Update: Evernote for Mac gets sharing [read the post]
Update: Evernote for Web gets quick note sharing [http://blog.evernote.com/2011/03/29/the-shiny-new-evernote-web-redesigned-interface-expanded-note-sharing-options-and-more/">read the post]
Update: Evernote for Windows gets sharing [read the post]
Update: Evernote for Android gets sharing [read the post]
Update: Evernote for iOS gets sharing [read the post]
For the past year, we’ve had a single goal: becoming your second brain. We made it easy to capture and find all of your ideas and inspirations using (almost) all the devices you own. We’ve even been called “the anti-social app“, for our unconventional determination to focus on what’s on your mind, not just the mind of your friends. Ok, maybe we call ourselves that. Today, we’re broadening our view.
Now begins Phase 1 of our major effort to help you share (and collaborate on) the stuff you’ve collected with individuals, groups, and the world. Introducing, Evernote Shared Notebooks on Evernote Web.
What’s new?
Using Evernote Web, you can now specify individuals that are permitted to view, and in some cases modify, your notebooks.
How it works
In your Evernote Web account, you will see a new, blue Sharing section in the navigation panel. Click on “sharing setup” to begin the process of sharing your notebooks. Select the notebook you wish to share, then decide whether to share that notebook with individuals or the world.
There are two additional options under the “Share with individuals” category:
- Share with individuals (view only)
- Share with individuals (view and modify) – Evernote Premium feature
For added security, you can require log in, which means that the unique link in the email your invitees receive can only be used by a single person and they’ll be asked to log in before seeing your notes.
Modify my notes (Evernote Premium only)
While all users get the ability to share their notebooks, Evernote Premium subscribers can also grant modification privileges: add, edit, and delete notes. You don’t need to be Premium in order to perform the modification, but you must be Premium in order to allow for modification of your notebooks. It’s important to note that any additions will affect the notebook owner’s monthly upload allowance. Learn more about Evernote Premium »
Linking notebooks into your account
We also made it really simple to keep track of any notebooks that have been shared with you. Whenever you visit someone’s shared notebook, you will see a “Link this to my account” button in the top right corner. Clicking that will add the notebook to your Evernote Web sharing section so you can jump back to the notebook any time you like. Try it now by linking this aspiring super villain’s notebook into your account.
New look
For those of you that published your notebooks in the past, you will see a new interface. The new look is closer to our standard web layout, and is much easier to scan and navigate. We also wanted to make sure that individuals unfamiliar with Evernote would get a consistent web experience throughout the application.
If this is Phase 1, what’s Phase 2?
You (our wonderful users) have been clamoring for selective sharing for some time. So, we decided to make it available in phases as we build out the functionality. Right now, notebook sharing functions are only available through Evernote Web. Soon, you will be able to share right from your desktop or mobile Evernote. Like with everything else we do, sharing will be everywhere. Our developer API has already been updated to support the new sharing features, and we can’t wait to see what you all come up with.
If you want to join us on the first step of this ambitious journey, you can do three simple things: (1) Make some notebooks that you want to share, (2) invite your friends, (3) tell us how to make Evernote better.
Update: Evernote for Mac gets sharing [read the post]
217 Comments
Andy
YAUWP2I – Yet Another user wanting phase 2 info. C’mon guys, being a LITTLE transparent would be useful. Something that could show up soon? Probably 2nd half of the year? Be vague and conservative, but at least say *SOMETHING*…
Corey Ward
This is pretty weak. What *does* Evernote do?
• You use webkit to format notes, so your entire editor is just a big contenteditable field. That means no work done there, just implement someone else’s work.
• You index notes and make searching more complicated than it needs to be.
• You have apps on several systems that are barely compatible with one another (Evernote for iPhone/iPad can’t even edit notes with lists in them).
• You do pretty decent OCR on PDFs. I’ll give you that one.
• The Mac interface is clunky at best, and the web interface is much worse.
When I share a notebook with another Evernote user it should appear alongside all of the invited party’s notebooks (after they accept, of course) in whichever official Evernote application they’re using. Without proper sharing there is no need to have ANY sharing. Quit releasing half-baked features and then sitting on them for over a year sans progress.
I’m a premium Evernote user.
Judith
Maybe I am missing a feature but what I would like to be able to do is link my notebooks with another evernote user without having to send an email for each linked notebook. If you want to share 50 files, I am sure that person doesn’t want to receive 50 emails. It would be nice to have the option sending multiple files in one email or not having to send someone an email at all. They can go to their evernote account and see what I have linked when they get there.
Andrew Sinkov
This is not currently available. Thanks for the suggestion.
Rashmi S
It would also be very useful to preserve the nested tag structure when sharing notebooks. I have organized my notes using nested tags, and scrolling through the nested tags makes it very easy to browse the notebook. However, when a user I’m sharing my notebook with views the notes, that nested structure is lost. This makes the notebook structure confusing and not very meaningful. Is there a way to preserve the nested structure of tags when sharing?
Mark Warner
I’ve just purchased a premium account as I wanted to start sharing notebooks with a colleague. This was a major factor in my decision to upgrade and I’ve just found that sharing isn’t possible via the desktop apps. Why wasn’t this made clear on your ‘Go Premium’ page?
Rodo
They kinda missed the mark on this one.
I’m sure we aren’t the only ones ASKING FOR THIS FEATURE!
Kevin Quincey
I bought it for the same reason and am disappointed to notice now after continuing to look around for why this doesn’t work that the only place I only clue I see at all that this might not work on the desktop or mobile clients is that in the video it says “Evernote Web”. Although I love the Evernote interface on the mac and iPhone, and would love to see the folks making this be successful, I’m feeling my $45 for the annual subscription to premium was not well spent.
My use case is I wanted to share a couple simple documents with my housemates. Shopping lists, bills owed, etc. I wouldn’t mind spending $45 per year to be the one to own and setup the notebook as long as they can see and modify these documents on their macs and iPhones too. The Evernote Web access is not important to us and not useful. In fact, I didn’t even realise it existed until today
.
Thanks for your efforts on all the Evernote platforms.
Kevin Q.
C
This was very frustrating for me this past week. I upgraded so that I could (1) share a notebook with a coworker, and (2) share several notebooks with my wife. Having to use them on the Web only makes it very impractical for what I need. I never came close to the bandwidth cap, nor did I need the other file type associations, so I feel I wasted my money.
Richard Richardson
The lack of desktop sharing on the mac client is extremely disappointing. Evernote seems like a cool great company and its almost like they put so much into the branding and marketing of the app they forgot to add it’s most needed and valuable function.
Being in app development myself I know how complicated these things are – but its been over a year now and this feature would be a revolutionary change (in my mind) in the way people collaborate with their notes.
I can’t really justify Evernote for my individual use – I mean its nice but I can throw my notes on a textedit file and house them on dropbox. I hope Evernote is not only listening to the people but get this feature asap – if so I’ll buy 10 licenses for my team and sing their praises (again).
Steve Guzman
Yes! Please offer an update that will allow me to viewed shared folders on my Mac Evernote client.
THANK YOU! GREAT WORK MY FRIENDS!
Dan K.
Phase 2 coming soon? After almost a year from this post do you guys have a better idea when it will be out? Specifically the sharing from the desktop option. I would love for our company of 100+ use Evernote for sharing .PDF documents. However, we can’t do this until the desktop sharing option is available. Thank you.
Mario
Looking forward for phase 2: just explained evenote to some colleagues. Tried to share a notebook with them, finding out that it doesn’t show up in their client, but rather in a separate window in an internet browser. I hope you manage to finish the sharing project soon.
Cheers,
Happy Evernote user !
Iain
I just assumed I’d be able to properly share my Evernote folders – as in, have them sync with anothers user’s offline installation – when I paid for premium membership. I’m extremely disappointed, and now look a little silly for telling people how wonderful Evernote is, and how it’s going to make things simpler.
Rob Bushway
Andrew – when is sharing via the desktop app coming? lot’s of folks asking for information and evernote is being silent on the issue.
James
I’m disappointed. I just bought a scansnap and have scanned in dozens of docs (great scanner by the way) Now I want to share the PDF’s with my wife via evernote, but the only way she can view it is through the web app. The UX for those viewing a shared notebook with PDF’s in the web app is really sub par. Not really usable in my opinion.
Now I come here and see many others are also having the same issue but evernote seemingly is quiet on the subject. Did I just pay $45 for nothing? (to get the sharing feature)
I’m going to go check out how well OneNote can accept scanned docs. I know it shares very well and it now has an online version.
Come on Evernote give me some hope!
Susan
I need sub-folders to make this my main note app. Keep up the greet work!
Roland
Amen!
Dave
I’m a premium subscriber, and I’m wondering where Phase 2 is as well. It’s been been over a year now and no new information. What’s the deal?
Eric
I, too, got a little fooled. Glad I only paid the $5 to try it out. I’ll downgrade and wait for the feature to become fully baked.
Brian (premium user)
Trying to share notes with desktop client, looking forward to this feature.
Ian
I’m a premium user as well and have been an avid Evernote fan for a long time (it was the main reason I bought an iPad), but I’ll be honest if we don’t get the ability to share notebooks with others in a controlled fashion I’m going to be forced to go back to OneNote. I have a notebook that contains years of knowledge and articles on SharePoint and it is a show stopper not being able to share that with my team. I’ve held out to date because this feature has “been coming”, but I really need to have the ability to create a central team notebook we can COLLABORATE on!
Tom
I’m joining the mob… what’s happening with collaboration and phase 2? It’s not only frustrating for me, but I have quite a number of potential converts in the wings who won’t leap without full collaboration. Just a comment would be helpful… “We’re working on it and it’s proving tough”, “calm down people, launch imminent” “Not coming until 2015″, “We’ve abandoned the idea but are too scared to tell anyone” … Anything.
Justin Lugbill
What I am wanting to do, is have a notebook shared, but within the notebook, be able to tag a specific note, to make it secure (For my eyes only).
For example, I have a business notebook that I would like to share with employees. However, I store some personal identity information that I would like to be private. I realize I could create an entirely new notebook for this personal information, but the content fits best in the shared notebook.
Perhaps you could make a rule that if there is a tag “private” on the note, it isn’t visible to the people who view the shared notebook?
Aaron Bernard
I’ll add my name to the list of people wanting this feature to progress beyond “phase 1.” It’s why I purchased Evernote in the first place.
The ability to have shared notebooks from within the app (and not a rinky-dink web page) is a killer feature. Just think knowledge bases, FAQ, customer support on small teams…..
Sure a person can meticulously organize such information in folders, but that type of information typically doesn’t lend itself to hierarchical organization because it logically can be in so many different places. The organic, parallel search style of Evernote as well as the rapid-entry of the desktop app+web clipping is perfect for the aforementioned tasks.
Troy Wilson
Would like to email a link to a single shared file rather than an entire notebook. I love the email file feature but some files are just too large for email to handle. Keep up the great work Evernote!
Simon Middleton
Just another voice to say I’d really like to know what is happening with phase 2. A year’s silence on the issue is… disconcerting.
Jason Simmons
I am a huge fan of Evernote and a premium subscriber, and this is the first thing I’ve run into that I’m finding incredibly frustrating. Phase 1 of sharing was launched over a year ago. This is a huge, incredibly important area of functionality where Evernote is just not yet doing what it should. If this isn’t at the top of your development priorities list, I’d love to know what else is in front of it and why.
Daniel
Unfortunately, I’m coming pretty close in ditching Evernote because of the frustration of my co-workers not being able to share via the desktop software. I keep telling them it’s coming in Phase 2 but after a full year of repeating myself I’m feeling kind of stupid so I just shrug my shoulders and hope the company doesn’t pull the plug….
Jo, Australia
Wow what a bunch of complainers! All I read are whining comments; it is interesting how many FREE users are quick to demand more. Sure if it has been a year that is a while but for a mean 45 bucks a year for a premium account that hardly seems like it is a lot of money going to them to research and develop their products.
Maybe I am more appreciative of Evernotes features and how it makes it’s self –almost all it’s basic features– available to so many users for free. Or maybe being on this side of the world I am more used to waiting for things to Finally arrive! Did you know I have been in three times to the only apple store in town and each time they say they are hoping to get in new stock next week… They won’t allow prepurchase orders and although the iphone4 has only been out here since July it is sad that being August the retail stores are always saying out of stock and to order online takes at least three weeks. As consumers we often demand more and shout and scream until we get what we want… But when it comes down to it many of these demands are essentially our ‘wants’ not ‘needs’.
And with regards to using Evernote as my ‘second brain’ it certainly has helped to simplify running my five companies here in Australia. Congratulations and well done to you guys who have worked hard to serve an ever growing, demanding, consumer market.
Jo.
Heidi
well – sorry, but I too am trying to share notebooks and allow MYSELF and my co-workers to link to it, via our traveling laptops i.e. be able to make change, and even though there is a note that says this is possible – it does not work. I see no “link this notebook” click.
Yes, I am frustrated as well, having spent almost 4 months changing our way to share files for this system. I “thought” it worked, but that was only with the file on each computer, which is totally lame then – why even have the program if I have to have the file on each computer?
Yes, sorry guys, I was touting your services, and now I am one of the whiners and I think rightfuly so – $45 bucks is $45 bucks.. but multiplied by how many clients..
Heidi
lynn
This would be the killer app if I could share from desktop to desktop, but I don’t want to login… We have biz cards to share. I love the ability to search, want to share that with my biz partner.
Anyway, I love where this is going … but, help us out… add the ability to other’s desktop not just to web. Or, let us know if this isn’t in the plans?
Thanks for an overall fab product! We’ll probably stop using it, but I do think it’s pretty slick, overall.
Jake
To all those complaining about this feature only being available on Evernote Web, maybe you should use the web version a better way.
Setup a Google Chrome Application Shortcut to your Evernote account. It will run as an application in it’s own window just like a normal desktop application.
It is super fast ( faster than the desktop version ), looks much better, and you can do everything including drag and drop of files.
d
but you can’t do it offline!
Andreas
I remember this feature was in there once, but apparently they pulled it a long time a go..
Is phase 2 (sharing from desktop clients) still in development or should one start looking for alternatives? I use Evernote beacuse of the desktop client and sync between devices. There are better web apps out there if I only wanted to use my browser, imo. So this is not a viable solution.
Blived
Has ANYone here received or found ANY reply from the company on any of this:
a) when will “Phase II” start rolling out upgrades?
b) what IS their ETA on viewing/controlling Shared Notebooks from (mac too) client app?
c) what’s the deal with a company or support/programming staff that don’t feel compelled to simply offer comment at least 1x/month on such an important thread/topic/feature-set as this?
With the Kudos (Evernote) and our $$$ come some, if only relational, responsibilities like keeping us informed and being responsive to a collective call.
How about an update (yesterday)?(!)
Jon Bauerle
I am also interested in this feature, and am a premium user. Any news on this? Are the dev’s listening?
Adrian
Ok so i have a big Evernote database, is there a way to generate in to a text file only the urls from all my snaps ?
Fabiola
Can you not share your notebooks via other Evernote user accounts and without recieving emails so you can use it as a platform for discussion and notes you could just log in to?
Daniel
Evernote: – “Soon, you will be able to share right from your desktop or mobile Evernote.”
Soon? It’s been over a year!!!
Daniel
I was soooooo disappointed when the big announcement wasn’t about the ability to share via desktop, when instead it was just about a new web app store, Trunk…..
Harri
Shared notebooks not working from the clients is a big disappointment for me, I need to start looking for other options. Please get this done. I’m a premium user.
Mike Fleischer
Sharing notebooks with the clients is an essential feature I am waiting for… Hope you will get this done very soon…
Hope this is not the last period I’ve paid for a premium account, and maybe the others who also need this feature and rely on your phase 2 to be released.
Dave
Seriously, my entire office would shell out cash right now for the ability to share notes between users on the desktop client. I sincerely don’t understand why this isn’t an available feature yet, I have no interest in the technical limitations I assume must be causing it… this is an essential feature to the growth of your product and I think you know that. I’m a paying user, but they’re not going to be until you address this concern.
Dan K.
I’m in the same boat. I’m not going to deploy this out to our entire company until Phase 2 is implemented. Right now we’re using Google docs and consequently everyone seems to be using it efficiently and it’s free. It’s going to be harder for me now to convince everyone to switch to Evernote when or if they ever get phase 2 rolled out. “Coming Soon” and it’s been over a year….
Also, I too thought the capability already existed when I signed up to be a Premium member. They need to clearly display somewhere on their site that this feature is not available yet……
Tobi Roberts
SPEAK, MAN, SPEAK!!!!!
I signed up for the premium service, for myself and my whole team, because you advertise sharing notebooks and using Evernote on all of my devises. What a crock. I feel like I have to re-learn each device and its capabilities and limitations individually. If I save a formatted note on the PC, it opens up different on the iPhone, etc. Sharing is only possible on the web? This is neither useful nor convenient and the silence is excruciating for busy people. Just shoot straight, but shoot something!!!!!
Dave T
Another premium member disappointed. I develop and project manage software for a living and can’t understand why you can’t at the very least share where phase 2 falls on a road map, project plan/schedule or a developer’s personal calendar. You guys need to make the jump away from startup thinking.
What’s going on?
Dietmar
I also bought premium licence today in the belief to be able to share notebooks on my applicaltions (mac, iphone, ipad)
So after searching around I came to this blog an understood that this is not possible but promised since more than one year.
I think its the so called “phase 2″
So what’s up with pase 2 !
Casper
In the same boat as many others – bought Premium in order to be able to share a notebook with my colleagues. Did indeed believe that it would work with the clients. Please get this done soon, or at least update you website to clearly state the fact that you really don’t get what I expect most users expect when going Premium.
Jon
Ditto to the above. I bought the premium edition today touting the sharing function only to find out now as I am prepping for my presentation tomorrow that the only way to share is via the web client.
Is there any ETA for the mobile app update?
Miguel Sánchez Villafán
I’d really like more social network sharing features as integration with Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and more.
Blived
In this post:
Notebook Sharing and Collaboration: Phase 1
June 25, 2009
You guys (not us), but you guys said: “Soon, you will be able to share right from your desktop or mobile Evernote.”
The date today is: September 15, 2010
So when did “soon” come to mean “more than a year from now”?
Please post to this thread an update of when (even FAIR ballpark) this feature (for which so many of us are actually paying you CASH every month) this core feature has any hope of being rolled out.
Standing by,
-D
Josh
I also went premium with the idea that the shared notebooks feature would be nicely integrated into the desktop app and browser clipper. Sharing notebooks is close to pointless living only within the web browser.
I’ll probably be moving to the free account next month.
Christopher
I have no use for sharing but from seeing so many requesting it “as promised” I want to see it implemented. From a buisiness perspective they need to realize that even though they have a lot of individuals requesting different functionalities, this one is different from most. When they add a feature they make an individual happy but this particular “sharing” feature would not only make the individuals friends and coworkers happy. Sharing would also be like free advertising.
Ron
Here’s how I’m using this feature:
1) I keep shared team “to do” lists in my Evernote account. When my direct reports update their to do lists in Evernote, we all get synched real-time status updates.
2) My admin has access to a shared “Receipts” notebook for my Evernote account. When I’m traveling, I snap photos of my travel-related receipts and tickets and email them directly to this notebook. That way, she and I both have a copy of the receipts and she can use the copies to start preparing my expense reports even when I’m out of the office. Happily, our accounting team accepts digital scans so I don’t even need to hang on to the originals (but I usually toss them in a manila folder anyway just in case).
Carlos
Disappointed to see that phase 2 has not been implemented after more than a year. I will need to find another solution.
Aaron
+1 for waiting for phase II. Evernote would be infinitely more useful to me (my company) if we could share notes using the desktop version. While I doubt they’re working on this, it would be nice to have a central notebook(s) common to all our employees (maybe using a server?, or not) that our employees can add to, tag, etc. Then they can also have their own personal notebooks. But without a desktop version this is pretty much moot. However, we’d spend the money for quite a few premium accounts for this.
Dan Burdi
If I share a notebook with someone via Evernote Web and allow for modifications will that user be able to modify the notebook via their Android App or only through Evernote Web?
Any updates on when we can expect sharing directly from within Evernote for Windows?
Reed
It would be so helpful if I could share Tags and also have an RSS feed for a certain tag which would pull notes from all my notebooks.
Could you please consider making it possible to share tags (even if it only pulls notes from already public notebooks).
I am actually using my evernote notebooks to fuel, through RSS feeds, a whole content website.
Thanks
Rastaf
What exactly was meant by “Soon”? When will phase 2 begin? Since that announcement it’s about 17 month now.
Sharing notebooks via the desktop app is the one feature I really am waiting (and craving) for and it would turn Evernote to “the” killer app.
Please, devs, drop everything, we don’t need any other improvements until this one is still pending!!!