Evernote collects notes, clipped web material, scans, attachments, and task details in a searchable account. A note is the main object: it can hold formatted text, images, files, links, and checklist items. Notebooks separate notes into larger groups, while tags can connect material across notebooks. This goes beyond saving a text file because Evernote syncs the same note record between devices and keeps its attachments, metadata, and search index together.
Notes and notebooks
The editor can combine typed material with PDFs, office documents, audio, and images. Web Clipper sends a page, simplified article, bookmark, or screenshot into a chosen notebook. Search can use titles, body text, tags, and supported document content. Tasks live inside notes, so a deadline can retain the project material that explains it rather than becoming an isolated reminder.
Evernote no longer creates local-only notebooks in its current apps. New notebooks sync through the account. People moving older local notebooks must export them as ENEX files and import them again; after import, those notes join the synced store. That process changes the storage model, so it is not a way to preserve an unsynced notebook on one computer.
Offline is selective
On a desktop installation, Evernote keeps synced notes and notebooks in a local database. The user must already be signed in before disconnecting, and later edits wait for the next connection. Mobile storage works differently. A phone normally keeps titles, tags, excerpts, and other small records, while the complete note is present only after creation on that device, recent viewing, an active connection, or an explicit offline setting.
This difference can surprise someone who browsed a notebook list before a flight and assumed every attachment had arrived. Preparing offline material means selecting the needed notes or notebooks while connected and waiting for their content to download. Automatic sync has no ordinary ‘sync everything now’ button; Evernote’s troubleshooting path may require toggling a note’s offline state or, for a full rebuild, reinstalling and downloading the account again.
Desktop export boundaries
Evernote exports notes as ENEX or HTML through its desktop app. Web and mobile sessions do not perform this account backup. A manual selection can contain up to one hundred notes, while exporting a whole notebook avoids that selection limit. ENEX retains note content and selected attributes. HTML creates either one page with a resource folder or separate pages linked by an index.
Notebook stacks do not travel through ENEX when accounts are merged. After import, the user has to rebuild that higher-level organization. Export also works notebook by notebook rather than as a single switch that recreates an entire account layout. These details matter when the export is meant for migration rather than a small archive.
Watched folder behavior
Evernote can watch local folders on a desktop and import new files into a selected notebook. Subfolders stay out unless the user enables them. Editing a source file after import creates another note instead of revising the first imported note. A scanner or another program may also leave temporary files that get imported as separate records.
Renaming or moving the watched folder breaks the connection and displays an error until the new path is selected. Removing the connection stops future imports but leaves existing notes in the account. If the destination notebook disappears, new files go to the default notebook. The first import can also consume a large part of an account’s upload allowance when the folder already contains many files.
