11 ms·

If you are storing important info in Evernote, think twice

188 points by Cherian 12y ago

nav1 12y ago
> "I'll now resort to manually backing up every Evernote file to Google Doc" I don't think that's the lesson to take away from this...
- ttflee 12y ago
  > I have only one Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note. IMHO, sorting out versioning of one giant piece of note programatically is quite challenging. FYI: Evernote implements EDAM scheme for synchronisation. https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf
ajarmst 12y ago
One user experiences data corruption. Discovers that only one piece of data from entire store was not saved to cloud. Is nevertheless able to recover the corrupted data and resave to store and cloud. I'm not entirely sure this is sufficient reason to claim that the service is irredeemably flawed and should not be used.
- scribu 12y ago
  > claim that the service is irredeemably flawed and should not be used. The author doesn't suggest that it shouldn't be used at all, just not for critical data.
  - ajarmst 12y ago
    Actually, "important data". Claiming that a data storage service shouldn't be used for important data is claiming that it shouldn't be used.
    - kstrauser 12y ago
      If we're going down that road, "any data". If it wasn't at least a little bit important, you wouldn't have written it down in the first place.
    - scribu 12y ago
      Fair enough. So you're saying that it's acceptable for a data storage service, which is used for storing important data, to occasionally (and silently) not sync some of that data?
      - ajarmst 12y ago
        (1) It's not silent. The entire event was prompted by a crash and apparent shutdown corruption. (2) It's not "occasional". It's one exceptional event reported by one user.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      >Claiming that a data storage service shouldn't be used for important data is claiming that it shouldn't be used. // Really it's just saying "we disclaim liability for any losses using this service". Which free web services offer SLAs? Or, which product in this field is guaranteeing data integrity and retention.
- bndr 12y ago
  The question is, why wasn't this one piece of data saved to the cloud. It seems to me that this is a critical bug. How can I be sure, that all of MY notes in Evernote are being synced correctly? I also use only the mac app, never checked the web interface.
  - shaan7 12y ago
    um, its simple. check the web interface ;)
    - bndr 12y ago
      Yeah, no.. I'd rather use a service where I don't need to double-check if my data is synced or not..
      - uptown 12y ago
        "How can I be sure, that all of MY notes in Evernote are being synced correctly?" "I'd rather use a service where I don't need to double-check if my data is synced or not" Which is it? Do you care, or don't you? Your best bet is to distribute the syncing/backup. Use the primary service for syncing, and an alternate service to backup the data the applications utilize. CrashPlan fulfills the second part of that for me.
      - cpach 12y ago
        Sure. But all software has bugs.
      - vinceguidry 12y ago
        Your only real solution here is to not rely on one service or one company's engineering. Had I been in OP's position, I'd have an rsync script set up on a server somewhere copying the important note somewhere else daily. Perhaps to a dedicated space on my personal machine, where I edit it. The script would perhaps send me an email or notification whenever it runs so I don't have to check it manually. In practice I don't have single points of lifestyle failure. I learned my lesson after I locked myself out of my Gmail account out of stupidity. I was able to regain access through a nifty little trick, the account I'd set up to recover it from I'd stopped using a long time ago, but I was able to re-register it for the sole purpose of recovering my Gmail. Now I use LastPass but I have my Gmail password memorized. If I lose access to LastPass it's not the end of the world, I can still reset all my passwords. You want rock-solid reliability without having to engineer it yourself? You're dreaming. The only service tailor-made for your needs is the one you build.
- Mahn 12y ago
  That's how internet works. One bug that happens once in a million cases and suddenly the service is no longer reliable and cannot be trusted.
- gmu3 12y ago
  He's willing to pay someone $5/month too when I think he doesn't even pay for Evernote. If he did his ticket would have been picked up in 24 hours and they would have suggested he check note history.
  - dserodio 12y ago
    If you've read the article, you would have noticed that he mentions he's a paid user when he contacts support.
chinathrow 12y ago
If it's _important_ to you, back it up. No, backup does not mean to put it somewhere on a single cloud provider which can go belly up the next day or just fsck your files for any number of reasons (as seen in this example). Put it either on multiple storage services at once, update it regularly, check that the backup works and put it on an offline disk and if it is even more important, put it in a fire grade safe or a safe place in a banks vault. Rotate those disks. A rented bank vault is apx. 100 USD/y where I live. Well worth every cent.
- bshimmin 12y ago
  I don't think there are many banks in the UK that offer a safety deposit box these days. Metro are about the only one I could find from a quick search: https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit-Box/Safety-Deposit-Box/ https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit-Bo... I have no need for this, but can't help but think it would be quite cool to have one. (I've probably watched "The Bourne Identity" too many times.)
  - chinathrow 12y ago
    Yes, everytime you go into the vault you feel like Jason. Not kidding. Free experience ;)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
georgebarnett 12y ago
I recently had a very similar experience with several notes not syncing up to the cloud service, despite hitting sync multiple times. Fortunately they're not important data however it did highlight to me that there are certainly complications in solving this problem. It also got me thinking about the challenges involved here - both with UI and with trust. If I as a user don't trust that the sync button does what it says on the tin then how does a product regain that trust and what can the UI do to show that it's actually done its job?
jasode 12y ago
There are many horror stories on the web of users losing their data. I thought it was already well known that Evernote software cannot be trusted. Recently, two HN users made comments about data loss[1][2]. I'm baffled that users continue to trust it. I do understand that it's a slick product with nice features but if it fails the primary purpose (save the data and also retrieve it later), the GUI bells & whistles are meaningless. (Example[3].) In other words, programming a flashy drag&drop tool that saves data to /dev/null negates the point, right? Personally, I've been using ASCII text files as "notebooks" for 20 years and have never lost a thing. Understandably, that workflow is not usable for mobile devices and cloud sync. For the folks that can't use text files, is there really no other alternative product to Evernote that has a reliable track record for saving the customers' data? [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558 [3]http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elephant/ http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elep...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- honestcoyote 12y ago
  I agree. Nothing beats pure text files. These days though, I save them to my Dropbox folder so they're accessible anywhere. I feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds this way.
  - graeme 12y ago
    I do this. What happens if Dropbox deletes a file though, on the server? Then it would vanish from the computer as well. If it was an important but rarely checked file, you might not notice for months or years, by which time it might be difficult to retrieve a copy. Does anyone have more info on the likelihood of this + the possible ways to solve it if it happens? It occurred to me that most of my important files are potentially deletable via Dropbox.
    - 12y ago
pconner 12y ago
Evernote (both the web and Android apps) is one of the buggiest pieces of "professional" software I have ever used. When I use it to take notes for classes, I have given up on using any sort of special formatting (bullets, bold, etc) because I've had all of my formatting completely discarded so many times.
- chinathrow 12y ago
  why do you use it, if it's so buggy? Genuinely interested to learn more.
  - pconner 12y ago
    It was the only synchronized multi-platform note-centric app I knew of, and I didn't bother to research other options. Once I started noticing problems, I was too used to using it, and although they are frustrating issues, they haven't been enough to completely drive me away from Evernote.
  - yborg 12y ago
    You know the answer - inertia and lack of a better alternative. The concept is very convenient and its core incarnation: transparent sync, mobile platform suppoert, presentation (wysiwig text formatting), textual data management (notebooks, tags), and retrieval support (sorting, search) are exactly what I want in a basic textual information management tool. Each of these things individually is available in a number of products, Evernote was one of the first to package them together by design. Then they got VC money, and like so many companies, it all went terribly wrong. They get an absurd amount of money for a service that stores data and syncs it in a cloud (a generic concept better executed by competitors) and have to somehow generate revenue to meet this valuation. So now all kinds of functionality that the users originally didn't need or want starts accumulating in the application. This introduces bloat, bugs, and UI cruft. It does chat now (lolwut). I feel they have been deliberately fighting Zawinski's Law, but it will come, it's just a matter of time. I would welcome any suggestions for another service that is basically what Evernote 2 or 3 was.
    - 12y ago
astalwick 12y ago
To me, the core problem here is that evernote's cloud synced notes are stored locally in some very proprietary cache. I'm happy to use Evernote and assume that it will fail in some horrible way. When it does, I want to be able to easily get my notes back via file system backups or backblaze restore.
covi 12y ago
I believe this is the CAP theorem manifest itself in a cloud storage system. No big deal if you know it is really hard to mitigate.
sithadmin 12y ago
I've encountered bizarre sync/data loss issues with Evernote before, but thankfully with nothing that I cared about. Because I learned that I couldn't trust Evernote, I don't actually use it for very much. This blog post reminded me that I should go cancel my annual subscription.
philjackson 12y ago
I feel http://yipgo.com http://yipgo.com might be a good jump-off point for something oriented to more of a power user. It lacks thinks like Dropbox/Drive/etc sync, but there's promise...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- roxmon 12y ago
  www.yipgo.com leads to an nginx welcome page... Not super confidence-inspiring.
kstrauser 12y ago
> If I didn’t tell you already, here’s my life’s story. I have only one Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note. Like the college hostel room. It has my notes, flight ticket numbers, emails, project plan, reviews links and just about everything. LOLWUT? Yes, Evernote is at fault for data corruption, but the user also did everything in their power to make the effect as damaging as possible. Do you keep all of your software project in a single file in Git and then complain that updates don't merge cleanly? No. That's a recipe for disaster. So why would you inflict a pathological case upon Evernote and then complain that it's behaving pathologically?
- gknoy 12y ago
  Agreed. They could do a variety of things: - Make a new note each month - Use a private github repo, and store a version controlled note - ... OK, Dropbox is probably simpler. I suspect that none of those are as convenient to use as Evernote, but I've never wondered whether my commits have been successfully pushed to Github.
- andybak 12y ago
  I don't follow your reasoning here. If it screws up for this one meganote then it can screw n% of notes in general. The user will use some data - which is pretty much the one thing Evernote is supposed not to do. Also your git analogy is a bit flawed - your argument is more like "evernote corrupted your one critical file - why don't you spread your critical information across several files?" - it hardly affects the core fact that evernote shouldn't be corrupting files at all.
  - michaelcampbell 12y ago
    It shouldn't, but we don't live in PollyannaWorld. > but the user also did everything in their power to make the effect as damaging as possible. This was his point. And he's right.
  - kstrauser 12y ago
    Again, it shouldn't corrupt any at all, and that bad is on Evernote. But I'd suspect that the odds of corruption is proportional to the size and activity of the note, and having 100 tiny notes is less likely to trigger corruption that having 1 hectonote the same size. I'm not sure why you'd ever want to do that anyway. Evernote has tags and folders to help you organize lots of bits of information in separate notes. Whatever storage system you're using, it's never a good idea to poke a stick at it and dare it to cause you pain. They generally oblige.
raverbashing 12y ago
I think Evernote has first move advantage but the product is awful. Really The Web and the App load like Mammoths for something that supposedly just "take notes". Now, why it can't sync a note silently like that? Size issues? Even a huge text is at most a couple of MBs. You don't even need to worry about sending diffs, you can probably compress and send it as is (and keep all the version history, it's text FFS)
malandrew 12y ago
My main question is why Evernote doesn't allow you to pay for a premium service where snapshots of all your data is backed up off-site in a way where you can restore from it. Every company that handles stuff that customers absolutely cannot afford to lose (like photos) should consider offering a premium service where data-loss is 100% not possible, even through an act of god.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pain 12y ago
  Pain point product. Terms of service for memory issues (as a data/social issue).
mashmac2 12y ago
There are tools to regularly, automatically backup your Evernote notes - Evernote Exporter for Windows, for example (http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules-note-exports http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules-no...)
gbbb 12y ago
This just in: 1. syncing is hard. 2. The market share leader is always going to get lazy.
tonywebster 12y ago
There's another strong reason not to trust Evernote: nothing is encrypted at rest on your system or their servers, unless you manually go encrypt selected text in a specific note in the desktop application, where you have to make a new passphrase for each note you want this on. Even this was only recently upgraded from RC2 64-bit to AES 128-bit. They claim they can't perform searches over encrypted data, but that doesn't seem too difficult to solve with an index file that's also encrypted. Evernote does have some detailed security policies and 2FA, but without encryption at rest where only the user has the key, what's the point?
yodasan 12y ago
It looks to me like the data was stored in a temporary cache and never got synced because the application crashed. It's an unfortunate experience, but not one that warrants a fearful take on Evernote. Things happen. I've typed a draft in Gmail before and it never got synced so I've lost it, but it doesn't make me stop using it. Maybe we all need to just take a deep breath and remember how it was before everything synced.
- Cherian 12y ago
  The note is over a year old. Maybe much more. The app should have told me something’s wrong. A red icon or a message. What if I had continued status quo for another year. My primary assumption with Evernote is that everything is stored somewhere “safe”. Everything else is bells and whistles. It’s a bit like saying Gmail/Outlook is unable to send mails, and you are not informed.
  - yodasan 12y ago
    Yeah, maybe adding a database integrity check / repair after a crash would be a good addition.
  - dlu 12y ago
    I think I have an explanation in a separate comment, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737
polemic 12y ago
Small plug, but http://revert.io http://revert.io is pretty great for backing up your cloud things, with excellent Evernote support.
- nhm 12y ago
  I work at Revert, and I second this plug! Evernote is one of our most popular apps, and we also back up Dropbox, Google Drive, Tumblr, and more. Feel free to ask any questions you might have :)
- calebm 12y ago
  Thank you for this recommendation! I was looking for a service just like this about a year ago (because I use Evernote heavily).
ttflee 12y ago
According to Evernote's EDAM scheme (https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf) > the synchronization scheme pushes all of the record keeping and conflict resolution work onto the client so that the service can perform synchronization in a scalable “stateless” manner. This means that the client needs to keep track of the state of the server during each sync, and then use this information to send and receive updates on the next sync. Does this means that, if an error occurs on the client side and this erroneous state is propagated to the server and other clients, the data would be lost for ever?
- ntkachov 12y ago
  Yes. The clients control the servers 100%. If the client bugs out and says "delete everything" then your account could be wiped clean.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
I stopped using Evernote two years ago but before that I was a paying customer for several years. I used to export my notes as HTML and burn them to a backup DVD-R. BTW, I stopped using Evernote because I spent a lot of time curating notes and very little time ever referring to them. I switched to a simple text note system.
brandon272 12y ago
You should never completely trust any single service with your important data, ever. Not Evernote, not Google, not Amazon. Always have backups.
hendersoon 12y ago
This is the main reason why I use Simplenote rather than Evernote. Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and extremely fast, and my preferred desktop client (Resophnotes on windows), _also_ backs up all my notes as ASCII text files to Dropbox. Unlike Google Notes, it is cross-platform, running on _everything_. Downside is that it only supports text, no rich data like Evernote. That's why it's called Simplenote. It's simple. But if that meets your needs, and it sounds like it does, give it a shot. http://simplenote.com/ http://simplenote.com/
- Sujan 12y ago
  > Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and [...] Hate to have to say this, but no, it isn't. If you use Simplenote with multiple devices, especially if you use some of them only every few weeks or months in a no-reliable-internet situation or as a pinned tab in your browsers, it is the opposite of bulletproof. You have to deal with overwritten notes by much older versions and no indication it happened. (Yes, I reported this multiple times but never heard back. Shame, because besides this I also really love Simplenote.)
  - hendersoon 12y ago
    I use simplenote on 2 iOS, 1 android, 2 windows, and 1 linux and have never had the problem you're describing. None of them have intermittent connectivity, though. Thing is, since all the notes are backed-up as simple textfiles to Dropbox and Dropbox saves history, even if that does happen you'll never be screwed over by it. Dropbox backup is a belt+suspenders type deal. Simplenote also saves full history; I just checked my version of "ToDo" (named "Misc Apartments" for reasons you can probably guess but aren't worth going into right now) and it has full history for every single edit going back 212 days inside Simplenote's web UI.
    - Sujan 12y ago
      Hmm, is Dropbox backup still available? I have two accounts, one that is still premium from when this was available and have the Dropbox backup option, but it still only backs up when I hit the button. On the new one, Dropbox backup doesn'T seem to be available :(
rakoo 12y ago
If you are storing important info in <only one place>, think twice. This could have (and sometimes, has) happened with any single service/storage/whatever-cloud provider, even yourself on your computer.
minikites 12y ago
I never understood Evernote, but I've been using SimpleNote for years with only a few minor snags (with third party clients)
mysteriouswasp 12y ago
this is why I use zim notebooks in a git repo.
intopieces 12y ago
I have some concerns about the tone of this article. First, no software is "bulletproof" - failures happen. Second, making one note with all your important life information creates a single point of failure. This is a bad idea. Third, Evernote came to the rescue with their tech support guys and actually recovered this document! Seems like they provide a valuable service.
cuchoi 12y ago
If you are storing important information anywhere, think twice
Rezo 12y ago
Evernote has lost important PDFs I've attached to notes multiple times. Some would show up on my PC but be missing from my Mac and vice versa. If a note has many PDFs (10+) it's almost guaranteed to miss some on either of the two machines. I gave up on the idea of organizing books of receipts, taxes, etc. in Evernote, I just cannot trust it for anything more important than a grocery list.
quinndupont 12y ago
Evernote is my digital junk drawer. That's right, JUNK drawer. It works very well for this purpose, since it is easy to put stuff into, and (usually!) get stuff out of. Like my physical junk drawer, if I can't find something I usually just yell to anyone around, blaming them for moving my stuff. I'd certainly caution anyone to store a single copy of anything truly important it it, but this is a good reminder.
lancewiggs 12y ago
I deplore Evernote because they destroyed Skitch, evidence that they place end users low in their priorities. This experience does not surprise. 1: Revert.io backs up Evernote. 2: Scrivener and Dropbox work well (but sync badly) for managing a lot of text and screenshots. It's also a great writing platform. 3: glui is my current screenshot app - it provides Dropbox links to each picture.
g-garron 12y ago
Keep all important data with you, both in your PC (better encrypted) and in an external disk (backup). If you are really paranoid, you may backup it in the cloud too, S3, Dropbox or any other service.
sjshelby 12y ago
Who keeps important data like that in a single note on a cloud-based note taking app??? I only have to think once and I know how stupid this is...
jng 12y ago
I also carry a ton of critical information in notes. I've tried extensively Apple's iCloud-synced notes, Evernote, and Microsoft's OneNote. Apple is poor at solving trivial conflicts. Evernote is even worse, and really unreliable. Microsoft OneNote is great at reliability and syncing (UX is so-so in mobile, that's the only gotcha). I wouldn't have expected so, but they have the upper hand here.
- killerpopiller 12y ago
  I am also relying on OneNote - Do you know if I can export or backup my data, automaticly?
  - awa 12y ago
    If you save notebooks to Onedrive (default option in latest versions) you can install the Onedrive app and have it sync the documents folder to your machine all the time so you will have a copy on Onedrive, and your machine. Onedrive also backs up your data though you might have to go through Customer support to get to that.
- Jipha 12y ago
  I switched from Evernote to OneNote too, though lately I've been doing all my text-based notes in https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ (YC '10). It automatically uploads your data to Dropbox if you upgrade, but you can easily export everything as a single file yourself.
- veidr 12y ago
  In my Sisyphean search for an Evernote alternative, I periodically try out OneNote, too. For note-taking on the desktop (including on Mac), it blows the doors off of Evernote. But, it can't search the contents of attachment files. So you can't just throw everything into OneNote and then count on being able to find it again. In my view, this makes it a fundamentally different kind of application.
angelortega 12y ago
If you are storing important info in $CLOUD, think twice.
NeatoJn 12y ago
off the topic a bit, I feel evernote is far too much business-stretched nowadays. For the past two years, almost all new features and improvement are cater to business users, like presentation, work chat and context. Evernote premium actually has note versions, but the experience is pretty horrible. Unlike dropbox, you cannot revert to an early version freely since it is the server deciding the time to backup your note state. Revert.io seems to be great. I have signed up. It will be better that they can offer limited revisions (2-3) for free users.
robotic 12y ago
Personal anecdote: I've been using Evernote Premium for 4 years (coming on 5). I have over 800 notes and I am not aware of any data loss issues.
dsk78 12y ago
I usually using simple text with dropbox and git repo, just in case dropbox failed pretty hard
- suprjami 12y ago
  If you're storing git repos on Dropbox, that's a bad idea. The way Dropbox syncs and diff's files messes with the way git does it, and can result in corrupt history. There's plenty of anecdotes on the web about this. Don't store git on Dropbox.
snowwrestler 12y ago
So is the Evernote local content DB not included in Time Machine backups? My understanding is that it typically is, although it takes a little doing to restore. I tend to put important stuff in DropBox because, as a collection of local folders and files, it is well-integrated with Time Machine. Important reminder that NEITHER Evernote nor DropBox are backup solutions. They should be; they're a good approximation; but ultimately the only reliable way to back something up is to put a copy of it somewhere else.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hobarrera 12y ago
TLDR: User had no backups, almost lost all his data after a crash. Nothing but a pointless rant here.
rsync 12y ago
Does evernote have a command line api tool, like s3cmd and gsutil ? We built s3cmd into our environment a year or two ago[1] and gsutil is running in beta right now ... we'd be happy to build in an evernote tool so you could sync evernote to your rsync.net account ... [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html (scroll down to "Data Transfer to/from Amazon S3")
smegel 12y ago
> But then I wondered. Why wasn’t “TODO” backed up? And then I wondered, why isn't OP using Google Docs?
chris-at 12y ago
I only lost my data once but that was enough. My note got stuck in a sync conflict. Support was unwilling to help me get the data out of the transmit queue... they actually told me to make sure to save my note before moving to another device. I guess I was the first user to forget that. They never apologized for their bug and I was a paid user back then.
gwern 12y ago
Linux users can back up their Evernotes using http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/ http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/
dlu 12y ago
I would wager that the note belongs to a local (unsynched) notebook, which is why it wasn't on Evernote's servers. I apologize if this explanation is a bit long, buckle in. Specifically I suspect the note belongs to a "Conflicting Changes" notebook, which gets automatically created a note you are trying to upsync conflicts with a copy already on the server. There might be other sync errors that trigger this as well. If you look at the screenshot of the Mac app, the note belongs to a notebook that starts with "Con..." rather than something like "cherian's notebook" as seen in the screenshot from the Web app. Users who run into this get a sync error and a modal dialog explaining that their copy of the note is placed into a local notebook titled, "Conflicting Changes [Date/timestamp]" There should be another copy of the note on the Evernote servers. It is possible that when Cherian saw this, he deleted the copy of the note on the Evernote servers and kept the local copy, which would be the opposite of what he'd want to do. (Total guess) I would guess that this happened very early on and Cherian has been adding & editing this note locally in that local notebook, but not realizing it. The dialog can be a little confusing, and many of us just click away modal dialogs without thinking about it too much. If you primarily ever work out of All Notes, you may not pay much attention to which notebooks your notes are in. Especially if you only edit that one note on the desktop. If you worked between desktop and mobile and/or web it would be easy to immediately notice that note missing entirely. It is possible that there wasn't anything wrong with the note as the customer support agent said, but rather the note was just in a local notebook. Copy/pasting it into a new note would solve it in either case. Local Notebooks exist only for the desktop clients. You can create one to put in notes you don't want sync'd up to the Evernote service. They're also a place to store notes if you're out of this month's quota. Source: Customer Support agents escalate up to specialists, which eventually escalates up to Product Management. Almost exclusively with really weird and hairy problems.
WalterBright 12y ago
My solution is pretty low tech. I keep a spiral bound notebook by my desk for notes. When it fills up, I run it through the scanner, copy to backups, and buy a new notebook.
- galfarragem 12y ago
  I used to think as you, just recently I understood the fuss about Evernote: It's fast to search notes. And once my notes are just a few KB of text, I can easily export them to html and make backups. Ps: Try their windows desktop app, it's great.
westiseast 12y ago
SimpleNote - I started using it because it's lightweight. It lacks s lot of features of Evernote, but it seems to work after 1year plus of heavy use. Feel your pain.
scientist 12y ago
I have been using Keynote [1] for years, without ever losing information. I find that its tree data structure is extremely useful. It is an open-source desktop program. Unfortunately its development seems to have been put on hold. It would be great if developers would keep it updated (on Windows 8, there are some small UX glitches). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(notetaking_software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(notetaking_software)

188 points by Cherian 12y ago

nav1 12y ago

> "I'll now resort to manually backing up every Evernote file to Google Doc" I don't think that's the lesson to take away from this...

ttflee 12y ago
> I have only one Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note. IMHO, sorting out versioning of one giant piece of note programatically is quite challenging. FYI: Evernote implements EDAM scheme for synchronisation. https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf

ajarmst 12y ago

One user experiences data corruption. Discovers that only one piece of data from entire store was not saved to cloud. Is nevertheless able to recover the corrupted data and resave to store and cloud. I'm not entirely sure this is sufficient reason to claim that the service is irredeemably flawed and should not be used.

scribu 12y ago
> claim that the service is irredeemably flawed and should not be used. The author doesn't suggest that it shouldn't be used at all, just not for critical data.
- ajarmst 12y ago
  Actually, "important data". Claiming that a data storage service shouldn't be used for important data is claiming that it shouldn't be used.
  - kstrauser 12y ago
    If we're going down that road, "any data". If it wasn't at least a little bit important, you wouldn't have written it down in the first place.
  - scribu 12y ago
    Fair enough. So you're saying that it's acceptable for a data storage service, which is used for storing important data, to occasionally (and silently) not sync some of that data?
    - ajarmst 12y ago
      (1) It's not silent. The entire event was prompted by a crash and apparent shutdown corruption. (2) It's not "occasional". It's one exceptional event reported by one user.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >Claiming that a data storage service shouldn't be used for important data is claiming that it shouldn't be used. // Really it's just saying "we disclaim liability for any losses using this service". Which free web services offer SLAs? Or, which product in this field is guaranteeing data integrity and retention.
bndr 12y ago
The question is, why wasn't this one piece of data saved to the cloud. It seems to me that this is a critical bug. How can I be sure, that all of MY notes in Evernote are being synced correctly? I also use only the mac app, never checked the web interface.
- shaan7 12y ago
  um, its simple. check the web interface ;)
  - bndr 12y ago
    Yeah, no.. I'd rather use a service where I don't need to double-check if my data is synced or not..
    - uptown 12y ago
      "How can I be sure, that all of MY notes in Evernote are being synced correctly?" "I'd rather use a service where I don't need to double-check if my data is synced or not" Which is it? Do you care, or don't you? Your best bet is to distribute the syncing/backup. Use the primary service for syncing, and an alternate service to backup the data the applications utilize. CrashPlan fulfills the second part of that for me.
    - cpach 12y ago
      Sure. But all software has bugs.
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      Your only real solution here is to not rely on one service or one company's engineering. Had I been in OP's position, I'd have an rsync script set up on a server somewhere copying the important note somewhere else daily. Perhaps to a dedicated space on my personal machine, where I edit it. The script would perhaps send me an email or notification whenever it runs so I don't have to check it manually. In practice I don't have single points of lifestyle failure. I learned my lesson after I locked myself out of my Gmail account out of stupidity. I was able to regain access through a nifty little trick, the account I'd set up to recover it from I'd stopped using a long time ago, but I was able to re-register it for the sole purpose of recovering my Gmail. Now I use LastPass but I have my Gmail password memorized. If I lose access to LastPass it's not the end of the world, I can still reset all my passwords. You want rock-solid reliability without having to engineer it yourself? You're dreaming. The only service tailor-made for your needs is the one you build.
Mahn 12y ago
That's how internet works. One bug that happens once in a million cases and suddenly the service is no longer reliable and cannot be trusted.
gmu3 12y ago
He's willing to pay someone $5/month too when I think he doesn't even pay for Evernote. If he did his ticket would have been picked up in 24 hours and they would have suggested he check note history.
- dserodio 12y ago
  If you've read the article, you would have noticed that he mentions he's a paid user when he contacts support.

chinathrow 12y ago

If it's _important_ to you, back it up. No, backup does not mean to put it somewhere on a single cloud provider which can go belly up the next day or just fsck your files for any number of reasons (as seen in this example). Put it either on multiple storage services at once, update it regularly, check that the backup works and put it on an offline disk and if it is even more important, put it in a fire grade safe or a safe place in a banks vault. Rotate those disks. A rented bank vault is apx. 100 USD/y where I live. Well worth every cent.

bshimmin 12y ago
I don't think there are many banks in the UK that offer a safety deposit box these days. Metro are about the only one I could find from a quick search: https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit-Box/Safety-Deposit-Box/ https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit-Bo... I have no need for this, but can't help but think it would be quite cool to have one. (I've probably watched "The Bourne Identity" too many times.)
- chinathrow 12y ago
  Yes, everytime you go into the vault you feel like Jason. Not kidding. Free experience ;)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

georgebarnett 12y ago

I recently had a very similar experience with several notes not syncing up to the cloud service, despite hitting sync multiple times. Fortunately they're not important data however it did highlight to me that there are certainly complications in solving this problem. It also got me thinking about the challenges involved here - both with UI and with trust. If I as a user don't trust that the sync button does what it says on the tin then how does a product regain that trust and what can the UI do to show that it's actually done its job?

jasode 12y ago

There are many horror stories on the web of users losing their data. I thought it was already well known that Evernote software cannot be trusted. Recently, two HN users made comments about data loss[1][2]. I'm baffled that users continue to trust it. I do understand that it's a slick product with nice features but if it fails the primary purpose (save the data and also retrieve it later), the GUI bells & whistles are meaningless. (Example[3].) In other words, programming a flashy drag&drop tool that saves data to /dev/null negates the point, right? Personally, I've been using ASCII text files as "notebooks" for 20 years and have never lost a thing. Understandably, that workflow is not usable for mobile devices and cloud sync. For the folks that can't use text files, is there really no other alternative product to Evernote that has a reliable track record for saving the customers' data? [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558 [3]http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elephant/ http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elep...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
honestcoyote 12y ago
I agree. Nothing beats pure text files. These days though, I save them to my Dropbox folder so they're accessible anywhere. I feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds this way.
- graeme 12y ago
  I do this. What happens if Dropbox deletes a file though, on the server? Then it would vanish from the computer as well. If it was an important but rarely checked file, you might not notice for months or years, by which time it might be difficult to retrieve a copy. Does anyone have more info on the likelihood of this + the possible ways to solve it if it happens? It occurred to me that most of my important files are potentially deletable via Dropbox.
  - 12y ago

pconner 12y ago

Evernote (both the web and Android apps) is one of the buggiest pieces of "professional" software I have ever used. When I use it to take notes for classes, I have given up on using any sort of special formatting (bullets, bold, etc) because I've had all of my formatting completely discarded so many times.

chinathrow 12y ago
why do you use it, if it's so buggy? Genuinely interested to learn more.
- pconner 12y ago
  It was the only synchronized multi-platform note-centric app I knew of, and I didn't bother to research other options. Once I started noticing problems, I was too used to using it, and although they are frustrating issues, they haven't been enough to completely drive me away from Evernote.
- yborg 12y ago
  You know the answer - inertia and lack of a better alternative. The concept is very convenient and its core incarnation: transparent sync, mobile platform suppoert, presentation (wysiwig text formatting), textual data management (notebooks, tags), and retrieval support (sorting, search) are exactly what I want in a basic textual information management tool. Each of these things individually is available in a number of products, Evernote was one of the first to package them together by design. Then they got VC money, and like so many companies, it all went terribly wrong. They get an absurd amount of money for a service that stores data and syncs it in a cloud (a generic concept better executed by competitors) and have to somehow generate revenue to meet this valuation. So now all kinds of functionality that the users originally didn't need or want starts accumulating in the application. This introduces bloat, bugs, and UI cruft. It does chat now (lolwut). I feel they have been deliberately fighting Zawinski's Law, but it will come, it's just a matter of time. I would welcome any suggestions for another service that is basically what Evernote 2 or 3 was.
  - 12y ago

astalwick 12y ago

To me, the core problem here is that evernote's cloud synced notes are stored locally in some very proprietary cache. I'm happy to use Evernote and assume that it will fail in some horrible way. When it does, I want to be able to easily get my notes back via file system backups or backblaze restore.

covi 12y ago

I believe this is the CAP theorem manifest itself in a cloud storage system. No big deal if you know it is really hard to mitigate.

sithadmin 12y ago

I've encountered bizarre sync/data loss issues with Evernote before, but thankfully with nothing that I cared about. Because I learned that I couldn't trust Evernote, I don't actually use it for very much. This blog post reminded me that I should go cancel my annual subscription.

philjackson 12y ago

I feel http://yipgo.com http://yipgo.com might be a good jump-off point for something oriented to more of a power user. It lacks thinks like Dropbox/Drive/etc sync, but there's promise...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
roxmon 12y ago
www.yipgo.com leads to an nginx welcome page... Not super confidence-inspiring.

kstrauser 12y ago

> If I didn’t tell you already, here’s my life’s story. I have only one Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note. Like the college hostel room. It has my notes, flight ticket numbers, emails, project plan, reviews links and just about everything. LOLWUT? Yes, Evernote is at fault for data corruption, but the user also did everything in their power to make the effect as damaging as possible. Do you keep all of your software project in a single file in Git and then complain that updates don't merge cleanly? No. That's a recipe for disaster. So why would you inflict a pathological case upon Evernote and then complain that it's behaving pathologically?

gknoy 12y ago
Agreed. They could do a variety of things: - Make a new note each month - Use a private github repo, and store a version controlled note - ... OK, Dropbox is probably simpler. I suspect that none of those are as convenient to use as Evernote, but I've never wondered whether my commits have been successfully pushed to Github.
andybak 12y ago
I don't follow your reasoning here. If it screws up for this one meganote then it can screw n% of notes in general. The user will use some data - which is pretty much the one thing Evernote is supposed not to do. Also your git analogy is a bit flawed - your argument is more like "evernote corrupted your one critical file - why don't you spread your critical information across several files?" - it hardly affects the core fact that evernote shouldn't be corrupting files at all.
- michaelcampbell 12y ago
  It shouldn't, but we don't live in PollyannaWorld. > but the user also did everything in their power to make the effect as damaging as possible. This was his point. And he's right.
- kstrauser 12y ago
  Again, it shouldn't corrupt any at all, and that bad is on Evernote. But I'd suspect that the odds of corruption is proportional to the size and activity of the note, and having 100 tiny notes is less likely to trigger corruption that having 1 hectonote the same size. I'm not sure why you'd ever want to do that anyway. Evernote has tags and folders to help you organize lots of bits of information in separate notes. Whatever storage system you're using, it's never a good idea to poke a stick at it and dare it to cause you pain. They generally oblige.

raverbashing 12y ago

I think Evernote has first move advantage but the product is awful. Really The Web and the App load like Mammoths for something that supposedly just "take notes". Now, why it can't sync a note silently like that? Size issues? Even a huge text is at most a couple of MBs. You don't even need to worry about sending diffs, you can probably compress and send it as is (and keep all the version history, it's text FFS)

malandrew 12y ago

My main question is why Evernote doesn't allow you to pay for a premium service where snapshots of all your data is backed up off-site in a way where you can restore from it. Every company that handles stuff that customers absolutely cannot afford to lose (like photos) should consider offering a premium service where data-loss is 100% not possible, even through an act of god.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pain 12y ago
Pain point product. Terms of service for memory issues (as a data/social issue).

mashmac2 12y ago

There are tools to regularly, automatically backup your Evernote notes - Evernote Exporter for Windows, for example (http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules-note-exports http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules-no...)

gbbb 12y ago

This just in: 1. syncing is hard. 2. The market share leader is always going to get lazy.

tonywebster 12y ago

There's another strong reason not to trust Evernote: nothing is encrypted at rest on your system or their servers, unless you manually go encrypt selected text in a specific note in the desktop application, where you have to make a new passphrase for each note you want this on. Even this was only recently upgraded from RC2 64-bit to AES 128-bit. They claim they can't perform searches over encrypted data, but that doesn't seem too difficult to solve with an index file that's also encrypted. Evernote does have some detailed security policies and 2FA, but without encryption at rest where only the user has the key, what's the point?

yodasan 12y ago

It looks to me like the data was stored in a temporary cache and never got synced because the application crashed. It's an unfortunate experience, but not one that warrants a fearful take on Evernote. Things happen. I've typed a draft in Gmail before and it never got synced so I've lost it, but it doesn't make me stop using it. Maybe we all need to just take a deep breath and remember how it was before everything synced.

Cherian 12y ago
The note is over a year old. Maybe much more. The app should have told me something’s wrong. A red icon or a message. What if I had continued status quo for another year. My primary assumption with Evernote is that everything is stored somewhere “safe”. Everything else is bells and whistles. It’s a bit like saying Gmail/Outlook is unable to send mails, and you are not informed.
- yodasan 12y ago
  Yeah, maybe adding a database integrity check / repair after a crash would be a good addition.
- dlu 12y ago
  I think I have an explanation in a separate comment, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737

polemic 12y ago

Small plug, but http://revert.io http://revert.io is pretty great for backing up your cloud things, with excellent Evernote support.

nhm 12y ago
I work at Revert, and I second this plug! Evernote is one of our most popular apps, and we also back up Dropbox, Google Drive, Tumblr, and more. Feel free to ask any questions you might have :)
calebm 12y ago
Thank you for this recommendation! I was looking for a service just like this about a year ago (because I use Evernote heavily).

ttflee 12y ago

According to Evernote's EDAM scheme (https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf) > the synchronization scheme pushes all of the record keeping and conflict resolution work onto the client so that the service can perform synchronization in a scalable “stateless” manner. This means that the client needs to keep track of the state of the server during each sync, and then use this information to send and receive updates on the next sync. Does this means that, if an error occurs on the client side and this erroneous state is propagated to the server and other clients, the data would be lost for ever?

ntkachov 12y ago
Yes. The clients control the servers 100%. If the client bugs out and says "delete everything" then your account could be wiped clean.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

I stopped using Evernote two years ago but before that I was a paying customer for several years. I used to export my notes as HTML and burn them to a backup DVD-R. BTW, I stopped using Evernote because I spent a lot of time curating notes and very little time ever referring to them. I switched to a simple text note system.

brandon272 12y ago

You should never completely trust any single service with your important data, ever. Not Evernote, not Google, not Amazon. Always have backups.

hendersoon 12y ago

This is the main reason why I use Simplenote rather than Evernote. Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and extremely fast, and my preferred desktop client (Resophnotes on windows), _also_ backs up all my notes as ASCII text files to Dropbox. Unlike Google Notes, it is cross-platform, running on _everything_. Downside is that it only supports text, no rich data like Evernote. That's why it's called Simplenote. It's simple. But if that meets your needs, and it sounds like it does, give it a shot. http://simplenote.com/ http://simplenote.com/

Sujan 12y ago
> Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and [...] Hate to have to say this, but no, it isn't. If you use Simplenote with multiple devices, especially if you use some of them only every few weeks or months in a no-reliable-internet situation or as a pinned tab in your browsers, it is the opposite of bulletproof. You have to deal with overwritten notes by much older versions and no indication it happened. (Yes, I reported this multiple times but never heard back. Shame, because besides this I also really love Simplenote.)
- hendersoon 12y ago
  I use simplenote on 2 iOS, 1 android, 2 windows, and 1 linux and have never had the problem you're describing. None of them have intermittent connectivity, though. Thing is, since all the notes are backed-up as simple textfiles to Dropbox and Dropbox saves history, even if that does happen you'll never be screwed over by it. Dropbox backup is a belt+suspenders type deal. Simplenote also saves full history; I just checked my version of "ToDo" (named "Misc Apartments" for reasons you can probably guess but aren't worth going into right now) and it has full history for every single edit going back 212 days inside Simplenote's web UI.
  - Sujan 12y ago
    Hmm, is Dropbox backup still available? I have two accounts, one that is still premium from when this was available and have the Dropbox backup option, but it still only backs up when I hit the button. On the new one, Dropbox backup doesn'T seem to be available :(

rakoo 12y ago

If you are storing important info in <only one place>, think twice. This could have (and sometimes, has) happened with any single service/storage/whatever-cloud provider, even yourself on your computer.

minikites 12y ago

I never understood Evernote, but I've been using SimpleNote for years with only a few minor snags (with third party clients)

mysteriouswasp 12y ago

this is why I use zim notebooks in a git repo.

intopieces 12y ago

I have some concerns about the tone of this article. First, no software is "bulletproof" - failures happen. Second, making one note with all your important life information creates a single point of failure. This is a bad idea. Third, Evernote came to the rescue with their tech support guys and actually recovered this document! Seems like they provide a valuable service.

cuchoi 12y ago

If you are storing important information anywhere, think twice

Rezo 12y ago

Evernote has lost important PDFs I've attached to notes multiple times. Some would show up on my PC but be missing from my Mac and vice versa. If a note has many PDFs (10+) it's almost guaranteed to miss some on either of the two machines. I gave up on the idea of organizing books of receipts, taxes, etc. in Evernote, I just cannot trust it for anything more important than a grocery list.

quinndupont 12y ago

Evernote is my digital junk drawer. That's right, JUNK drawer. It works very well for this purpose, since it is easy to put stuff into, and (usually!) get stuff out of. Like my physical junk drawer, if I can't find something I usually just yell to anyone around, blaming them for moving my stuff. I'd certainly caution anyone to store a single copy of anything truly important it it, but this is a good reminder.

lancewiggs 12y ago

I deplore Evernote because they destroyed Skitch, evidence that they place end users low in their priorities. This experience does not surprise. 1: Revert.io backs up Evernote. 2: Scrivener and Dropbox work well (but sync badly) for managing a lot of text and screenshots. It's also a great writing platform. 3: glui is my current screenshot app - it provides Dropbox links to each picture.

g-garron 12y ago

Keep all important data with you, both in your PC (better encrypted) and in an external disk (backup). If you are really paranoid, you may backup it in the cloud too, S3, Dropbox or any other service.

sjshelby 12y ago

Who keeps important data like that in a single note on a cloud-based note taking app??? I only have to think once and I know how stupid this is...

jng 12y ago

I also carry a ton of critical information in notes. I've tried extensively Apple's iCloud-synced notes, Evernote, and Microsoft's OneNote. Apple is poor at solving trivial conflicts. Evernote is even worse, and really unreliable. Microsoft OneNote is great at reliability and syncing (UX is so-so in mobile, that's the only gotcha). I wouldn't have expected so, but they have the upper hand here.

killerpopiller 12y ago
I am also relying on OneNote - Do you know if I can export or backup my data, automaticly?
- awa 12y ago
  If you save notebooks to Onedrive (default option in latest versions) you can install the Onedrive app and have it sync the documents folder to your machine all the time so you will have a copy on Onedrive, and your machine. Onedrive also backs up your data though you might have to go through Customer support to get to that.
Jipha 12y ago
I switched from Evernote to OneNote too, though lately I've been doing all my text-based notes in https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ (YC '10). It automatically uploads your data to Dropbox if you upgrade, but you can easily export everything as a single file yourself.
veidr 12y ago
In my Sisyphean search for an Evernote alternative, I periodically try out OneNote, too. For note-taking on the desktop (including on Mac), it blows the doors off of Evernote. But, it can't search the contents of attachment files. So you can't just throw everything into OneNote and then count on being able to find it again. In my view, this makes it a fundamentally different kind of application.

angelortega 12y ago

If you are storing important info in $CLOUD, think twice.

NeatoJn 12y ago

off the topic a bit, I feel evernote is far too much business-stretched nowadays. For the past two years, almost all new features and improvement are cater to business users, like presentation, work chat and context. Evernote premium actually has note versions, but the experience is pretty horrible. Unlike dropbox, you cannot revert to an early version freely since it is the server deciding the time to backup your note state. Revert.io seems to be great. I have signed up. It will be better that they can offer limited revisions (2-3) for free users.

robotic 12y ago

Personal anecdote: I've been using Evernote Premium for 4 years (coming on 5). I have over 800 notes and I am not aware of any data loss issues.

dsk78 12y ago

I usually using simple text with dropbox and git repo, just in case dropbox failed pretty hard

suprjami 12y ago
If you're storing git repos on Dropbox, that's a bad idea. The way Dropbox syncs and diff's files messes with the way git does it, and can result in corrupt history. There's plenty of anecdotes on the web about this. Don't store git on Dropbox.

snowwrestler 12y ago

So is the Evernote local content DB not included in Time Machine backups? My understanding is that it typically is, although it takes a little doing to restore. I tend to put important stuff in DropBox because, as a collection of local folders and files, it is well-integrated with Time Machine. Important reminder that NEITHER Evernote nor DropBox are backup solutions. They should be; they're a good approximation; but ultimately the only reliable way to back something up is to put a copy of it somewhere else.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hobarrera 12y ago

TLDR: User had no backups, almost lost all his data after a crash. Nothing but a pointless rant here.

rsync 12y ago

Does evernote have a command line api tool, like s3cmd and gsutil ? We built s3cmd into our environment a year or two ago[1] and gsutil is running in beta right now ... we'd be happy to build in an evernote tool so you could sync evernote to your rsync.net account ... [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html (scroll down to "Data Transfer to/from Amazon S3")

smegel 12y ago

> But then I wondered. Why wasn’t “TODO” backed up? And then I wondered, why isn't OP using Google Docs?

chris-at 12y ago

I only lost my data once but that was enough. My note got stuck in a sync conflict. Support was unwilling to help me get the data out of the transmit queue... they actually told me to make sure to save my note before moving to another device. I guess I was the first user to forget that. They never apologized for their bug and I was a paid user back then.

gwern 12y ago

Linux users can back up their Evernotes using http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/ http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/

dlu 12y ago

I would wager that the note belongs to a local (unsynched) notebook, which is why it wasn't on Evernote's servers. I apologize if this explanation is a bit long, buckle in. Specifically I suspect the note belongs to a "Conflicting Changes" notebook, which gets automatically created a note you are trying to upsync conflicts with a copy already on the server. There might be other sync errors that trigger this as well. If you look at the screenshot of the Mac app, the note belongs to a notebook that starts with "Con..." rather than something like "cherian's notebook" as seen in the screenshot from the Web app. Users who run into this get a sync error and a modal dialog explaining that their copy of the note is placed into a local notebook titled, "Conflicting Changes [Date/timestamp]" There should be another copy of the note on the Evernote servers. It is possible that when Cherian saw this, he deleted the copy of the note on the Evernote servers and kept the local copy, which would be the opposite of what he'd want to do. (Total guess) I would guess that this happened very early on and Cherian has been adding & editing this note locally in that local notebook, but not realizing it. The dialog can be a little confusing, and many of us just click away modal dialogs without thinking about it too much. If you primarily ever work out of All Notes, you may not pay much attention to which notebooks your notes are in. Especially if you only edit that one note on the desktop. If you worked between desktop and mobile and/or web it would be easy to immediately notice that note missing entirely. It is possible that there wasn't anything wrong with the note as the customer support agent said, but rather the note was just in a local notebook. Copy/pasting it into a new note would solve it in either case. Local Notebooks exist only for the desktop clients. You can create one to put in notes you don't want sync'd up to the Evernote service. They're also a place to store notes if you're out of this month's quota. Source: Customer Support agents escalate up to specialists, which eventually escalates up to Product Management. Almost exclusively with really weird and hairy problems.

WalterBright 12y ago

My solution is pretty low tech. I keep a spiral bound notebook by my desk for notes. When it fills up, I run it through the scanner, copy to backups, and buy a new notebook.

galfarragem 12y ago
I used to think as you, just recently I understood the fuss about Evernote: It's fast to search notes. And once my notes are just a few KB of text, I can easily export them to html and make backups. Ps: Try their windows desktop app, it's great.

westiseast 12y ago

SimpleNote - I started using it because it's lightweight. It lacks s lot of features of Evernote, but it seems to work after 1year plus of heavy use. Feel your pain.

scientist 12y ago

I have been using Keynote [1] for years, without ever losing information. I find that its tree data structure is extremely useful. It is an open-source desktop program. Unfortunately its development seems to have been put on hold. It would be great if developers would keep it updated (on Windows 8, there are some small UX glitches). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(notetaking_software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(notetaking_software)