Evernote Problems in 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the "Severe Free Plan Restrictions Making Service Unusable" problem with Evernote?

Evernote has gutted its free plan to the point of near-uselessness, limiting free users to just 50 notes and one notebook. Previously, free users could store thousands of notes with a monthly upload limit, making Evernote a viable note-taking solution for casual users. The new restrictions mean that users who accumulated years of notes on the free plan must either upgrade to a paid plan starting at $14.99 per month or export and delete notes to stay under the cap. This change was implemented without grandfather protections for existing users, and many discovered their notes were essentially held hostage behind a paywall. The severity of the restrictions shocked long-time users, as even the most basic note-taking apps offer unlimited notes at no cost. The move was widely seen as a desperate revenue grab by a company struggling financially.

What is the "Performance Deterioration and Sync Lag" problem with Evernote?

Evernote's performance has declined significantly over successive versions, with the application becoming slow, laggy, and unreliable. After Bending Spoons acquired Evernote in 2023, the company rebuilt the application, but the new version introduced severe performance regressions. Note loading times increased, search became sluggish for users with large note libraries, and the editor developed formatting issues that corrupted existing notes. Sync between devices has become unreliable, with changes made on one device sometimes taking minutes or hours to appear on another, and sync conflicts creating duplicate notes. The mobile app has become particularly slow, with users reporting 5-10 second delays when opening notes. For an application whose core value proposition is instant access to information, these performance issues fundamentally undermine the product's usefulness.

What is the "Mass Layoffs and Company Instability" problem with Evernote?

After Bending Spoons acquired Evernote, the company laid off the majority of its workforce, including most of the US and Chile-based teams, raising serious questions about the product's future. The acquisition followed years of financial struggles, leadership changes, and declining user numbers. Evernote had previously laid off employees in multiple rounds, and the Bending Spoons acquisition was widely interpreted as an acqui-hire or an attempt to extract remaining value from the brand rather than a genuine effort to revitalize the product. The reduction in engineering staff has visible consequences in slower bug fixes, fewer feature updates, and reduced customer support capacity. Long-time Evernote users report feeling abandoned and uncertain about whether their data and workflows will be supported long-term.

What is the "Data Export and Migration Difficulties" problem with Evernote?

Users attempting to leave Evernote face significant challenges in exporting their data. While Evernote supports export in its proprietary ENEX format, converting notes to formats compatible with other applications often results in lost formatting, broken attachments, and missing metadata. Complex notes with tables, checklists, images, and annotations are particularly problematic to migrate. The export process itself is slow for large note libraries, and users report exports failing or producing incomplete files for libraries exceeding several thousand notes. Third-party migration tools exist but require technical knowledge and sometimes access to Evernote's API, which the company has restricted for free accounts. The difficulty of migration creates an artificial switching cost that keeps users paying for a service they are unhappy with, a form of vendor lock-in through data friction.

What is the "Feature Removal and Broken Promises" problem with Evernote?

The rebuilt Evernote application under Bending Spoons removed numerous features that users depended on. Presentation mode, the ability to create internal note links easily, advanced tagging workflows, and certain Web Clipper capabilities were either removed or significantly altered. The integration ecosystem shrank as third-party developers abandoned the platform due to API restrictions and the uncertain future of the service. Evernote's previous management had promised features like real-time collaboration and improved editor capabilities that never materialized or were delivered in limited form. Users who built complex personal knowledge management systems around Evernote's specific feature set found their workflows broken by changes they had no input on. The pattern of promising improvements while removing existing functionality has been the defining characteristic of Evernote's decline.