Evernote alternatives if you mostly clip stuff from the web
Evernote's free plan got cut to 50 notes. Here's where to go, split by what you actually used it for: writing notes, or clipping pages and screenshots.
TLDR
- In late 2023 Evernote’s free plan dropped to 50 notes and one notebook. A lot of people with 3,000 notes are looking around.
- First work out what you used it for. Writing and clipping are different jobs, and the best replacement is different for each.
- For writing: Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes or Bear. For clipping pages, screenshots and PDFs: a bookmark or swipe file tool.
- Export first. Evernote’s
.enexexport is per notebook, so give yourself an evening.
What happened
Evernote got bought by Bending Spoons in 2022, most of the team was let go in 2023, and in December 2023 the free plan was cut to 50 notes and one notebook. Paid plans went up too. If you’ve been using it free since 2012, you just got a bill or a deadline.
Honestly, fair enough. Running a sync service costs money. But it’s a good moment to ask whether you want to pay for it, or whether something else fits better.
What did you actually use it for?
Scroll through your notes. Most people find one of two things:
- Mostly writing. Meeting notes, journals, drafts, lists. Evernote was a notebook.
- Mostly clipping. Articles from the web clipper, screenshots, receipts, PDFs, recipes, a “Read later” notebook with 800 things in it. Evernote was a shoebox.
A lot of people are 80% clipping and didn’t notice. If that’s you, a notes app is the wrong replacement.
If you mostly wrote notes
- Obsidian. Markdown files on your own disk, free, a plugin for everything. Its official Importer plugin reads Evernote exports. The one I’d pick if you like owning your files.
- Notion. Notes plus databases plus docs. Has a built-in Evernote importer. Can get slow and fiddly once you have thousands of pages. We have a comparison if you’re using it as a swipe file.
- Apple Notes. Free, fast, already on your phone, and it’s gotten a lot better. No web clipper worth mentioning, and it’s Apple-only.
- Bear. Lovely markdown notes for Apple people. Can import Evernote exports.
If you mostly clipped things
This is where Evernote was actually weak for years. The clipper saved a messy copy of the page, search was so-so on images, and everything ended up in one giant notebook.
- Raindrop. A good, cheap bookmark manager with a web clipper, collections and tags. Full-text search and permanent copies are on the paid plan. (Savepad vs Raindrop.)
- mymind. Beautiful, no folders on purpose, and AI tags everything for you. Great if you want that. Not great if you want to decide where things go.
- Readwise Reader. Best in class if what you clipped was articles you meant to read and highlight.
- Savepad. I’ll be upfront, it’s ours. It’s built for the shoebox job: pages saved with a snapshot, screenshots and PDFs searchable by their text, recipes with the ingredients pulled out, forward an email or share from your phone to your own address. Folders and tags you choose yourself, and no AI deciding what things are about.
How to export from Evernote
- In the Evernote desktop app, right-click a notebook and pick Export Notebook.
- Choose ENEX format. It keeps tags and dates.
- Repeat for every notebook. Yes, one at a time. Maybe that’s a podcast’s worth.
Notion, Obsidian and Bear all import ENEX. Savepad doesn’t read ENEX files, so for clippings it’s quicker to re-save the links you still care about, or import a CSV of URLs if you have one. Which is also a good excuse to leave the 800 unread “Read later” notes behind. You weren’t going to.
Or split it
The setup a lot of people end up with: a notes app for writing, and a separate place for everything you save from somewhere else. Different jobs, different tools. Apple Notes and a swipe file is a perfectly good combo, and cheaper than Evernote on its own (Savepad’s pricing, for comparison).