Evernote - Note Organizer reviews
What users love and hate · 500 reviews analyzed · ★ 1.7
An "external brain" archive that spent years letting users pile up notes, and now monetizes exactly that accumulated dependence: the longer you've been inside and the more you've stored, the more expensive the exit feels — and the stronger the sense of being held hostage.
What users love
For those who stay, it's still the № 1 «external brain» — a reliable, years-long archive that loses nothing
Beneath the discontent is a core for whom the product still does its job best: capture it, find it, never lose it across 8-16 years, on phone and desktop. These users call it the first app on any new device and «the most essential one». The strength is reliability of habit and breadth of use — CV, songwriting, planning, teaching: when capture and archive work, there genuinely is no substitute — which is exactly the asset the company is risking.
Evernote is my most important and favourite application on Android and Windows. It is my most essential application and the first one I download on each new device.
everything I have written or task I have planned is saved, updated automatically and no data has ever been lost. 5star review in 2022 and 4yrs later I'm still just so grateful that this app exists
my absolute favourite note app.
The new owner (Bending Spoons) really does fix bugs and listen — the trust-recovery lever exists
A segment of loyal users notes a turnaround: after the ownership change, search was fixed, speed and stability improved, offline access arrived, and intrusive ads were pulled. It shows the product can respond to feedback and win trust back — after years of decay that's not a given but a real signal that churn is reversible once the core jobs are fixed.
Update 2026: Bending Spoons has greatly improved EN and listens to users! Update Feb 2024: bugs & issues are gradually getting fixed. Thanks Bending Spoons!
Overall I'm very impressed with Evernote since Bending Spoons took over. yes it's more expensive, but many more useful and well executed features. Great improvement.
Evernote is now very fast and stable compared to a few years back.
What users hate
The «50-note» cap counts notes created, not notes held — and trips even at 7
The free cap is tied not to how many notes you have NOW but to how many you've ever created: people with 7 or 30 real notes delete old ones and still hit a wall on making a new one. It reads not as a storage limit but as a trap — the product stops doing its one job, capturing a quick thought, at the exact moment you need it.
opened and updated so I could make a few notes about work since I have a new job and I get a pop-up saying I can only have 50 notes unless I pay. The joke? I only had 7 notes saved! I even deleted a couple, but NOPE!
the limit of notes you can create is 50. Not the amount of notes you can HAVE, the amount of notes you can CREATE. So the app is no longer usable for me because I've made more than 50 notes. And it doesn't matter that I've deleted things and have less than 30 notes now.
the free version has a max limit of 50 notes. And i have a total of 30 notes. Yet the app is not allowing me to create a new note.
The name itself promises «forever» — so losing access to the archive feels like betrayal, not a cancellation
The product sold itself as a permanent vault («Ever» + «Note»), and users built 10-17 years of memory on it. When access to your own records is suddenly cut off, it isn't a feature that breaks — it's the trust contract: people describe it as «hostage», «extortion», «12 years of notes lost». The niche lesson: an «archive forever» promise creates an obligation whose breach stings harder than any price tag.
a once great app for clipping + highlighting notes has been Zombified beyond recognition. As a researcher (human, not AI), I constantly find material worth saving and using. Evernote (the name says it all: "Ever" and "Note", denoting "permanence"
Holding my data hostage behind aggressive adverts and lockout screens is unethical! I will be deleting my account when I am unable to view my own data!
well I can no longer see my notes without having to subscribe, oh well that's 12 years of notes lost because I can disconnect an old device.
Old devices you already sold can't be unlinked — and that locks you out on a new phone
The «1 device» limit is harsh on its own, but the implementation finishes the job: the «disconnect device» link doesn't work, there's no «confirm» button, and the old phones and tablets were sold long ago. The user physically can't free a slot — and gets locked out even of the free tier. It turns an ordinary plan limit into total product failure: you can neither pay nor leave.
I tried to disconnect all the devices, other than my phone, but there is no "confirm" button. So, I'm stuck and can't even use the free version. Bye Evernote!
it asked me to disconnect multiple devices first because I was only allowed one device. So, I tried to disconnect all the devices
when I log in from my new tablet, it won't let me disconnect the old device. It shows a hyperlink, but the hyperlink doesn't work...the link to the paid version works.
A video ad for Evernote itself before you can enter an app you already installed — peak repulsion
The sharpest behavioral break: a person has just DOWNLOADED the app and is immediately served a 30-second unskippable clip about what the app does. Advertising the product to someone who already chose it reads as «we have nothing to keep you with» — and it fires before account creation, so churn lands before activation. The «continue» button is greyed out behind a progress bar.
As soon as I installed it I am greeted by a 30 seconds unskipable add of their own product (which I just installed) before I could even create an account or login.
I installed it and was greeted with an un-skipable ad for Evernote app. I literally downloaded the app to use it, not to be told to use it.
You make me watch an ad before I can log into an already licensed product? seriously? You gray out the continue button with a progress bar? this is stupid.
AI title suggestions overwrite your own names — and won't turn off even when toggled off
The AI intrudes exactly where the user has their own system: they name notes deliberately, and the product replaces the title with «the first line of text» and erases the manual name on an accidental tap. Worse, a big «suggest title» button sits on top of the text even with AI off, blocking every note. It breaks the core PKM job — your personal naming and navigation system.
a large "suggest title" button obscures your ability to read *EVERY* note *ALL* the time+erases yours when accidentally clicked if one attempts to navigate away. switching to obsidian
I HATE the AI note title suggestions. I'll name my bloody note what I want to name it! why should I pay extra so you can mess around with note headers
they have ruined this app by AI suggestions overriding your view and no easy way to turn it off or opt out. I have my files named like I wanted them named.
Search — the core job for heavy archives — now drowns in AI results and won't surface recent edits
For a user with thousands of notes, search IS the product. The added AI search lags and buries the right note among unrelated ones, results don't return the most recent changes, and you can't search Trash at all. When the core value — find your own thing fast — degrades for a new AI feature, heavy users, the most loyal and paying, lose the exact reason they stayed.
I also use the search function constantly, and now AI search additions make that lag badly and bury appropriate notes in unrelated ones.
no search facility in Trash, search options don't automatically return most recent changes
fixed the searching issues it's working great guys.
The web clipper says «clipped» but doesn't sync — and the clip vanishes on the other device
Page clipping was Evernote's historical superpower and the reason researchers chose it. Now it confirms «clipped» but actually leaves the clip in a local backlog without syncing — and when you need it on another device, it's gone. A silent failure is worse than a visible error: the user learns of the loss only when the material is needed, and loses trust in the most valuable job.
Everytime it says it is clipped, but in reality the clipping is backlogged into the actual mobile app without syncing. So, when I really need that clip in another device, I found out that it was not actually synced
Evernote Web clipper for Android hangs frequently and all you get is the spinning circle. Very frustrating.
I have had issues with messaging, file sharing, and collaboration since 2014.
Offline notes won't load offline — even for paying users, for years
A notes app is needed precisely when there's no connection — on the road, on a plane, in a meeting. The paid «offline notes» feature has failed to load without internet for years, which nullifies the core promise of mobile PKM: your notes are always with you. The user pays for exactly that access reliability and gets a product that fails at the most critical moment — hurting trust more than any stripped feature.
++Offline notes/notebooks STILL dont load while offline, for years now. Our reward for being longtime customers.
Too slow offline despite paying for premium.
And it's one flaw has now been corrected - with the ability to access content when offline. Great work, Evernote team!
Floating popups and AI boxes physically cover the note text — you can't read it or click a link
The interface fights its own content: an AI box lands right on top of «very important notes» and won't move, popups cover the text, links beneath them won't click. For a tool whose job is to let you read your own stuff, covering content with UI elements is a fundamental failure. The user can't perform the basic action — reading a note — turning the «external brain» into a source of irritation.
what is this new Ai box sitting directly on top of my very important notes blocking , completely blocking me from getting important information,??? you can't even move the box
There’s always something floating or popping up, so you can’t read what you’re writing or click a link. When you finally manage to click it, the link doesn’t open.
I'm confronted by pages of self congratulatory updates on features that delay me getting to my notes.
Cold start kills the «capture it fast» job: over a minute to open, and typing lag
A note app's one irreplaceable job is catching a thought mid-conversation. When the app takes 1 minute 46 seconds to open and typing lags 5-10 seconds, it loses to a scrap of paper and any fast rival. Cold-start speed here isn't an «improvement» but the viability line: slow capture means the product fails its primary function at the exact moment it's needed.
One minute and 46 seconds. This app took that long to open. I needed to make a quick note during a conversation so I could address it later - my conversation was damaged. It lags by 5-10 seconds when typing on my android, always.
for over 6 months, nothing has been done to improve it
It's rare to be able to open the app and immediately take a note... it's always "we're just installing an update"
Updates destroy records: scrambling, erasing chunks of notes and deleting images
The worst failure for an archive is data loss. Users report an update «scrambled or erased ~20% of my notes» and deleted half their images, with navigation jumping to a random note. For a PKM tool, data integrity isn't a feature but the product's very definition: if it loses your records on update, it stops being a vault and becomes a liability — and no new feature offsets that.
Their latest update scrambled or erased about 20% of my notes and deleted half the pictures I had saved here. It can't even navigate what it manages to save: clicking on a notebook sends me to a random note in a different notebook 3 times out of 4.
They deleted important data for my company.
My notes have gone missing and their recovery process does not work!
Cross-device sync — the promised core — breaks between phone and laptop mid-task
The main reason to pick Evernote is one notebook across all devices. But when you try to append from your phone a note started on your laptop, the app freezes and closes, and an edit on one device isn't picked up on the other. When the seamless cross-screen handoff itself breaks, the product loses its only structural edge over local note apps and fast free rivals.
I am working on a note on my laptop but want to append a text or picture from my phone. The app freezes and closes
I cannot work on a specific note from 2 devices. the evernote on my android automatically and/or accidentally closes.
the syncing in the mobile app never seems to finish syncing, until I resort to mailing the clip/files to myself instead
«View Only» and a copy-mode turn on by themselves — you can't edit or even highlight a note
The basic action — editing your own record — is suddenly blocked: the note opens «View Only», and trying to highlight text triggers an unrequested «copy note» screen. When the product decides you can't edit your own stuff, it stops being a working tool and becomes a museum behind glass. It's a quiet but fatal trust break for daily editing.
is now giving me "View Only" most of the time when editing a note. *Update 2026, it's even WORSE! I simply went to highlight a note and now this stupid copy note edit screen pops up. I don't want to copy! Just want to highlight.
The changes have made it extremely difficult to edit existing text. it was once a useful app. now it is a mess.
The attachments are read-only. Annoying and not talented.
Rivals built seamless import — and Evernote taught its own users to leave in one click
The decisive behavioral shift: the exit barrier isn't price, it's the difficulty of pulling years of notes out. The moment Obsidian, OneNote, UpNote and Zoho made import «one-pass» and often many times cheaper, retention-by-accumulated-archive collapsed. Users repeatedly call a specific migration «easy» and «seamless». Niche lesson: in PKM, loyalty rests not on habit but on exit cost — and someone zeroed it out for you.
so I have migrated to Obsidian, it was an easy process with the included tool and a Google search. $48 a year for syncing. way cheaper than Evernote.
You can port to Zoho notebook did the same and it was seamless.
switch to Microsoft OneNote and OneDrive. works so much better than Evernote.
The «let them accumulate, then multiply the price» pricing is a mechanism, not just expense
The hikes aren't linear: the price is raised by a MULTIPLE (×2–×10) precisely after the user has spent years building an archive and become maximally exit-inelastic. It's deliberate monetization of hostage status — «the clever way they jacked up the price after allowing you to build up your notes». The mechanism wins short-term but programs a mass exodus of the loyal core exactly as rivals ease export; tiered models would relieve the pressure, but there are none.
I paid, because of the clever way they jacked up the price after allowing you to build up your notes.
Bending spoons has finally priced me out this app and asked for a 110% price increase to renew my subscription this year.
From 49 EUR to 199 EUR!!!!! Never seen anything similar.