- I would consider Archivebox, which I am selfhosting on a Raspberry Pi, but it doesn't have a mobile app. Capture from mobile devices is very important to me as I think that is how I create more than have of these clippings. #
- The search for a web clipper/document capture replacement is probably going to take me me some time. If you have ideas for options I would am in interested in learning about them. #
- You may have read about the ongoing changes occurring with Evernote. It seems as though every year a change occurs with the company behind Evernote that results in speculation that its demise is imminent. I've been using Evernote nearly since it first became a product and while I don't use it for writing notes it evolved into my document repository. The fact that Evernote runs on every computer platform I use and the web means I can access anything I store in it from any device I use in any place I may be. Evernote has what may be the best web clipper that I have used over the years to capture clips of receipts and any other information on the web that I may want to store. The clipper is available as an extension/plugin for all the major browsers and also exists in the Share functionality of both Android and iPadOS. #
- Moving away from Evernote to another product, or products, is a two step process. One step is importing all of the current notes with the fidelity needed for them to be useful, by which I mean embedded images and PDFs need to import into the same documents so that I can find and read them in the same was as I do today with Evernote. The second step is picking and using a replacement web clipping and mobile sharing application. Ideally, both of these steps involve the same application and work in the same way as Evernote.#
- I think the biggest challenge will be with finding another app that runs on all of the platforms I use: MacOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, Linux, Firefox, and Chrome, and it is accessible from anywhere via the public Internet. I could live with only using an web application if I have to, but prefer native applications for at least MacOS, iPadOS, and Android. I don't have a problem moving the current archive of notes from Evernote to a separate application from what I will use going forward, so the replacement app can start with a clean slate. #
- Over the past years I have done research and testing for possible replacements. Two years ago or so I imported my Evernote notes in to OneNote and found that it worked pretty well except for one quirk in that it imported ever 100 notes in two separate sections, for example I end up with a section named "Pages 1-100" and another section named "Pages 101-200" and so on. It's not a show stopper because I use search more than navigation, but an oddity none the less. OneNote is accessible on nearly every platform I use but the OneNote Clipper is no longer supported as an extension in Firefox, which has become my main browser. I could move back to Chrome but I find it frustrating it is not on Firefox. #
- This past week the Linking Your Thinking YouTube video had a video on switching from Evernote to Obsidian. I think the pitch being made in the video to replace Evernote with Obsidian is a bit over the top but it provides what turns out to be simple instructions for importing Evernote Exports in to Obsidian using the Importer community plugin. I followed the instructions to create a Evernote folder in my main Obsidian vault (I don't use Obsidian much so this vault doesn't have much in it) and then create subfolders for each of the imported Evernote notebooks. The key thing is that web clips that became embedded images or HTML linked images import with the same fidelity as they appear in Evernote, so the result is I now all of those notes in a new app so if for some reason Evernote were to just down tomorrow I will not have lost anything. (The first thing I did when I heard about the latest news was create a fresh export of all my Evernote notes I want to be sure to note lose.)#
- Problem is, these Evernote notes are only accessible in my Macbook. Obsidian does not store notes on a server accessed via the Internet, but it does provide a form of peer synchronization between instances of the app running on different platforms. I don't pay for the synchronization add-on because I don't need it as so far I have only dabbled with Obsidian. #
- A interesting upside is that the Obsidian importer actually converts each Evernote note to a markdown file that is stored in a folder named by the notebook in which the note was contained. Any embedded or attached items are stored in another folder and the importer creates a markdown link to each of those items. I should able to copy the entire folder structure from the home folder on my Macbook to a file sharing service like Google Drive or OneDrive and at worse case be able to find the markdown file and open them using any text editor. #
- By the way, I had found a MacOS command line tool called evernot2md that converts Evernote notes to markdown files but it does not handled embedded images consistently and so I decided it does not fit my need. #
- I now am going to shift my focus on finding a replacement for capturing and storing web clippings. First, I am starting with OneNote. I've created a new notebook in OneNote to store all of my new web clips, but as I said it doesn't work in Firefox so that forces me to pre-plan or take an extra step with my web clipping. If I am on a PC I could always print to a PDF and store the result. #
- I am also going to take a look at what web clipping options exist for Obsidian, although I have doubts about mobile. I found an app called mymind that is optimized for web clipping, works on the important platforms I use, but I am not thrilled with the idea of paying for a subscription. I think I could also clip to Roam, but while that is what I am using for my personal notetaking I am not sure I want to use it for storing web clips.#
- I would consider Archivebox, which I am selfhosting on a Raspberry Pi, but it doesn't have a mobile app. Capture from mobile devices is very important to me as I think that is how I create more than have of these clippings. #
- The search for a web clipper/document capture replacement is probably going to take me me some time. If you have ideas for options I would am in interested in learning about them. #