Evernote
Why Evernote
Evernote is a note-taking application for capturing notes, documents, and tasks in one searchable workspace. It helps teams and individuals organise their information and retrieve it quickly whenever needed. The platform supports cross-device access, collaboration, and keeps your information secure and accessible anywhere you need it.
What it does
Evernote is a note-taking app. You capture text, voice, scanned documents and clipped web pages, and organise them in notebooks, spaces and tags. Search is the main way back to what you saved.
It also has tasks, a calendar that links events to notes, templates, and real-time collaboration with comments. AI features cover transcription, rewriting, text-to-speech and diagrams.
Why you would need it
Information you meet during the week ends up in ten places: a photo of a whiteboard, a link in a chat, a PDF in downloads, a voice memo. You feel the pain when you know you saw something and cannot find it.
A capture tool with good search solves that. You put everything in one place and trust search to bring it back.
Where it fits
Evernote is a personal or team capture layer. It sits beside project management and communication tools. It holds reference material and notes, and does not track deadlines for a team the way a project tool does.
It also sits beside meeting note apps. If meetings are your only need, a dedicated tool such as Granola or Fathom is a more direct fit. Evernote suits someone who wants every kind of capture in one app.
What stands out
- Many ways to capture: text, voice, scanning and web clipping.
- A web clipper, which is still one of the quickest ways to save a page.
- Search across everything you have kept.
- An official MCP server in beta, so an AI assistant can read, search and create notes for you.
How I would set it up
Keep the structure simple. Use a few notebooks, such as one for each area of work, and rely on tags and search rather than deep folders. Clip pages and scan paper as it arrives, and give notes a clear first line so search results make sense.
Do a short review each week. Delete what you will never need and move what matters into the right notebook. A capture tool only works if what is in it stays findable.
My take
I'd pick it when your main need is a long-lived personal archive with fast search. It is a well-known tool with years of habits built around it.
What I'd watch is the free plan. Its limits are tight: fifty notes, one notebook and a single device. It works as a trial, not as a place to keep your notes. The older plans were also replaced by new Starter and Advanced plans, so check what you would get today. If you want notes tied to databases and team projects, Notion is the better fit.
Verdict
Pick it when you want one capture tool with strong search. Skip it when you mainly need meeting transcripts or a team workspace.
Books behind it
Notes
Your note
Before you choose
The free plan is small
It allows fifty notes, one notebook, five spaces, 1GB of storage and one device. That is enough to try it. It is not enough to live in.
Read moreShow less
AI features sit on the higher plan
The AI Assistant, semantic search, transcription and editing are on the Advanced plan. If transcription is why you want it, check the plan comparison on the live pricing page first. A 7-day trial applies to paid plans.
The classic API is deprecated
The traditional Evernote API is marked as deprecated, and the vendor points to its MCP server for new integrations. The MCP server is in beta and may change. Avoid building a long-lived workflow on either until you have tested it.
Alternatives to compare
Notion and Google Docs suit shared documents. Granola, Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai suit meeting notes.