You know that amazing feeling you get when you cross the finish line after running a full marathon? Me neither, but I imagine it’s similar to what we’re feeling right now. After over a year of development and months of extensive beta testing, the new Evernote (version 3.5) for Windows is here, it’s out of beta, and it’s pretty awesome.
Download the new Evernote for Windows »
We’re staggering the auto-update process. If you have been using the Windows 3.5 Beta and want to upgrade, go to Tools>Options>Upgrade to pre-releases. Evernote 3.1 users should download the new version.
Why this is huge
The new Evernote for Windows is…well…new. Completely new, in fact. We rewrote it from the ground up to make it faster, more reliable, and just plain better than Evernote for Windows has ever been. The first thing you’ll notice is its revamped interface. The new look, complete with thumbnails, is great for quickly browsing and searching through your notes. Once you start using it, you’ll notice improvements to text editing, tagging, screen clipping, digital ink support, and tons more. Our goal was to use everything we’ve learned since our launch to make a great Evernote experience on Windows.
Ideal for switchers
Lots of people move among multiple computers and devices as part of their daily routine. The last thing you want is a wildly different Evernote experience on each platform. A major consideration for us in developing this application was uniformity—making sure that you could go from using Evernote on your Windows machine to Evernote on your Mac and back again without thinking about it. Now you can.
Latest and greatest
This means that not only it is more functional and stable and works great on Windows Vista and Windows 7, but we’ll be able to roll out continuous improvements faster than ever.
So, so, so much more…
Here’s an (almost) complete list of all that’s new and better in Evernote for Windows version 3.5. If you’ve been following us through the beta process, then you may have seen some of these already.
Three different ways to view your notes
- Thumbnail view: Rendered thumbnails showing the contents of your notes, images, and PDFs for easy browsing and filtering
- List view: Multi-column “List View” with sorting on any column
- Mixed view: Mixed thumbnail + detail view
- Zoom thumbnails to see more detail
- Display thumbnail or mixed views in visual groupings by date, size, source URL domain, and start of title
Note editing
- Auto-complete tagging and easier tag creation
- Spell checking as you type
- Better support for advanced markup
- Create tables within notes
- Specify default font size for text in notes
- Better handling of longer text notes
- Creating ink notes in easier with the new canvas-like layout
- Detailed note information and attributes
Searching
- Editable and descriptive search filter
- Ability to add or remove individual criteria from current search filter
- Save the current search for use later as a Saved Search
- Extend note search capabilities with ANY or ALL search criteria
- Support for advanced search grammar in the search field
Other stuff
- Find and Find next/find previous (both within and across notes)
- Better consistency across the Mac and Windows versions of Evernote
- New icons and buttons
- More user-friendly “Folder Import” feature to automatically create notes from a watched folder–great for scanner and other integrations
- “View on Map” button opens geo-tagged notes in Google Maps
- Evernote for Windows introduction video included on launch
- Multi-lingual spell check included in application
- Quick access to your online account information
- Improved screen clipping requiring fewer steps, with on-screen explanations
- Menu options for attaching files to notes without requiring drag-and-drop
- Remove tags from notes with a single click
- Advanced note text editor based on Google Chrome
- Improved synchronization performance via networking optimizations
- Improved database performance for faster searching and sorting of notes
- Full multi-language support (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, more coming soon)
- Single binary for all supported languages
- Synchronization is improved, it is now both faster and more memory efficient
- Drag and drop files onto the application icon
- Informational popups alerting users to synchronization and clipping
- New, re-mappable global hot-keys
- Search support for Asian characters
- Improved auto-import dialogs
- Improved copy/paste support
- Incorporated more standard keyboard short-cuts
- Improved task tray with easier access to clipping and short-cuts
- Email notes via the Evernote Service to remove email client dependencies
- Configurable auto-update to pre-release versions
- Improved installer
And that’s just the beginning
You can expect to see tons of new features and enhancements soon. Stay tuned.
Download the new Evernote for Windows »
UPDATE: Evernote 3.5.1 is out. This update introduces major improvements and enhancements. Read about it here »
191 Comments
lynn
But … but … you took away the cut/copy/paste icons, and it was you who got me hooked on them!
I posted upthread that I would probably upgrade anyway, thinking that you’d made these a registered perk, but they are gone!
Please, please, put them back!
lynn
I should have said in my previous note that it did load smoothly and runs fine on my 64bit Win 7 installed on a 64 bit laptop with 4G of RAM. That might be pertinent to something.
But having used it for the last few hours, I have to agree with those who are missing the drag and drop functionality we had in 3.1, as well as many of the other changes.
I too use mostly text docs here, and it does seem like the text functions have suffered the most.
I’m not sure I’d call it an upgrade. Sidegrade, maybe.
Frank
I often use my LT where there is no secure internet available. I never use public hot spots. The concept of “Cloud” applications may seem to be convenient, but until they can be 100% secure, I’m not going to use them. EN 2.2 is my choice at this time. If a newer version that is resident on my HD is released someday, I may consider purchasing an upgrade.
Eliot Sykes
Updates sound great, and I’d planned on upgrading until reading the comments left here. Evernote, please consider sending a newsletter announcement addressing these concerns.
Until there is some feedback from Evernote on the above I’ll be sticking with 3.1.
Deborah
The older version was simpler. What happened to that tag box that would float up on the bottom of the screen so you could tag a site you clip on the spot without having to switch screens and go into Evernote? Now you just get a message that you clipped the website. This is irritating as having to switch screens to create a tag is a drag. I like the older version better. Everything to complex with too many choices. You get some proficiency going and then things change drastically. I am tired of relearning stuff. How can I get the old version back? IF I can’t do that please put the auto tag feature back.
Paul
I’d like to use the Ink Note-tech together with typed text by keyboard, will that come?
Prs
upgrading to 3.5 showed my local notebook. since I was satisfied, I uninstalled version 3.1. and all of a sudden my local notebook has vanished! how do i get it back?
Dave star
Talk about gushing marketing sounds like a shambles. Egg al over their face. Will not upgrade.
Hal
I am REALLY not liking a couple of things about Evernote 3.5.
First off it’s horribly slow to start up.
Second is the screen clipper. I very much liked the old behavior where it remembered the last clip window used. Please bring that back! At least as an option.
BW
I’ve upgraded to 3.5 from 3.1 at home (windows 7) and it worked great. At work I tried to upgrade (XP) but 3.5 won’t launch. Any ideas?
DAG
I’ll have to stay with 3.1 since is the only version that work’s with Linux under Wine. This new 3.5 version works with .NET and that does not work. You should really think in working with a more multiplatform framework, something like java because .NET is far from portable to other platforms.
I hope you think this through.
Trevor W
I honestly don’t see the improvements in 3.5. It still lags and the features that were taken out of the clipper are things I used all of the time (e.g. Ctrl+S to save screenshots, Ctrl+C to copy screenshots). Sometimes I liked editing images before they ended up in Evernote.
I really don’t care for the new layout either. I didn’t realize the .Net requirement for 3.5 either. Another strike. Sticking with 3.1.
John
3.5 won’t start up on my XP system
Adrian Smyth
After reading some of these comments, I will leave well alone until the problems are resolved!
Dave
What happened to the screen clipping functionality? I need to be able to do Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V with the screen clipping tool without going into the Evernote App. Bring this back! Definitely a deal breaker.
Pablo
I think it’d be useful to have sub-notebooks, so that you can organize the information following a tree-like structure (like you do with your files in windows). thank you.
Katalin H
Evernote is a lovely program, but it is so slow that I simply can’t use it – when are you going to fix that???
Erik
I need to return to 3.1. It looks it is a hugh step back.
Simon
Disappointed – I’m sorry to write. I really like the option of thumbnail view, but overall the GUI is noticeably poor compared to the 3.1 version. On a brighter ‘note’, the evernote app for iPhone is fantastic.
Trejkaz
Not upgrading until the infinite paper comes back. It’s what makes Evernote Evernote!
Mornington
Wow, what a great update! Just updated from 3.1 and am really happy.
Particularly great interface changes. Soooo much more usable. In fact I’m totally rethinking how I use the product because it just works and feels so much better now.
Of course the performance changes are a little harder to see right off the bat, but better search and more attention to large notes is very welcome. I’m a glad to see a good product still working at getting better. Congratulations!
(Nice to not be complaining on a product thread for once
TheBigOldDog
This is a case study of how a company can take what was a great product and quickly destroy it for the sake of change. There’s no way I’d trade 3.1 for 3.5. 3.1 was near perfect and should have been tweaked slightly, not destroyed!
Secondly, your web clipper add-on update you pushed out for Firefox about a week ago has a major bug that causes Firefox to grind to a halt and consume an entire CPU core. I have confirmed in testing. If anybody reading this is suddenly having stability issues with Firefox, disable the Evernote add-on and that will fix it.
In a span of just a few weeks Evernote went from something I used and relied on everyday to something I can’t use at all. Nice work!
PaulC
LOVE the update.
I was never a big fan of the scrolling paper metaphor, this is so much better. I don’t use Evernote to manage photo’s, but the thumbnail view still makes its so much easier to find a note.
I am amazed that there are so many nay sayers.
Disappointed
I’ve used EN on mac and was really put off by the display layout, being quite proficient and familiar with the PC one. But now guess what? They’ve put the terrible, ugly, unreadable, impractical UI on my dear PC version
PLEASE bring back the old newspaper view with its handy list of notes and its new note input. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!
Richard Ames
Wow! ..Reading your customers reviews makes my choice easy … wait until the new version is approved by the majority ..
Two rules of (successful) business
1. The customer is always right!
2. If you doubt this … see rule #1
Ozdachs
I came here because of the email product announcement, but… Eeek! The comments here have scared me off.
No updating for me today!
Bruno
I also had to revert to 3.1. I’m very disappointed with 3.5 – it’s so slow…
Bruno
gwr
I still prefer ver. 3.1.
The new version seems to have lost all the useful bits that made Evernote so,so invaluable.
Sun. 21Feb2010
Mathew
Glad I came to this list of comments before I did the usual installation of whatever is new!
Personally, I’ve used Evernote for many years, and I like the second-latest version (3.1?) a lot. Given the above commentary, I’m going to hang loose and skip 3.5 for now, though I’m sure it’ll get ironed out and be another excellent release soon.
Cheers Evernote.
Dan
3.5 cannot login, informs me my username is invalid. 3.1 and Evernote.com work fine with my username. 3.5 tested on XP.
Vince Fontaine
Why is the windows version so lame compared with the Mac version? Much more sluggish.
Richard McNeill
Evernote is my e-journaling tool of choice… so far. I’m waiting for the shoe to fall, but it’s working for me now and I suspect that if the developers keep our support, it will get better. I capture audio, photos, and text notes and EN 3.5 manages them well.
Charlie
I’m with several of the other posters here. I was really jazzed by the marketing hype until I read the comments. And I realized that EN 3.1 has too much that I already like to want to move away from it, if indeed they have removed so much of the functionality that made it great in the first place. Change for the sake of change is not a good approach to software. I’ll upgrade when I come back here and the majority of comments say, “Great job–awesome!” Otherwise, forget it. And if you disable the comments to hide your customer’s opinions… Then you’ve REALLY signed your death warrant.
Dirk Daggler
still no support for vieweing shared notebooks? how can this be so difficuilt to implement. sharing and viewing family’s notebook via web browser is pain in the arse :s
Kamin
Wow! Two weeks of the new version’s non-acceptance by customers and today I get a notice to upgrade. I don’t think they are taking this blog and the customers seriously. I knew there was something changing with Evernote with the level of support getting a little scarier. They are friendly but never read the actual questions I have needing support. In fact, the last support question they said I cannot do what I was asking to do – I learned a few days later on my own that the feature exists – something their support people weren’t even aware of. Support and version releases will make or break a software or software service provider. I hope they get that concept soon before they tank their own business because the tool itself is a wonderful tool (at least prior to the newest version).
Roland
I was really eager to get the update and now I am really disappointed.
The font rendering is terrible, unless you want to be transported back to the 80s…
The thumbnail view is ok, but the UI really kills me. I’ll stick with 3.1 and hope the you revert that upgrade…
Nick Dunn
Very happy that it’s working with my proxy settings… earlier versions seemed to ignore the proxy stuff. Now I can use this at work. Yay
zcc
I still use EN 3.1~ EN 3.5 is ugly in my Win 7 + GDI++
James Taylor
“Lots of people move among multiple computers and devices as part of their daily routine. The last thing you want is a wildly different Evernote experience on each platform.”
Sadly that’s exactly what I get. I switch between Evernote 3.5 for Windows and the Evernote Blackberry app as part of my daily routine. I really love Evernote for Windows but am increasingly frustrated by the design and lack of usability in Evernote for Blackberry. Most of the problems come from the fact that the Blackberry app is basically a front end for Evernote Mobile; and Evernote Mobile has all kinds of flaws, such as inability to access tags and inability to edit notes that include more than text. Added to that that the Blackberry app itself has numerous flaws (random display order for tags, does not display tag hierarchy correctly) and you can begin to see my – and I imagine may others’ – frustration. And I’ve not even mentioned the elephant in the room yet – namely that Evernote still doesn’t support local copies of notes on the Blackberry.
And so when Evernote talk about uniformity across platforms, I have to understand by that that they mean only Windows and Apple platforms – hence the recent announcement of committment to developing Evernote for the iPad.
Evernote: when will you wake up to the needs of the millions of us who use Blackberry’s as part of our daily routine?
Kerry Murdock
As a MAC user I’m sooo thrilled.
Does the sharing notebooks work yet??? That’s what I’m looking for.
Lee Maverick
how do I import Outlook notes if I do not have Microsoft Onenote?
Jeff Pankin
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Evernote. Using it for a while. Would like to upgrade to 3.5 but my Dell laptop uses the NVIDIA Quadro NVS video card. Any idea how long the wait will be?
Thanks.
William Thomas
Love Evernote. Upgraded. Have it on three Windows computers. Now, won’t sync. Thoughts?
Marcel
I believe there is a memory leak on the latest Windows client; memory usages keeps growing as you simply open/close existing notes. The memory utilization is also much too large at application startup; there should be a way to minimize the footprint used by the app. Otherwise, love the app & integration you’ve done between mobile/WEB/Desktop; kudos to the team.
Augusto
Please add real TAB key to Evernote.
Thanks
Dave Fink
It launches and runs sooooo slow! I’m uninstalling / reinstalling 3.1. I’m a premium member and this is a real let-down.
Minnu Tom
I will not be upgrading to EN3.5 without the paper roll view. The list of notes is of no use to me, I need to see the actual notes when I search.
George Anison
I love the windows integration but I think in some areas the program is going backwards.
Like in the tags pannel, the tags aren’t greyed out to know wich notebook contains them.
By the other way, I really miss the stacked notes view, I loved that, please, take it back!
By the chance, It would be great being able to add hadwrittings inside text notes!
Thank you
Graham Barker
Dependance on .net framework 3.5 has turned me off trying evernote 3.5 – its a 231Mb download, as if 38Mb for evernote wasn’t enough! (not everyone has fast broadband). Seems like a lot of bloat for something to organise my text notes.
Also its inability to work on linux under wine is a turn-off. For me, and no doubt many others, cross platform means windows and linux.
Sometimes developers get carried away with adding cool and impressive features just because they’re cool and impressive, rather than sticking to what people actually need. I wonder if Evernote is heading down that path?
Atanasio Segovia
Are there any plans to release a Linux version?