Evernote alternative

[BigMcGuire]

i would guess Bear is too expensive

Bear is great. That said, I don't think it costs the developers any API calls/Cloud storage fees to use cuz it utilizes iCloud so imo, it's VERY nicely priced. I pay for it every year even though I don't use it because I like to support certain apps.

This last year I really tried to reduce my reliance on a TON of apps - I've found using a few apps and centralizing my data has really helped me. (May not for everyone).

 

[Apple_Robert]

Bear is very nice and has good markdown ability, if that is important to you. The syncing between devices also works well

 

[Apple_Robert]

Bear is great. That said, I don't think it costs the developers any API calls/Cloud storage fees to use cuz it utilizes iCloud so imo, it's VERY nicely priced. I pay for it every year even though I don't use it because I like to support certain apps.

This last year I really tried to reduce my reliance on a TON of apps - I've found using a few apps and centralizing my data has really helped me. (May not for everyone).

I have done the same thing with cutting down on a lot of apps and a lot of subscriptions as well.

 

[artfossil]

I ditched Evernote for Bear over three years ago (got fed up with Evernote's sync and formatting issues). Bear had an easy import workflow for existing Evernote entries. I continue to use Bear as my all purpose digital mind dump. It's a terrific app (with a useful Safari extension for archiving webpages).

(Off topic for the OP but for project management [detailed todo lists and project logs] which was another function I was using Evernote for, I now use Agenda, another splendid app that syncs beautifully across devices.)

 

[MacBH928]

I ditched Evernote for Bear over three years ago (got fed up with Evernote's sync and formatting issues). Bear had an easy import workflow for existing Evernote entries. I continue to use Bear as my all purpose digital mind dump. It's a terrific app (with a useful Safari extension for archiving webpages).

(Off topic for the OP but for project management [detailed todo lists and project logs] which was another function I was using Evernote for, I now use Avenue, another splendid app that syncs beautifully across devices.)

I have failed to find an app called Avenue

 

[ian87w]

OneNote is a great generalist, versatile for embedding various types of media, and cross platform. But to me it just fell short of replicating the note-taking experience. So now for basic notes that I typed, I simply use Google Keep. It's barebone compared to other apps, but sometimes that's all I need.

I heard good vibes from various people about GoodNote on iPad, especially if you use Apple pencil. I haven't tried it though since it's a paid app and I don't have an iPad.

 

[PlayUltimate]

Looked at many of them as well. Awesome Note was my standby for a very long time. Also looked at Bear, Evernote (Awesome Note synchs via Evernote), Notability, OneNote, GoodNotes, Daily Note, and many others. At the time, Apple Notes were too simple and lacked features. Bought a Rocket Book early this year and upgraded to Evernote (paid) in order to save documents. Bought an iPad Pro in March. Took a look at how Apple Pencil worked in Apple Notes and was happy. I slowly migrated all of the notes off of Evernote into Apple Notes. I have nearly 4000 notes sitting in there currently and have had not problems. My only wish is to have a way to make a complete external backup, just in case. Other than that I've been quite happy with using it. And nested folders work fine.

 

[mailbuoy]

I ditched Evernote for Bear over three years ago (got fed up with Evernote's sync and formatting issues). Bear had an easy import workflow for existing Evernote entries. I continue to use Bear as my all purpose digital mind dump. It's a terrific app (with a useful Safari extension for archiving webpages).

(Off topic for the OP but for project management [detailed todo lists and project logs] which was another function I was using Evernote for, I now use Avenue, another splendid app that syncs beautifully across devices.)

Could you please post a link for Avenue?

 

[artfossil]

Could you please post a link for Avenue?

Sorry—my dyslexia kicked in. It's Agenda, not Avenue. https://agenda.com

 

[artfossil]

I have failed to find an app called Avenue

It's Agenda. Sorry; I'm dyslexic. I'm editing my original post.

 

[Dave Y]

I would steer clear of OneNote because the Mac version lacks a local back-up function.

 

[PhoenixDown]

I use MS OneNote since I also subscribe to O365 but I tend to take quick notes in the default IOS (or Mac) Notes App since its faster to load.

 

[Venderious]

Notability for Mac, iOS, iPadOS cross-compatibility

Onenote for Platform Cross Compatibility.
Onenote is free. I personally like the interface on notability better, but one note is a bit more feature rich.

I love OneNote, but it has been unstable while inserting PDF printouts of PowerPoint slides. Is there any alternative with similar syncing functionality to OneNote?

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

Looked at many of them as well. Awesome Note was my standby for a very long time. Also looked at Bear, Evernote (Awesome Note synchs via Evernote), Notability, OneNote, GoodNotes, Daily Note, and many others. At the time, Apple Notes were too simple and lacked features. Bought a Rocket Book early this year and upgraded to Evernote (paid) in order to save documents. Bought an iPad Pro in March. Took a look at how Apple Pencil worked in Apple Notes and was happy. I slowly migrated all of the notes off of Evernote into Apple Notes. I have nearly 4000 notes sitting in there currently and have had not problems. My only wish is to have a way to make a complete external backup, just in case. Other than that I've been quite happy with using it. And nested folders work fine.

have been wondering whether it’d be worth transferring across from Bear to Apple Notes. Bear is hardly expensive but it’s more than free, and there are some features and integrations in Notes I’d find useful.

does anyone know of a simple way to export from Bear and import into Notes.app?

 

[Apple_Robert]

have been wondering whether it’d be worth transferring across from Bear to Apple Notes. Bear is hardly expensive but it’s more than free, and there are some features and integrations in Notes I’d find useful.

does anyone know of a simple way to export from Bear and import into Notes.app?

You will have to manually import each note.

 

[bag99001]

I love OneNote, but it has been unstable while inserting PDF printouts of PowerPoint slides. Is there any alternative with similar syncing functionality to OneNote?

Notability if you're Mac, iPhone/iPad only. OneNote is the best cross-platform product I think.

 

[Canaria]

I imported everything from Evernote to Notion and haven't looked back. The import not only copied note content but also stored notes in Notion's own accessible structure. Notion is cross-platform, super easy and intuitive to use and free for personal use. It already provides lots of templates and you can make your own. I'm using Notion for simple notes, todo lists, structured data, documentation, and as a personal archive.

I'm also using Apple Notes, as a scratchpad. Anything I want to keep gets copied to Notion.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Any of the Markdown apps - the above-mentioned Bear, Typora, Atom in Markdown mode,
Other apps - Symphytum, free edition of BBEdit in plain text or Markdown mode,
Any of the word processing apps like LibreOffice or WPS Office in Outline mode

What do I use most to keep track of notes? LyX, with each topic being a new and separate file/chapter.

Perhaps the easiest might be Typora, with each note topic a Heading. You can also insert a URL link, and if you right-click it takes you to the link. You would have to learn Markdown, but that takes about 5 minutes to become productive.

Symphytum is a very simple database system that you could set up to take notes with.

I just noticed that Dropbox has a Notebook mode, you could try that.

There are lots of things to try so you can find something that suits you. It really depends on your needs

• Do you just want to type down a few lines of notes with a heading?
• Do you want to include URL links and images?
• Do you want to include bibliographic references?
• Do you want to include web clippings?

Once you have answered that, you might have a better idea of what will suit your needs. It may be that one application is not suitable. I use Evernote for web clippings, Mendeley for full articles, LyX for written notes and Apple Notes for small snippets.

One problem with Markdown is that you can have endnotes or bibliography, but if you try to use both it gets a bit messy.

Don't forget Pandoc. This will let you convert many different document formats to many other different formats, for example Markdown -> PDF or -> ePub

 

[lexvo]

I stopped using Apple Notes a few years ago. Why? I have like 1500 notes and they changed the sort order of the search results which makes it hard for me to find certain notes.

I am using 1Writer now on iOS (great markdown app, it is fast and has good search functions) and IA Writer on MacOS. My notes are synced via iCloud, but Dropbox and Webdav (1Writer) are also supported. But these apps are text only (you can include images etc but not draw).

I use Notability occasionally. Also a great app for typing, handwriting and drawing.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I stopped using Apple Notes a few years ago. Why? I have like 1500 notes and they changed the sort order of the search results which makes it hard for me to find certain notes.

I am using 1Writer now on iOS (great markdown app, it is fast and has good search functions) and IA Writer on MacOS. My notes are synced via iCloud, but Dropbox and Webdav (1Writer) are also supported. But these apps are text only (you can include images etc but not draw).

I use Notability occasionally. Also a great app for typing, handwriting and drawing.

Consider going back into Apps Notes and use markdown tagging in your notes. It will probably help you find items you couldn't find before.

 

[lexvo]

Consider going back into Apps Notes and use markdown tagging in your notes. It will probably help you find items you couldn't find before.

Well the problem is not finding the notes, but the search results are sorted seemingly random. For example, I have projects that run months or years. When I search for a certain project, I see notes from 2017 on top of the search list. I then have to tediously scroll through a lot of search results. I'd like to have the newest notes on top because for me these will be most relevant. Apple Notes had this, but it was changed about 2 years ago.
With 1Writer on iOS and IA Writer on MacOS I can sort the search results so that newest notes are on top.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Well the problem is not finding the notes, but the sort results are sorted seemingly random. For example, I have projects that run months or years. When I search for a certain project, I see notes from 2017 on top of the search list. I then have to tediously scroll through a lot of search results. I'd like to have the newest notes on top because for me these will be most relevant. Apple Notes had this, but it was changed about 2 years ago.
With 1Writer on iOS and IA Writer on MacOS I can sort the search results so that newest notes are on top.

That makes sense. Apple Notes is sorely lacking in this area.

 

[avalon68]

Looked at many of them as well. Awesome Note was my standby for a very long time. Also looked at Bear, Evernote (Awesome Note synchs via Evernote), Notability, OneNote, GoodNotes, Daily Note, and many others. At the time, Apple Notes were too simple and lacked features. Bought a Rocket Book early this year and upgraded to Evernote (paid) in order to save documents. Bought an iPad Pro in March. Took a look at how Apple Pencil worked in Apple Notes and was happy. I slowly migrated all of the notes off of Evernote into Apple Notes. I have nearly 4000 notes sitting in there currently and have had not problems. My only wish is to have a way to make a complete external backup, just in case. Other than that I've been quite happy with using it. And nested folders work fine.

I'm probably about to jump from evernote now to apple notes....evernote has removed copy and paste for images which has obliterated my workflow as I usually copy paste into anki. I transferred some notes to apple notes to play around, and everything moved over seamlessly - however - am I right in thinking you cannot resize images in apple notes? You can view as small or large, but I cant seem to find an option to resize them manually. Its a bit annoying that a screen shot takes up most of the note, but then the small view version is too small to read.

 

[MacBH928]

Reading many posts here it seems there is a problem with the term "Notes". When I say notes I mean small text file kept for remembering stuff. Some people here refer to notes such as "research binder" something with 1000s of files, images, and super capabilities.

I have tried many so far and I am amazed that the best overall one is still Evernote imo. Microsofot Notes seems to work best as a "research binder". It is also free which makes me wonder how Microsoft Monetize it.

I couldn't test others like iA writer because its paid only.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Reading many posts here it seems there is a problem with the term "Notes". When I say notes I mean small text file kept for remembering stuff. Some people here refer to notes such as "research binder" something with 1000s of files, images, and super capabilities.

I have tried many so far and I am amazed that the best overall one is still Evernote imo. Microsofot Notes seems to work best as a "research binder". It is also free which makes me wonder how Microsoft Monetize it.

I couldn't test others like iA writer because its paid only.

Most people that I know who use OneNote also have an Office 365 subscription - whether it be with their school (most of them), or a subscription they get through work (a lot of them), or they pay for themselves (a few).

IAWriter is great - a great simple text editor that uses iCloud to sync text files between your devices. I find I am using files/screenshots more than ever today which is why I mostly use OneNote (mostly work) and Apple Notes (personal).

From what I've seen through personal experience (at college, work, etc) - most people who take notes often do so with LOTS of media (audio recording, PDFs, screenshots, pictures, videos). Those of us who are a little older? (I'm 35) - do more text based notes? I don't know. That's an assumption on my part.

For work - I MUST have audio/screenshot/file capabilities. I've got 7+ gigs of notes/files in my OneNote upload folder. I love how OneNote allows me to drag/drop tons of files in a note, uploads them to OneDrive, and links them in the OneNote notebook as to not overload it. Makes finding all that stuff months later so easy.