Whatever Happened to Evernote

Evernote was once a giant of an app, beloved by millions and one of the first cross platform tools to achieve widespread use. The productivity culture adored it and people like Tiago Forte, the author Building a Second Brain, made it central to their methodology. The company was sold to Italian developers Bending in Spoons in 2022, firing almost all of the US staff. It went incommunicado for months. Evernote's dwindling user base didn't know what to do.

When the company did begin to communicate again, it was to announce a gargantuan price hike and the gutting of their once extremely popular free plan. Today, the cheapest plan is $130 a year. The free plan is limited to 50 notes on one device. Although legacy users can still access all the notes they created in the past, many complain that the user experience is marred by constant pop-ups asking them to become paying customers. The Evernote subreddit is almost all complaints and people asking for ideas on alternatives.

To its credit, Bending Spoons has made a valiant effort in 2024 to add extra value for its remaining subscribers. Calendar integration now includes Google and Outlook. Other new features include:

• Table of contents
• Daily Notes
• Slash commands
• Quote blocks
• Collapsible Notes
• Revamped mobile app
• Redesigned tasks
• File management
• Voice-to-text
• Improved import features
• Metadata improvements

Many former users have moved to free and low-cost alternatives like Obsidian, Joplin, Notion and One Note. I am currently in what will be the last year of an Evernote subscription. I migrated most of my 7000 notes accumulated since 2008 to Obsidian months ago. It's nice to see what Bending Spoons is doing with the app, but it's not worth what they ask for a subscription.