Ditching Evernote for OneNote? Comprehensive Migration Tutorial 

You made my day. My motivation to change from Evernote to another solution is exactly the same as yours. It's crazy to pay more for my Evernote subscription as for my MS Office 365 Business package. Thanks for your efforts and your guidance.

I think you just convinced me NOT to move my Evernote notes into OneNote. I just found out today that Evernote has now limited the free accounts to ONE notebook and 50 notes. This means that I will never again be putting notes into Evernote. I have nearly 1600 notes in nearly 20 notebooks since 2011 in Evernote. I've been using Evernote only as an archive (like you described) for about a year, and using OneNote and Google Docs instead. Now with this latest bad move by Evernote I will be moving my notes out altogether. I was thinking of moving each EN notebook to a Section Group in OneNote, but hearing the issues you had I'm looking at moving my notes to AmpleNote and just using it for archiving instead. Evernote has lost me forever for anything.

Thank you for the tutorial Andy. I also used to be a paid user of Evernote and switched back to free version after their price increase. And recently the prompts for subscription have been really annoying, plus I started getting emails that they will impose a limit to 50 notes and 1 notebook for free users, so I figured it's finally time to switch. Just tried the export -> Evernote2Onenote tool -> sync to OneDrive flow on my ~1000 notes in 45 notebooks and it worked out fine, at least most of the notes are intact, layout wise a bit off but acceptable. Guess I better start exploring some tips for using OneNote now!

Thanks for sharing your experience. I opened a support case as a paid customer with Evernote and had a terrible experience where I have been ignored for weeks on end, despite reaching out through the official support and facebook. My renewal isn't until next year so I set myself a reminder to go through this hassle the month before.

I've been using Evernote since 2010, and although I love Evernote's format, I am migrating to OneNote (Due to price increase, but then free version has too many pop ups to upgrade, so annoying!) since I already pay for Microsoft 365 anyway... Does anyone else feels nostalgic to migrate?! 😅 THANK YOU FOR THIS TUTORIAL!

One thing to BEWARE. If you use OneDrive make sure you turn off syncing whilst you do this otherwise it causes all sorts of errors. Otherwise thanks, very helpful

Excellent tutorial--I was able to quickly and accurately move my notes from Evernote to OneNote.

Thanks Andy, I do appreciate the time and effort you put into these clips. I did not realise that there was another export tool after the decommissioning of the old one. I attempted to transit years ago, without having an understanding of how things are structured in OneNote, using the old export tool, and it ended up in a mess so I abandoned that. The big issue for me is that a notebook in Evernote is more akin to a section in OneNote. A notebook in OneNote sits separately and my view is that you should only create one if there is a very clear demarcation, such as between work and personal so only 2 or 3 at the max is the way to go. There is plenty of hierarchy in OneNote within a Notebook with section groups, sections, pages and subpages and it is much easier to work within these than between notebooks. I have over 30 notebooks in Evernote (yes I know too many) but to have that number in Onenote is not manageable. I may try again but it will only be after the export tools is fit for the purpose, I have consolidated my old notes and I have mapped out how I want these to sit in OneNote and being prepared to do the manual work to move things about after the export.

Thanks so very much. I have a small amount of data compared to ... everyone else but saving this has changed my life.

Accurate video. Two years ago, I had shifted to use MS 365 as my personal cloud storage from G Drive. I have so far been using the Microsoft Ecosystem of products and am quite happy. A real pain was exporting Evernote and I had faced all these exact issues you mentioned in this video - Evernote really doesn't want make it easy for their customers to move to a rival company. 😑

This is very helpful Andy! I am also struggling and feel your pain! PART 1. It took some effort to get all my notebooks (about 10, holding about 16,000 notes) exported to .enex files. Some exported OK, some ended in errors. I ended up splitting my notebooks into smaller notebooks (same name but with a sequence number added) and that worked eventually. On at least one occasion, export got stuck on one particular (probably 'corrupt'?) note, so I removed that note from the notebook and then export was able to complete successfully. PART 2. Importing using Evernote2Onenote worked alright is some cases, but stopped prematurely in other cases (thus not importing all my notes), sometimes already on the first note. I'm not sure yet how to proceed on this issue. PART 3. Tags in OneNote don't work very well for me. - They are listed in random order within the notebook (unable to sort them), which is a problem because my notes are richly tagged (up to 10 tags per note) so I may have several hundred tags within a notebook. - I cannot search by tag in OneNote, only a full text search as far as I know, so the benefit of tags is greatly reduced. I'm still looking for a good alternative to Evernote, which I use mainly as a knowledge gathering tool and catalogue. 3 must-haves for me are: 1. keyword tagging and searching, including (boolean: AND, OR, NOT) combinations thereof 2. good web clipper 3. ability to add metadata, like author, source URL, date created, plus ability to search & sort of these fields. Syncing across devices can also be achieved by storing the data on something like Dropbox. I'm not interested in ToDo, Calendar nor AI functionality, which seems to be the focus of Bending Spoons these days. I am currently looking at GetPocket, which is quite basic but offers some of these features. I am also considering just exporting my notes in HTML format to my PC, to be able to access them without having Evernote, and using the Windows Explorer search function. Any other suggestions?

Sensacional!!! Muito obrigado pelo vídeo. Uso o evernote a 15 anos e estou querendo migrar a mais de 1 anos e agora chegou a hora, não dá mais pra esperar. Saudações do Brasil!!!!

The larger notebook could be split into smaller books. Then export. Call the books name 01, name 02, name 03, etc. That may help you.

I was just trying to figure out how to do this for the past few hours and I struck a gold mine! Thank you!

This was very helpful, thanks so much!

This is super helpful. I’m in the same boat as you are and I refuse to pay any more subscription increases from Evernote. I’m canceling my subscription to Evernote. I have 8 days to transfer my notes.

Andy, thanks so much for this. I have been looking for how to do this for more than a year. I too would have stayed with Evernote because of how easy it is to find stuff. Unfortunately, with the price increase and really all the issues they have introduced over the last two years for the Windows users it is no longer as solid as it once was. That said, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with OneNote. It seems that Microsoft just doesn't put in much effort to make it simpler to use. I recently upgraded my PC in order to go to Windows 11. I did it where I could switch to all the new Office 365 apps. I have found that the 2016 Outlook apps were much more stable than the Office 365 stuff. Thanks again for all the videos.

wow this is great bro. Thanks 👍

I made the transition about 3 months ago and very happy. I did not bring tags over as many notes had multiple tags (which is the strength of tags). I split my export into 1Gb files and ended up with 4 Evernote notebooks in OneNote but because search is so good I just treated these as Archive folders and started fresh for anything current. I miss the faster sync, better tags, note reminders, and apps on all devices working the same, but loved the $ saving, better pdf markup, dictation and OCR from pictures. Had to get used to different way of thinking but very happy with the move.

I made the switch and organized my notes just this weekend.

Great video, thanks👍🏿

I too have been an Evernote user since 2009, but their price gouging has me looking for an alternative. However, if the migration toll is needed, it must be able to work on the Mac.

Andy, thanks for helping us out so much! Is there a Mac version of the exporter converter?

Thank you. Since MS ended that conversion program I've been feeling stuck. But this video and the link have been great. I'd kept the old desktop app on one PC and that has been able to export all my notes in one go (only about 1,200 but that's further than you seem to have got to). The thing I still haven't found a solution to is that the PDFs aren't searchable in OneNote. Unless I open them and print them into OneNote - but I've got a lot of them. This might be a chance to rethink that though, maybe these apps aren't the best place to keep a searchable library of PDF files.

Great video! I agree with your point that an Evernote subscription can be expensive. Moreover, many of us only have access to Microsoft Office at work, so it's wise to use OneNote instead. It would be great if you could create a video demonstrating how to use the PARA method aesthetically in OneNote.

As I'm writing this, I too am migrating from Evernote finally. It was a really tough decision but I'm quite positive it's the right one. I'm on a Mac though. What I did was to downgrade the app to version 7. Then I was able to export all of my notebooks as one .enex-file which I then been importing into Obsidian.

I moved half of my notes from EN to OneNote - a lot more involved than I thought. Like you the subs were too much to store personal information and hobby research - Family Tree, which is the other half to transfer. The final straw was half of my PDF's were not searchable. Reported Feb 23, still no solution. Had lots of failure on the transfer - large databases too. What did work for me was Onenote Batch 2016. What I missed was that lots and lots of the PDF'S weren't 'printed' on the transfer. I could not find a way to automate this and had to manually do it. Hopefully solving this before I transfer the second half

Thank you, i was think i would need to copy my note one by one

I would be quite tempted to choose OneNote if it had a decent tagging system similar to EverNote, UpNote, and most other note taking software.

Thank you for a well-made and helpful video. I've been on Evernote's free plan for 14 years. Then out of the blue, I can only have 50 notes and one notebook and will never be able to add another?! That's fine with me though because I like OneNote a LOT better!

Merci beaucoup!

Great content, much appreciated. The audio is only coming out of the left speaker though. It's a bit distracting to listen to when using headphones.

Thanks!

Enjoyed the video and tried it. Everything was going well except the files are not in OneNote nor are the stored in the appropriate path on the computer. Which I knew what I was doing wrong.

thanks!

exe doesn't seem to work for mac?

I love OneNote but the OneDrive version is slightly different than the local only saved version. I want to change back and forth - sometimes putting mine in sync to one drive and sometimes making them local only. What a mess in OneNote - beware. And drop pointers if anybody has done it. I am only using the MS 365 version of OneNote but on desktop using the local version of OneNote not web version - this is the only version MS is going to have going forward.

This was great Andy, thank you! i did migrate everything (about 980 notes, 31 notebooks) and like you discussed, i kept tags so now i got a bunch of duplicates notes with lots of tabs within the notebook (one note = 7 different tabs sometimes). Do i need to manually delete those in tabs, or would you suggest deleting the tags in evernote first, then re-migrate everything, then decide if i need a tag once in Onenote? Or am i missing a simplier walk - around? thanks so much !

I too kept running into failed export notices. I deselected all of the export attribute options (such as date created or updated date) except for the title. Then the export worked.

Thanks

thanks for this Andy. My problem is that when I use the Evernote2OneNote program it only brings in one note rather than the 185 in my biggest notebook. It's quite irritating. When I watch the program executing it seems to be grabbing all the notes but when I got to OneNote there is only one note there. Any ideas? Thanks again. Cliff

thank you so much.... but is there evernote2onenote importer for mac version?

Hi. Thank you for your content. I have a similar dilemma as I am trying to transfer my notes and tasks from my Google account to a new Microsoft Account I have opened for my family. Do you perhaps have any quick steps to follow to extract from Google Keep, Tasks to transfer to One Note and ToDo instead?

I am using the free version, need to move as it has now been limited to only 50 notes. I do not have any export option. When I right click on any note book I just get the standard browser context menu?

Hello. So, when I use the Onenote pen with the "normal" colors (black, blue, red, etc.), either with the mouse or with the graphics tablet pen, the drawing does not appear as I write , only after. In addition, sometimes OneNote hangs and the screen is erased. However, when I use colors such as rainbow, galaxy, etc., this does not happen. Can you help me solve this problem?

I have almost 45,000 notes in Evernote and maybe 100 or so notebooks. I am not sure of the exact count. This makes me think it will take me many months to switch from Evernote to OneNote.

I'm trying to move a notebook with 66 notes and I'm getting a long winded error at every note when trying to process through the latest version of the Evernote2Onenote app. Maybe an older version will work?

I am using iOS and when I try to unzip the Evernote2Onenote i get an error message that iOS does not support the windows application. I there a way to migrate Evernote in iOS?

Hey thanks for the help. I am a very low power user. Was using the free version which met my needs. However, they've restricted the free version to one notebook and 50 notes. Even at low power that's not gonna work. AND $129/year? Not happening. I'd end up back on paper first.

Hi Andy, I'm trying to export a notebook, but the export function does not seem to be available. Any idea why this might be?

I export my Evernote notebook to a holding folder on my computer, then I run Evernote2Onenote select "Import ENEX File" and select the exported notebook. It imports says "finished" I go to OneNote and the notebook title is there but it says it is empty. When I look at my OneNote folder in OneDrive the notebooks are all HTML. Any suggestions?

So have you officially moved your personal stuff to OneNote now? Or are you still looking for another solution?

Is there an open-source work-alikr?

I would love to switch off of Evernote but I cannot get Evernote2Onenote to work. I always get this error "Could not connect to Onenote". I do have Onenote installed on my PC. I have tried it with ON running and signed in and tried when ON wasn't running. Always the same. Any ideas?

I cannot synchronize my OneNote from PC to Android phone after migrating the notes from Evernote. Can anyone help with this issue？

I get an error message saying, "Could not connect to Onenote!" Any ideas on fixing this? Thanks.

when i right click I do not get options in chrome to export notebook at all. I get standard right click: back, forward, save as, print, cast, etc. What do I do to get my right click to kick into the evernote options?

This is very comprehensive but after running evernote2onenote, the notebooks don't appear automatically in Onenote. If I click on More Notebooks, I do see the Notebooks but when I try to upload them into Onenote for Windows 10, there is no content and I have a message that "There aren't any Sections here". Are you able to advise what I am doing wrong?

Ok, I’ve found that I can’t login to Evernote today and requesting a new password does not seem to be working. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’m trying to do the same, but the tool keeps giving me the error message “Could not create the target notebook in OneNote.” Any idea why? I cannot figure out what I’m doing wrong. TIA!!

Thank you for info. I got to minute 4:48 where I downloaded the evernote2onenote file. I got an alert that said to move Unzip Pro to the trash as it would damage my computer. I moved to trash but not I can't download the file. What's my next step?

When I right click in Evernote, the drop down does not display "Export" option. What do i do?

to export all notes in one step, just download an older version of evernote desktop like 6.25

I'm using a IX500 ScanSnap Scanner and Evernote. How is it possible to scan into OneNote?

I used to have to use OneNote at work. It's ok but not that great to make me want to move from Evernote. Apple Notes would be a better option for me.

Hi Andy, I followed the link but the Evernote2Onenote.exe file won't open on my mac. Do I need an application (besides Onenote) to allow it to work? It doesn't seem to want to link to Onenote. I just click on it and nothing happens.

i'm guessing there is no customer service as this is a free tool. dang i was sooooo excited to move to onenote . this is so frustrating.

OMG I keep getting "we couldn't open this section" or "there aren't any sections here" in onenote when I click on anotebook. can't figure out what is wrong. The 1st time I got it right and my recipes downloaded. then I tried to get it into onedrive to sync to the android onedrive. But now the notebook is empty and wont' work on my desktop and I can't successfully import into onedrive to onenote on the desktop using evernote2onenote I wish i could pay someoned $100 help me

@Andy PARK: your sound is unfortunately unbalanced in this video. Can you fix this?

has anyone done this on a Mac? I can't open an .exe file

I wonder if Microsoft will keep OneNote over time. Loop looks to be a replacement. I could be wrong, but ..........

I al also doing the same

There is no sound....

Kulaklığın birinden ses gelmiyor. Tek kanal kaydedilmiş sanırım.

Hi Andy as I swe your Evernote2Onenote-1.3.6.zip was empty how I can dowload it?? Can you sent a Link please

Sorry Andy, This will not work for me. Tried it for weeks and it doesn't still work.

would be nice if this worked for Mac, but it doesn't.

The onenote android app is terrible: no sort function.

The tool works but it’s nowhere near perfect. OneNote is not the best. But it’s “free”. Tired of the constant upsells and nagging and the ridiculous price increases from this bending spoons company. I’m out. Biggest issue with OneNote for me is that the web client is total garbage - and the sync never works properly to the Windows desktop app. Notes missing all the time. Definitely not robust or smooth like Evernote.