Evernote Review: Pros & Cons Of The Best Note-Taking App

As an ISTJ with a high “J” score, I like to have things organized.

Hence, when I started working, I immediately searched for a tool to organize my tasks. A to-do list or task management app might be the first thought that comes to your mind. However, this didn’t work for me because I like to add details to my tasks.

And this was when I stumbled upon Evernote.

I started using the app for work but have now extended it to all parts of my life. I use Evernote on a daily basis for my day job as a marketer and for my personal passion when I’m writing my novel and blogging. In fact, I’m actually writing this article in Evernote right now (which I’ll transfer to WordPress, self-edit, format then publish to my blog).

Evernote plays a big role in my life. Which you probably know from all the Evernote screenshots in my blog posts.

Here are the pros and cons of Evernote and why I love using this note-taking app. Also, check out the Beginner’s Guide To Using Evernote where I share tips on how to use the free note-taking app~

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Pro #1: Multi-Device Note Sync

Evenote syncs your notes across all devices and you can access them anytime, anywhere. So whatever note you create or edit is automatically saved online and synced across your computers and phones. This is especially useful if you’re on the go and are always moving from place to place.

You can set the synchronization frequency. For example, I’ve set the setting as sync every 5 minutes in the Evernote for Windows (Windows PC version of Evernote). But of course, you can always choose to click on the Sync button to manually sync your notes.

Evernote has many apps:

• Evernote Web
• Evernote for Mac
• Evernote for Windows
• Evernote for iOS
• Evernote for Android

In addition to the web version, Evernote has desktop and mobile apps. You should thus use the app that works for you.

For example, I rarely use the web version. But I’ve downloaded Evernote for Windows on both my desktop and laptop.

With Evernote Basic (the free plan), you can use the Evernote app on up to two devices. You’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan to sync notes across all devices.

Pro #2: Top-Tier Organizational System

Another reason I like Evernote is its organizational and search features.

You can organize notes by hierarchy. There are 3 layers in Evernote:

• Note
• Notebook
• Notebook Stack

For instance, I have a Writing notebook stack that contains Character, Grammar and Vocabulary notebooks. Each notebook will then contain related notes.

You can also choose to organize notes by tags.

Pro #3: Powerful Advanced Search

Evernote’s search capability is very powerful.

Advanced Search allows you to find notes by title, keywords, dates or the kind of content they contain (audio, images etc.). You can also use quotation marks to search for specific phrases.

The paid plans even allow you to search for text in PDFs, Office docs, images, presentations, scanned documents and handwritten notes.

Pro #4: Comprehensive Formatting

The formatting options in Evernote are endless. You can format your note in any way you want.

• Bold
• Underline
• Font
• Highlight
• Checkbox
• and more

You can also insert table, attach file and record audio.

Evernote’s formatting is way more comprehensive than Google Keep where I can’t choose the font.

Here’s a bonus tip, you can use internal note links to connect one note to another note. Simply right-click on the note and Copy Internal Link. Then, paste the link in another note. The link will appear as a hyperlinked title of your note.

Pro #5: Evernote Web Clipper

Evernote Web Clipper is a web browser extension that lets you capture full-page articles, images, selected text, important emails and any web pages that inspire you.

Let’s say you found an interesting article online, you simply clip it to Evernote. You can choose to capture the entire page or just the parts that are important (without the clutter of ads and headlines). These screenshots will be directly saved to your Evernote account.

Start capturing ideas and inspiration from the web and access this clipped content in your Evernote account, whenever and wherever you need it.

Pro #6: Collaboration Tool For Productive Teams

Another benefit of this software is that you can collaborate with others without leaving Evernote.

Evernote allows you to share notes and notebooks with others. So you can share things like meeting agendas, ideas, reports and tasks etc. You can collaborate with others on your project notes, to-do lists or even plan a business trip together! You can simply share

• Within Evernote
• As a public link
• Via email

You can also communicate with others via Work Chat. This makes it easy to talk about projects, ask questions, give and receive feedback. Whether the recipient uses Evernote or not, you can still send them messages and share your note or notebook.

Spaces in Evernote Business bring people, projects and ideas together. With Spaces, you can easily collect information, organize effortlessly and share everything with your team so they can turn this inspiration into action. You’ll need to invite team members to the space so they can access the information. I think this is suitable for teams working on the same project or people from the same department. Here are some benefits of Spaces:

• Keep teams in sync
• See the big picture
• Do more together

Pro #7: Affordable Pricing

Evernote is quite affordable. In fact, you can start off with the free plan!

There are 3 plans:

• Evernote Basic
• Evernote Premium
• Evernote Business

I recommend that you sign up with Evernote Basic plan just to see if this note-taking app is suitable. See whether it works for you before you upgrade to the other plans.

If you need more features, you can upgrade to Evernote Premium. This allows you to annotate PDFs, see a version history of your notes, turn notes into a presentation etc.

Evernote Business is designed for teams where you can connect with CRM tools like Salesforce, create collaboration spaces for team projects and workflows, use a virtual bulletin board to see what’s new across the team etc.

Con #1: Not For Brief Tasks Or Short Notes

I love Evernote so much that I told my best friend how I’m using it every day for work and my passion project. And she tried using it because of me… But it wasn’t her cup of tea. She still uses it for some of her work notes and travel itinerary but she prefers TickTick more. In fact, she raved about how awesome the TickTick app is that I’m using it now as a to-do list and for managing my personal tasks.

So what does this mean?

It means that if your tasks are concise, Evernote might not be suitable. But if you use notes excessively like me, then Evernote might just be the right choice.

For example, I created a task in TickTick to pay my credit card bills. It’s just a short one-liner of “Pay credit card bills”. However, my tasks for my day job are more detailed. I have this long checklist of tasks to be done whenever there’s a PPC campaign launch. These tasks can’t be summarized in a few words. Therefore, I prefer using Evernote because it can capture the exhaustive task details.

Evernote is also not for those who take short little notes. You can do this with Google Keep. Evernote is tailored for people who take detailed or extensive notes.

For instance, I use Google Keep for personal short notes while Evernote is for work and my author stuff (which has numerous long notes).

If notes don’t work for you, you might consider using a task or project management app instead. For example, I’m using TickTick and Asana on top of Evernote, Google Keep and Google Calendar (yeah, I know I’m an organization freak hahaha).

Con #2: Limitations Of Free Plan

As mentioned, you can always use Evernote Basic. Just bear in mind the limitations of this free plan:

• 60MB monthly upload limit
• 25MB maximum note size
• 2 devices only

This is way lesser than the other paid plans:

• Evernote Premium: 10GB monthly upload limit, 200MB maximum note size, unlimited devices
• Evernote Business: 20GB + 2GB/user monthly upload limit, 200MB maximum note size, unlimited devices

Most of the time, I don’t hit the limit unless I’m uploading a large PDF file or uploading too many images. But you can work around this by using tools and software that compress PDFs and images. Or you can simply resize and crop your images to make them smaller. If you’re just noting down text, it should be okay.

Recently, I received an alert that I reached 200 notebooks (which was near the maximum limit of 250 notebooks for the free plan). As a marketer, I always created a new notebook for each project. This could be launching PPC campaigns, writing EDMs and newsletters etc. Hence, I merged some of my work notebooks together, combining projects from the same client into one notebook. So just keep this maximum number of notebooks in mind.

The biggest problem for me is the device limit. I can only install the Evernote app on 2 devices. Right now, I have them installed on my office laptop and home desktop. So I can’t install the app on my phone. This is also one of the reasons why I have Google Keep on my phone. This way, I can take notes on the go in Google Keep then transfer them to Evernote when I reach the office or my house.

Therefore, I would say that Evernote Basic (the free plan) is suitable for people who take notes mostly in text and don’t mind the limit of 2 devices.

Now It’s Your Turn

I’m sure you can tell how big a role Evernote plays in my life. I rely heavily on Evernote to organize everything from my work tasks, novel writing to blogging. I can’t imagine how my life will be like without Evernote ><;;

Do give it a try and see if Evernote makes your life easier!

Also, feel free to share your experience using Evernote. Or let me know if you encounter any issues, I’ll try my best to help you~