Hi all,
I’m still looking for an Evernote replacement and figured I’d check in to see if anything has changed in the notes landscape. My one requirement outside the norm is that I need to be able to share all notes with my wife. We have separate iCloud Accounts, so Bear won’t work. Other than that it’s just my digital filing cabinet that I need to access when I’m out and about. Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks!
Do you just need notes, or do you need documents too?
I would add: why the search for an Evernote replacement? What uses or features or aspects of Evernote do you want to build on or avoid?
Not advocating for Evernote, but answers to this question help frame the options
I use a combination of Bear and Keep It. Both apps are available for macOS and iOS. Keep It has AppleScript support if that’s your thing. The developer of Keep It is very responsive and usually crushes bugs pretty fast.
Both. We take pics and store them for later retrieval, like insurance cards etc. We also store recipes, movies we want to see, flight itineraries, packing lists, etc. Documents could be pdf, word, etc.
I’m not sure about Keep It, but Bear won’t let me share the same database with my wife.
Keep It would be the same way as the data is stored in Keep It. Sorry I must have missed your requirement of wanting to share with your wife.
Have tried using Apple Notes and sharing a note? Then using the Files app to store documents and adding/sharing to your wife the files you need to?
Or are you wanting one app that does both?
Such a personal topic this is! There is definitely no single right answer. Over here on the MPU Forums I discuss my own thoughts on part of this topic.
In my world, lack of ubiquitous search via HoudahSpot (ie, notes content indexed in Spotlight) is a deal killer for me on MacOS. I’ve never counted, but I probably run at least 30-40 HoudahSpot searches every day. Nothing better than typing a simple Alfred command with search term and immediately getting back a list of all found email messages and Evernote notes!
Not saying I’m right… not even close… just yet another perspective. — jay
This topic is something I’ve been struggling with for the last 2 years. I have excluded Evernote because I don’t want yet another monthly bill (already have so many) it’s hard to justify another one.
I have constantly bounced around between note taking apps. Keep in mind my primary computer is Windows 10. I have a Macbook for development and my main phone is an iPhone. So, I needed something that was completely cross platform.
Apple Notes though not available natively on Windows, the web version wasn’t bad, and as an iPhone user it was important to me to have it on the phone too.
OneNote has been pretty reliable for me with their latest updates (both iPhone and Windows/Mac apps). Endless possibilities of hierarchical organization. There’s just something about it that feels clunky though.
[Google] Keep is a fantastic app. No installable app on the computer, but the browser extensions are nice. The iOS app works great! Downside here is that you can only attach photos (OCR is awesome here) and there is very limited formatting. The power here is the tagging system and search.
Dropbox Paper is pretty good. It has more functionality than one would think. I like their commenting system. The ability to embed documents and other resources is neat. They follow the markup syntax but it immediately translates (kinda cool). Can’t remember why I don’t use this one again; might have to rethink things again. Dangit.
I’ve been experimenting lately with using Trello as my notes repository. Bear with me here… I know it is supposed to be for a workflow, but having columns for categories, labels like Keep, attachment capabilities, checklists, etc. It’s not a bad idea, isn’t it? Plus, Shortcut support and the API is vast and easy to use.
I’ve tried countless apps and other services. I always have this thought in the back of my head, what if this company/note app stops support or goes out of business. So, I’m trying to stick to reliable sources that I can tell will be around for a while.
Hope this helps. Good luck and let us know what you decide on?
I’m looking for one app to rule them all. My wife is a non geek, so simpler is better. The problem with sharing a note is that she can’t search my notes and her notes at the same time if I forget to share a note. Thanks for the idea though!
Thanks, I’ll look at Dropbox Paper! And I feel the same way about OneNote. It sorta works but it’s clunky and used to crash on me years ago. Maybe it’s better nowadays.
Have you considered a shared iCloud account just for notes? You can sign into multiple iCloud accounts on each device and turn it on for just notes (or contacts too if you wanted shared contacts for example), migrate the notes over once, turn off notes on other accounts, and done. I’d recommend iCloud over Gmail or similar because it tends to support more features and work as expected.
Same here, dude. I literally just had this conversation the other day only with to-do/shopping. She says it’s been annoying because I keep changing it and never deciding on just one. She says she doesn’t care and just wants it to work and no effort. “Just tell me what to use and leave it alone.” she said.
I’m actually writing my own shopping app because I don’t like anything else out there including GroceryIQ because my wife likes the features of a few different apps that I’m going to combine into one. I’m going to base it of CloudKit.
That’s an awesome idea! Thanks! One question: how do I create the new iCloud account? AppleID wants a non iCloud email address now.
Do it from your device.
I second Rosemary’s idea. Or a shared Dropbox account, unless you have more than three devices.
One more issue: I tried creating new iCloud accounts but I can’t seem to share the Notes as it isn’t a primary account. Any ideas?
Try Joplin, it’s free.