After the launch of iOS 9 and El Capitan, I started giving the built-in Notes app some serious consideration. However, the sheer amount of notes I already had saved in Evernote over the years held me back. A few weeks ago while skimming my RSS feeds, I found an easy way to transfer notes from Evernote to iCloud notes.
The article I found was by David Pogue and it detailed his frustrations with Evernote and his desire to switch. A lot of his sentiments lined up exactly with mine.
My frustration with Evernote started a little over a year ago. I think the beginning of the end started with the never-ending barrage of new services Evernote kept adding and bugging me about every time I launched the app. Why? Search is incredibly slow and the interface of the iOS app had become so bogged down, I could think of handfuls of other things Evernote should be concentrating their efforts on.
I had thought about switching many times but hadn’t since I didn’t want to give up all my notes. Luckily, Pogue had stumbled across a script by a developer named Larry Salibra. This magical little script can automatically import all your notes from Evernote right into the Apple Notes app.
This was literally the only thing that was still keeping me tied to Evernote. I quickly hopped on my Mac, followed the directions at this link and was amazed to find all my Evernote notes sorted just as they were, but inside Apple Notes.
There are a few caveats, such as the funny way Apple Notes will append any location information or tags at the bottom, but it’s something I can live with. The script has also been updated since I used it a few weeks ago (I think), which may solve a few of my issues.
Either way, if you’re looking to make the switch to using Apple Notes and iCloud instead of Evernote, I highly recommend giving this a try. A few weeks in and I don’t really miss Evernote. I do still open it to refer to Skitch documents but that’s about it.
And for those of you that don’t like Evernote or Apple Notes, I recommend checking out Vesper if your needs are simple or Drafts if fast and feature packed are more your cup of tea.
