Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking and task-management application developed by the Evernote Corporation. It is intended for archiving and creating notes with embedded photos, audio, and saved web content. Notes are stored in virtual "notebooks" and can be tagged, annotated, edited, searched, and exported.

Evernote is available online and has clients for Android, iOS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. It offers free and paid plans for use.

Coding and versions
In 2010, the programming language used to write Evernote's software was changed from C# for version 3.5 to C++ in version 4.0 to improve performance.

Data entry
In addition to keyboard input of typed notes, Evernote supports image capture from cameras on supported devices and voice note recording. In some situations, text that appears in captured images can be recognized using OCR and annotated. Evernote also supports touch and tablet screens with handwriting recognition. Evernote web-clipping plugins, which can import a webpage or part of a webpage into Evernote, are available for most popular Internet browsers. Evernote also supports the ability to e-mail notes to the service, allowing for automated note entry via email rules or filters.

Where suitable hardware is available, Evernote can automatically add geolocation tags to notes.

As of November 2018, Evernote Pro integrates directly with Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Slack, and Evernote Pro adds an integration with Salesforce. All versions of Evernote also support integrations through IFTTT and Zapier. In 2013, Evernote deprecated its direct integration with Twitter in favor of these third-party services.

Data storage and access
On supported operating systems, Evernote allows users to store and edit notes on their local machine, using a SQLite database in Windows.

Users with internet access and an Evernote account can also have their notes automatically synchronized with a master copy held on Evernote's servers. This approach lets a user access and edit their data across multiple machines and operating system platforms from anywhere, but still view, input, and edit data when an internet connection is not available. Offline changes will only be saved as a draft until internet connection is established. Evernote uses industry standard security to encrypt and protect users information.

Where Evernote client software is not available, online account holders can access their note archives via a web interface or through a media device. The service also allows selected files to be shared for viewing and editing by other users.

The Evernote software can be downloaded and used as stand-alone software without using the online portion of an Evernote account (online registration is required for initial setup), but it will not be able to upload files to the Evernote server or use the server to synchronize or share files between different Evernote installations. Evernote does not support image or Image-PDF (this is locked behind a paid subscription) recognition and indexing will take place if the software is used entirely offline.

Accounts
Evernote has various account options, including free and paid tiers. As of 2023, the paid tiers are named Personal and Professional. Previous Evernote tier names include Plus, Premium, and Business. Personal, and Professional Evernote accounts have a maximum limit of 100,000 notes. Individual paid users have a notebook maximum of 1,000. As of December 2023 free accounts have a new limit: 1 notebook and 50 notes, the previous free limit was 250 notebooks and 100,000 notes.

Free accounts have a 60 MB upload limit each month. Personal accounts have a 1 GB monthly upload limit, and also include such features as offline notes on mobile devices and the ability to search text within images.

Accounts on the Professional tier have a 20 GB upload limit per month, can export notes as PDF files, and can forward emails directly into Evernote. The free service does not make files available offline on iOS and Android devices; while sometimes they are available from cache, editing these files can cause conflicts when synchronizing.

In June 2016, Evernote announced the limitation for users of its free Basic account to two devices per year and raised prices for its premium service tiers. Non-paying Evernote users are able to sync notes between two devices.

From early April 2018, Evernote Plus was no longer available for purchase; However, users who currently have the Plus subscription can maintain it as long as their subscription is still active.

Supported platforms
Evernote clients are available for Android, iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch), macOS, Microsoft Windows, and Web. Additionally, portable versions of Evernote are available for flash drives and U3 drives. There are no officially supported native clients for BSD or Linux, but the company provides an API for external Linux clients.

There is substantial variation in supported features on different platforms. For example, it is possible to edit Rich Text Format and sketches on Windows, while on Apple Macintosh it is possible to edit rich text, but only view sketches.

Web clipping support is installed by default on the Internet Explorer and Safari browsers when the Evernote software is installed on Windows or macOS. Evernote web-clipping plugins are available for the Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Yandex browsers.

The Evernote email-clipper is automatically installed in Microsoft Office Outlook if the desktop version is installed on the same computer. There is also a Thunderbird email plugin.

Scannable
Scannable captures content on paper quickly, transforming it into high-quality scans ready to save or share.

Skitch
Skitch is a free screenshot editing and sharing utility for OS X, iOS, Windows, and Android. The app permits the user to add shapes and text to an image, and then share it online. Images can also be exported to various image formats. Originally developed by Plasq, Skitch was acquired by Evernote on August 18, 2011. On December 17, 2015, Evernote announced that it would be ending support for Skitch for Windows, Windows Touch, iOS, and Android on January 22, 2016. Evernote said it will continue to offer Skitch for Mac.

Web Clipper
Evernote Web Clipper is a simple browser extension that lets a user capture full-page articles, images, selected text, important emails, and any web page for use in Evernote's software.

Blinkist
The book-summarizing service Blinkist offers members the ability to synchronize their highlighted text passages to Evernote. This happens in notes for each book with the title of the book as the note title.

Deutsche Telekom
On March 25, 2013, Evernote announced a partnership with Deutsche Telekom to provide German customers with free access to Evernote Premium for one year. In January 2014 the partnership was expanded to additional European and Asian markets.

Moleskine
In August 2012, Moleskine partnered with Evernote to produce a digital-friendly notebook with specially designed pages and stickers for smartphone syncing.

Samsung
All Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phablets included a free one-year subscription to Evernote Premium.

Telefónica Digital
On August 13, 2013, The New York Times reported that Telefónica Digital and Evernote entered into a global partnership agreement, giving Brazilian customers free access to Evernote Premium for one year. Under this global deal, Telefónica users in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, the UK, and Spain were also offered the promotion.

Data loss
The service has experienced several cases of losing customer data.

Denial-of-service attacks
On June 11, 2014, Evernote suffered a distributed denial-of-service attack that prevented customers from accessing their information. The attackers demanded a ransom, which Evernote refused to pay. A denial-of-service attack on August 8, 2014, resulted in a brief period of downtime for evernote.com; service was quickly restored.

Security breach
On March 2, 2013, Evernote revealed that hackers gained access to their network and accessed user information, including usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords. All users were asked to reset their passwords. In the wake of this, Evernote accelerated plans to implement an optional two-factor authentication for all users.

Privacy controversy
In December 2016, Evernote announced its privacy policy would be changing in January 2017, leading to claims the policy allowed employees of the firm to access users' content in some situations. In response to the concerns, Evernote apologized and announced the policy would not be implemented, and that its employees would not have access to users' content unless users opted in.

Evernote v10 controversy
In late 2020, Evernote released Evernote v10, written from scratch in the Electron framework, to replace older versions on multiple platforms. Some users noted the new app was much slower than the previous Windows and iOS versions, had many features removed, and did not work with some default keyboard layouts, including Turkish, Latvian, and Polish, due to a conflict of hardcoded key bindings. This was later changed to allow customization of keyboard shortcuts and some of the previous features were added again.

Drastic reduction of free edition
In June, 2016, Evernote introduced a new limitation to just 2 devices on the free plan (previously unlimited) and increased the price of their paid plans. In December 2023, Evernote reduced its free plan drastically (to a maximum of 50 editable notes), taking effect the same day. This change and the lack of transition period have been considered unfavourable to long-term free users who have used Evernote for years.