News

Notebook Sharing and Collaboration: Phase 1

Posted by Andrew Sinkov on 25 Jun 2009

sharing-top

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

notelinking
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]

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217 Comments RSS

Chriz —

Waited so long for this feature – great! Thanks so much for the great evolution of evernote.
Paul —

Excellent feature – well done for continuing to make Evernote a great product!
Alexander Deliyannis —

Brilliant guys 🙂 The functionality’s what I’ve been hoping for and the improved look is a bonus!

My personal request to make things perfect: the ability to make copies of notes. This way I can share and collaborate on a note while still keeping the original in a safe place.
Kenn Heller —

This is exactly what I’ve bren waiting for. Completely thoughtful. Thanks
Lamarr Wilson —

Freakin’ amazing. I can now get my friends and co-workers on Evernote. I love the service and I’m a premium member.
Brip —

This is (yet another) excellent new feature….and it’s the one that’s tipped me over to buying the premium feature.

One minor refinement comment: if I’ve given someone view only access, there isn’t an obvious way to upgrade them later to full access (I just deleted their access and set them up again with the full access). Would be good if could just change it via a drop down list.

Anyway, cheers guys and keep up the good work!
Luke —

Great progress guys!… however, as a Premium user, I would want my shared notebooks to be shared via https before I utilize this feature for anything important.
Peter van Teeseling —

Nice feature. The https comment by Luke makes me a bit cautious. But great work anyway!
Agustin —

I´d like to share tags, not only notebooks. An idea for your excellent program.
Pishabh Badmaash —

What about linking between notes? OHHH PLEASE, we want it, we need it now!
Gary —

So, what is the difference between “Share with Individual” and “Share with the World”? Is share with the world searchable by anyone? Doesn’t Share with individual still provide access to anyone who has the link? For instance if Bob sent the email with the link to Susie, Susie would have access to the notebook (unless you forced them to login, correct?)
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  @Gary There are a few main differences between the two:
  1) Share with the world has RSS
  2) Share with the world has a user-specified URL, while share with individuals has a more secure URL
  3) Share with individuals allows you to require log in for all viewers
bruce —

A huge thank you for implementing this. I was about to look for another service with this “groupware” aspect.
DominicT —

Fantastic feature. Yes desktop and iphone accessibility are a must for Evernote to be really useful.
Lewis —

This is the best news I’ve heard all day!

(I know I’m sad, but its been a bad day)
gene —

Oh happy day!!!
Karen Templer —

This is a dream come true. If I kept a note called Evernote Wishlist, the first item would now be checked off.

Second is the ability to set different sort orders for different notebooks. Any chance that might also come true?
Lindsay Donaghe —

I’m so excited about this! It’s been high on my wishlist for a long time. Awesome!

A question though… In the new web interface when you view the properties of a public notebook it no longer lists the url for the notebook. How do you find that information now? Also, is there a way to find it in the Windows client?

Keep the new features coming!
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  @Lindsay The URL is listed only for notebooks shared with the world. Click on Sharing setup in the new, blue sharing panel. Then click Stop/Modify sharing for the notebook in question. You will see the notebook URL in the right-hand section.
Michele —

HUGE — thank you.

This is exactly why I paid for the premium account. Not so much because I use the higher upload limit (I never do), or because I upload many non-PDF files. But because I want to support a company that adds a significant USEFUL feature with every update.

Nice work, guys. Can’t wait to start sharing my notebooks.
Elise —

thank you for answering my questions!

best wishes Elise (boekgirl)
Stew —

You guys rock! I’ve been wanting this feature to share work-stuff with my project team.

Thanks!
sasha —

This is why I love evernote, its always evolving towards the customers requirements! The iphone app has improved with v3 and now one of my wishes has come true about sharing the wedding notebook with my fiance.
S!ick —

You guys get better and better…thank you…bless you…
Joe —

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

Now, to get the premium version of evernote! I knew you would do something to make me upgrade. It was only a matter of time!
Carlos Caballero —

I suggested this feature almost a year ago, in the context of a move towards collaboration spaces; I am awed that it’s started to happen, and I believe this will be just the first step into a wonderful direction: collaborative Evernote spaces, with their associated concepts of users, groups, artifacts and such.

In a more tactical scope, this is a real panacea: a customer and I have been sharing an Evernote account for a while, but the pain of having to re-synchronize into another account just to switch from private to shared domains and back has been intense (my private notebooks take a couple of minutes to download when synchronizing from zero).

I can’t wait for the concept of spaces, users and groups to start coalescing more around typical collaboration models: i believe that Evernote is one of the possible medicines for current but broken, broken, broken collaboration modalities.

I have been an advocate of Evernote from very early on, and you guys just keep me more and more addicted 🙂
fjpoblam —

Thanks yet again, folks. (Evernote never forgets its fans!)
JennyW —

Great ideas! When you double-click on a note to bring it up by itself, though, there is no print option from that window. Could you add that in the future? Thanks!
Chaim —

Hey, great new feature and a definite move in the right direction! Luke raised a good point, though. If have a Premium account and share to another Premium account, can we be sure that all info is transmitted between the accounts and between the users in encrypted format only?? Please let us know. Thanks!
pepoluan —

One suggestion how Evernote can be even better: MAKE A VERSION FOR SYMBIAN S60!!!

C’mon, Evernote! Symbian Smartphones SEVERELY outnumber all BlackBerries and iPhones COMBINED. Why do you neglect us Symbian users?

That said, please make sure that “Evernote for Symbian” can run on my 5320 XpressMusic 😉
Luke —

@Chaim I only tried sharing from my account (premium) to my wife’s account (regular) and it was not encrypted. It would seem that premium to premium would be https.
Andrei Simone —

Long have i waited or that kinds of features, thank you for this info!
Adellon Asnawi —

now one of my wishes has come true about sharing the the best times of my life.
nlx —

offtopic

Why Evernote is not searching for IMAGES in notes to make a decent thumbnail ? I have tons of notes and the thumbs are just plain text ! And every notes haves nice images inside that could be used instead, thats stupid don’t you think ?
Ange14 —

Wow..This is why I love evernote, its always evolving towards the customers requirements!
FSMdotCOM —

oh wow, this is amazing, this makes me thinking about a premium account.

@pepoluan: really dude, symbian phones?
Galen —

The ability to SORT shared notebooks by TITLE and fields other than creation and modifaction dates would be very helpful.

Right now the views for large notebooks seem random to others browsing note titles, etc.

Google docs and upcoming wave do this. I’d love to keep the convenience of dragging research files and notes into Evernote to share.
Leo —

I think you just messed up the landing page from the search widget – infact you just did away with the search widget and I had to look at the earlier code to create widget for my new notebooks.

Here is one page that you land at after clicking on the search widget http://www.evernote.com/pub/qubrexlist/qubrex#Note/7de399d5-2bd7-4027-8043-9fe7b4d0f984

The tags and attributes take up way too much space in the left, and all that white space is dead space. Should have left that for the thumbnails of the other notes.

The Description on the top rest of the things again take up too much space, and the actual real estate left for the note to show up is minimal. Not a good design by any stretch of imagination.

Also, the search widget was wonderful. I could use that as a freeform database – i.e put all the notes there, and as people did search in the widget they could see the number of results as thumbnails. from there when the clicked on any of the results a new landing page would open and you could see all the results filtered from the whole notebook. Very powerful concept that brought me to using evernote in the first pace.

In addition to putting in notes I want others to find it easily. You messed up the earlier approach and broke all the work i had put into it. Shared and linking notebooks are good, but should have been in addition – not after elimination of the earlier approach.

Or atleast give a few options to customize the widget and the landing page after someone clicks on the widget. Also give a little more power to people to customize the shared page ….
Miami injury lawyer —

this post is really helpful .thank you for sharing it
Chris Zach —

Awesome to see that sharing features are being released! This will be very useful for me personally.

The next three features I’d love to see:

1) Note versions/revisioning — more important than ever now that others can make modifications to notes (See a wiki or Google Docs for example use cases)

2) Inter-note linking (see OneNote)

3) More effective tools for removing formatting from clipped content — “Remove Formatting” tool in web version doesn’t do anything. Only option to clear formatting in desktop version (PC) is to do a Paste Special command.

Keep up the great progress!

– a loyal premium member
Spen —

You’ve just made my day!

Congrats guys, I think this takes evernote to a rather splendid new level. Better get ready for a stampeed of new users 🙂
queuebug —

This makes Evernote even more perfect!
Chennai Dental Hospital —

You guys are geting better and better!!
Motos Murcia —

WoW, this is really amazing.
Thanks for improving the system on such a way.
@LynetteRadio —

I nearly *fainted* when I read this. You are now, without a single doubt, the best software **EVER**
Elliot —

Hi all. I am not sure whether your upgrade is going in the right direction. Please correct me if i am mistaken. What I and I imagine lots of others what is to be able to essentially keep only one notebook or if you like, one account, say for a company and then as the business owner you have admin rights but all the staff have different access rights – the administrator would tick the notebooks they have access too. Hopefully later down to tag or even note level.

In this way you will have surplanted Windows Server (Active Directory) Folder Sharing and with versioning to come, you will have an incredible Wiki smasher.

I’m not sure what your current update can do in this regard and whether you are going down a wrong road.

Anyway – I’m sure you have your own reasons for doing what you have dione – perhaps this ap is not trying to be a business tool but go after the social networking apps.
David Mehrle —

are there any heavy evernote users in the St. Louis area. I am just getting started and really want someone to show me how it can be used in a solid way.

David
dmehrle@mac.com
Alexander Deliyannis —

I very much appreciate the development in shared notebooks. I have been using the existing features for quite some time and the new functionalities are a welcome addition. A couple of suggestions:

(1) When mailing a note from a public notebook (from the web at least) it would be great to automatically include a direct link to that note. This would act as a ‘teaser’ for the receiver to take a look at the whole notebook –and Evernote. And, by the way, as a premium account I would appreciate not having “From Evernote” in the subject.

(2) Providing editing rights to third parties makes it all the more important to be able to keep copies of the original notes, say, in a non-shared notebook. As unbelievable as this may sound, it is as yet not possible to make copies of notes (without copying and re-entering the content anew!)
Chris Case —

Certainly a good idea. Too bad that the size of the window in which a note displays in the shared notebook is so small that it is really inconvenient to try to view a note, especially if it has an y graphics that are more than 1/4 of the height of ones browser window. Why waste so much space above the display window on menu item boxes, or why not at least provide an option to expand a note to full screen? As it is now, it’s only useful for displaying text notes where scrolling a small window is all right.
Jordan Garn —

You really need to add this type of features into the Downloadable Client… That would be an awesome Feature Upgrade.
jeffuccino —

I’d like to use this with my team at work. It’s great that I can share a notebook with just my team but a bummer that they can only access it from the web interface. Will you add the ability to access a shared notebook from the Win/Mac apps?
Alexander Deliyannis —

P.S. An irrelevant question: it usually takes about two days for my posts to be moderated. By that time, they may be irrelevant to the discussion, or at least out of context. As I am logged in when posting, is moderation really necessary?
websolutions —

Fabulous! You guys are amazing! I am waiting for the arrival of the 2nd phase.
Henrik Ahlen —

I love Evernote and want to introduce it to my colleagues too as a groupware tool.

But I cannot do that until the shared notebooks also works in both the Mac and Windows desktop clients, so please hurry up with this.

Until then we are stuck with Google Documents.
Julie Mitchell —

Will there be some way to view materials from shared notebooks on the mobile apps? This would be extremely useful for some educational applications I am working on for Evernote.
Mike Ambs —

Awesome addition to Evernote! I’ve been searching through the comments looking for an answer of when the sharing will hit the desktop version of Evernote? Anyone heard anything yet?
Ben —

Would be great to get an update re Phase 2… ?
Pete —

I second, only useful, if integrated into the native clients including the mobile clients, until then just a gimmick.
Content of these shared notebooks should be handled similar to content of your own notebooks, aka you should be able to drag & drop notes from shared notebooks to your own notebooks and vice versa.
Dana —

In order for sharing to be really useful to me I need to be able to comment on the notes in my notebook and haves others respond to my comments or post their own–meaning there would be text post associated with a note, and then a thread.
Paul —

I am a student and appreciate being able to do shared notebooks. However, the true value of this feature is greatly diminished because other users can’t modify the notebook from their desktop Evernote application. This is a serious drawback, and I would LOVE to see Evernote develop this asap!
Peter —

It is not so optimal that, when sharing notebooks with non-premium members, these do not show up in the same list as those that these non-premium members have themselves.
belle —

It would be great if shared notebooks could be in with my others so friends and I can all clip to the same notebook…
Elliot —

Any news on sharing phase 2? I have recommended Evernote to literally dozens of people and would dearly love to pay for usage. But right now its just a handy syncing notepad. To rival our LAN file server and/or google docs, the sharing must be on the native clients. THEN you have a business app. It will be truly awesome. I can get all my research staff to use one account to collaborate on a notebook. As someone said earlier. The web version is just a gimmick. Come on guys. Its been ages since phase 1 😉
marbles —

It would be great to have an RSS feed of a shared notebook so that people know when it has been updated.
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  @marbles You can already do that. Notebooks that are shared with the world have their own RSS feeds.
Tibor —

Hi, Sharing will really work, if you can create local notebooks on a server and access/modify these from multiple clients. It is important to have it locally, cause it is really hard to justify to put company internal information to the web independently from the protection you are giving.
Until this it’s a personal notebook and it’s really good for that. If you can have this sharing feature then it’s a tool to maintain knowledge/information inside a company. This is a way to sell the tool to the managemen cause otherwise the free version just does what it has to do for a personal notebook.
Jacob —

I agree with Jordan. Would be awesome to get this in the standalone application…
Angus Neil —

How about a phase II update?
David Spreekmeester —

Perhaps someone from the Evernote team can at least respond to the patient crowd on when phase 2 of sharing is planned, before it turns into an angry mob and people start to get irritated.
If you ask me, you have some very dedicated followers, and it doesn’t make sense to create any communication gaps by just not responding to any question or remark about sharing. I’m not asking you to promise anything unrealistic. It’s just that you have been enthusiastically shouting about phase 2 coming ‘soon’, and that was almost half a year ago. Since then, hundreds of comments and questions I read about phase 2 have deliberately been left unanswered. In my view, that’s a strange policy for a company with a sympathetic and transparent image as Evernote. Time to come clean; please at least tell us what the status is.

Though the web client is pretty cool, it remains a somewhat limp alternative to the awesome desktop apps, and renders sharing not usable at the moment for the majority of your target group.

Communicate! Thanks.
Amy Stewart —

I am adding my voice to the crowd anxiously awaiting a native desktop version of shared notebooks. I have many clients with whom this would be a killer communication tool, but right now, the web-only version doesn’t cut it. Any updates, Evernote?
Ken Rimple —

So, I signed my wife and I both up for shared notebooks, and we both have Macbooks. I then set up a shared notebook, and linked it to my account. I paid for her so we both had a premium Evernote account, and now I find out that we can’t see the shared notebook on her machine, only the web? That is not obvious. What is the ETA on sharing on the desktop and iPhone, it’s not very useful only via the web client.
James Cockerille —

I agree with Ken above. Shared notebooks aren’t really that useful if individuals can’t put files into them from iPhone or review contents on the desktop app. Not impressed with this as true ‘sharing’.
Jackie —

I’m glad I came to this page before upgrading to the Premium account, which I was about to do in order to use Evernote to share info between management at my company. If it becomes a possibility to use Evernote to create a notebook that I and 2 others can view and edit from the web, desktop app, iPhone app and Blackberry, that will be huge.
Joseph —

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I was really hoping the notebook sharing through the desktop interface(a.k.a. phase 2) would be included in the latest software release. This is the one request I sent into Santa this year. And I tried my hardest to be nice last year.. don’t you get partial credit for trying?
David Reber —

If Phase II does in fact bring the ability to share notebooks through the desktop interface or iPhone app, will a user have the ability to move or copy a document from the shared notebook to a personal notebook? This would be a big bonus feature!
Tom Williams —

I have to agree with Ken above – I just signed up for a premium account specifically so I could share notebooks with my wife, and then found out it only works via the web interface! 🙁 This wasn’t obvious anywhere until we found out it didn’t work. I really hope you guys fix this soon, as this was the only premium feature that I wanted to actually use.
Robert —

For what it’s worth; I too am a dedicated Evernote user; I spread the word and advocate the product to whoever will listen; my wife and I both have Premium accounts (which we use on the web, PC, MAC and iPhones and Blackberry) and would like to see Phase 2 of the notebook sharing feature. A communications update would be appreciated so we can set our expectations. Thanks.
Matt albert —

You guys have to make the shared notebooks available via the desktop and mobile apps or it is pretty useless. I share a recipe notebook with various family members and to have that show on the mobile app would be perfect. Why wasn’t this made more clear?
bill —

it wasn’t made clear because not enough people thought it was worth it to go premium on the 2/50 times they may want to attach a file that is premium only, so here’s some more incentive..but whoops..web only. Which isn’t half bad mind you. The web only interface is surprisingly nice, albeit slow.
thomas —

A desktop version of this is necessarly to get use of it, and I really dont understand why this is so hard to program when you manage to do everything else. Top priority! Good luck!
Terry —

I love the product and use it daily (maybe even hourly). I think the sharing concept is great. I’d like to put in a request for notifications incorporated with sharing. for example, if i’m sharing a notebook with a group of folks and I update the notebook. the others should get a notification (email, text, etc) the notebook has been updated. That would be really useful. I also like the idea mentioned earlier about the comments thread for each note.

btw, take your time guys. I’d rather see it done right than rushed and poorly implemented. in the mean time, i’ll still you evernote the way I always have – too remember everything. 😉
Peter —

I was just about to drop $450 on ten premium accounts for my staff so that we could collaborate through a series of shared notebooks, only to find out this feature is *still* web-only, and can’t be viewed from the desktop apps.

I’ve converted my life to revolve around Evernote, and I want to share the joy!

Where oh where is this phase 2 update that’s been on this blog for the last six months? Where can we sign up as a beta-desktop-app user for my workgroups?

Oh, and add folders, too! But sharing first. Then folders. I know you’re against folders, but it would help clean up 60 different notebooks on my sidebar into an even dozen.
Michael Dalvald —

Another voice in the crowd. 🙂 I’m also a premium user since a year back. Unfortunately I wasted lots of time to try to get a shared notebook into the stand alone Evernote desktop application before realizing it was web only.
Please, any updates on when shared notebooks would just show up in the Evernote application just as any other notebook?
Roland Osborne —

We just bought a premium account only to find out sharing is web only — come on guys! You need to make this clear before people upgrade accounts. We desperately wanted to use Evernote as a shared knowledge resource.
Matt S —

One more person to add to the list of requests for when phase 2 is coming out. I upgraded to premium to share a notebook with my wife because I thought this would be perfect for keeping notes about our house hunting, and mobile sharing is a MUST for this.

Obviously I can’t do what I wanted to do, which really sucks. I guess I’ll let my premium expire and I’ll renew it when phase 2 comes out.

My wife and I both use a Pre, so we’ve found lots of really cool ways to keep our lives synced together. Evernote was going to be just another way to do it, but if it’s web only, I’d rather use Google Wave.
Bob Peterson —

Yes, what is the status of this second phase for the sharing???? We have just spent out on the premium to get everyone sharing but cannot make it work unless it works with the desktop clients

Please let us know when you envisage a release of this otherwise we will be forced to migrate somewhere else!
Jeff G —

My organization is in need of this phase 2 notebook sharing. We rely heavily on Evernote, but really need to add notebook sharing non web version. Any idea on a rollout for this? We are spreadout all over the country and this tool would be a life saver for our organization.
Great product and very addictive…
Barry E —

Just getting ready to drop Evernote. While we like it in all other respects, the lack of mobile sharing (yes, we have premium accounts) was entirely unexpected, as it was for others in this thread. And the lack of a reply/status from Evernote to the posts on this list is a real concern.
John C —

Will you ever allow access and editing via iPhone to shared notebooks? If not please let us know
Brett —

One more voice and another data point for Evernote. I too was ready to go Premium with my wife until I found out that we can’t sync information on devices (and that I will need 50 notebooks cluttering my side bar instead of folders containing notebooks).

Now I am looking at alternatives, like Google Wave. Perhaps Evernote isn’t the right solution for us. I do know that without one considerate response to the many questions, I wonder about Evernote’s commitment to its customers.
Austin Williams —

Agree the everyone above. This is far more useful if the shared catalogs are synced between clients
Philip —

Clearly a lot of people are desperate for sharing to be extended to desktop and mobile applications, but there seems to be no response here.

Would the response be somewhere else?
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  Hi folks. We are working on expanding the sharing functionality to include other versions of Evernote.
Mark —

Another note for Sharing Phase 2– I just signed up to shrae a folder with my wife, and I also only found out afterwards that we can’t see shared folders on her dektop app, nor on her iphone.
Joe —

Do you have a release date for the notebook sharing (non-web)? Spent a few hours trying to get this work. Really useful app but can’t fully use until this is resolved
Jeremy Davidson —

I would be in Evernote all day long if the clients would share. I would love to get my whole team on it but without the client share it is worth nothing to me.
Roy Ogren —

phase 2 is the deal breaker in going premium for me as I am anticipating the option of being able to share via mobile.

I do like your product for what it is for now though, thanks for a great product.
Tim Beeston —

Any dates for phase 2 release?
I would go for premium straight away if phase 2 was soooooon!
ToddV —

You really hate your customers huh?

I found this post while researching the sharing option – I was about to sign my wife and I up for premium accounts just for that feature. We both use iPhones and it would be a great way to coordinate a lot of what needs to get done as parents.

Sharing via the web? Huh – OK nice proof of concept…which you did 10 months ago…

Since then folks here have been begging for the next step – some have been tricked / mistaken into thinking you could share using the desktop and iPhone apps…

You post on the blog that you’re doing phase 1 in June 2009 and that you’re working on Phase 2. Then 9 MONTHS later you post again to say:
“Hi folks. We are working on expanding the sharing functionality to include other versions of Evernote.”

That’s nice – you said it 10 months ago. So not really an update is it – meaning there’s no new information.

That post seems to say to those 98 other folks who’ve posted here, begging for an update, “Eh, we don’t really care about you – just keep paying your little monthly fee and stop bugging us. Yeah we’re still planning on doing it some day, maybe, sort of…”

How about you prove me wrong and actually give a real update or better yet a release for the desktop and iPhone that includes SHARING.
Nathaniel White —

For me, sharing is the only reason to go to premium. I’d like to recommend this to clients — in fact, simply to buy clients gift accounts! But I need to be able to collaborate with them across platforms. Mac would be a start, and Linux a very useful second option.

I look forward to hearing that you have handled this.
- VodkatiniLover —
  
  Hi,
  
  I gotta agree with ToddV. Just yesterday I bought a year’s subscription for my girlfriend as we thought sharing notes would be great when we work together (having a professional relationship, too). Now it turns out that I cannot access linked notebooks neither via my android phone nor via Windows. This really sucks, to be honest. I completely understand you roll out a feature first on one platform to see how it works. But in the meantime 10 months have passed.
  Personally, I’d prioritize sharing functionality on mobile devices over Windows – on a desktop it’s by far less of a pain to use the website to access linked notebooks than it is on a smart phone.
  Either way, one would expect you guys to at least keep customers informed with regular updates as to what is going on. I actually had to find this blog post by googling. The pdf documentation for the Windows client had nothing to say about it. (Btw, how about converting your doc to native Windows help format?) Generally, why don’t you put up a roadmap for your users to see what you are planning to implement/change in the foreseeable future? Or, if you got it somewhere on your website, it’s way too well hidden…
  
  Your application is great. Why don’t you take care to make it perfect?
  
  Sorry for the relatively harsh words, but I think they come deservedly, seeing as the *only* reason I bought that subscription was the sharing of notebooks which I now can use only in a very crippling form.
  
  And no, I do not want a refund. I want that feature to work.
  
  Cheers,
  VodkatiniLover, Vienna, Austria
BabsBabsBabs —

This Sharing Thing…..is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO wonderful!
A friend and I are planning a trip to the world’s longest yardsale in Tenn(if it hasn’t floated away)in Aug. We’re both busy, so sharing planning info this way is JUST the thing do do!
Thanks, EVERNOTEDLY, Babs 5/6/2010
Elliot —

Seriously – will this phase 2 ever come about? Sharing without desktop apps makes this feature a gimmick. For office productivity, you want to have multiple users dropping files into a central account. You cant do this realistically on a web app which is sloooooow. It has been nearly a year since we were told phase 2 was on its way. ps. I am a premium user and its a reason for upgrading – unless i’m way off, pls stick to finishing what you’ve started rather than chasing the vast niches out there for a softwre company like yourself. Your core principle was always spouted as ‘sharing seamlessly across all platforms’ – frankly i’m sure i can speak on behalf of others that what made Evernote different from the rest was that Apple-like – “it just worked”. No database conflicts between platforms when syncing etc. This is why i have recommended it as a long term solution to loads of people. I’m sure others had the same experience. Pls get back to making everything you do work with all platforms as that IMHO is your USP.
Robert —

For what it’s worth, please release Phase 2 with sharing from desktops etc. These features are well overdue.
Allison —

Is there a way to let privately shared notebooks have RSS feeds?
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  In order for the notebook to have an RSS feed, you must select the “Share with the world” option.
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!!!
Dan —

“Soon, you will be able to share right from your desktop or mobile Evernote”

Please define “soon”, 16 months so far?
Yet another customer who has been sucked in to paying for a years service of something unusable in its present form.

“You (our wonderful users) have been clamoring for selective sharing for some time”

This wonderful user is VERY disappointed and feeling a little ripped off
- ak —
  
  copy that.
  i just payed the year premium in order to have me and my wife clip findings for our trip to japan into the same shared notebook.… but that doesn’t compute ! the web-clip bookmarklet doesn’t show the shared notebook for her… and she only knows the iphone version of evernote (and will only use that) – so promised feature simply not working !
  
  could the staff please clarify here ? i am more than disappointed… actually feel screed.
  ak.
- Brett —
  
  I’ve just signed up myself and three others to Premium accounts for this very purpose. Perhaps the terminology should be changed then to ‘semi-shared’ or ‘almost shared’.
  
  It’s somewhat misleading that this limitation isn’t covered in the promo material.
- Jim —
  
  Another premium user complaining about that!
- Bojan —
  
  Doesn’t work for me and my friend also…
LK —

hear hear, to be able to share from desktop and mobile devices would be perfect. Can’t wait. When can we expect this feature? Thx..
- JM —
  
  DITTO!! Shared notebooks MUST be available on Web, Desktop AND Mobile devices!! How can you charge so much money and NOT have these BASIC functions available???
Alex —

I’ve had premium for quite sometime and am keen to explore its potential for collaboration.

A quick Q if I may:

If I share a notebook with others, is it possible right now to know who added a new – or amended an existing – note? Perhaps I’ve overlooked something.

cheers,
Alex
John Syrinek —

Yeah, when can we expect sharing to work on desktop? Mobile?
m.albinali —

I am a premium member and(for now) an iPhone user. Unfortunately I’m forced to use other note services for sharing notes on the go. For example Notespark; it’s only text notes but it allows for full seamless sharing/syncing with Push notifications.

I would love to see my shared folder in the mobile app and have it notify me whenever someone makes a change to the note.
Dan K. —

I too thought desktop sharing was available when I signed up for the Premium plan. However, I stuck with Evernote as they’ve assured me a couple of times that they’ll have this feature available before the end of the year. At the end of the year I have to decide to either move forward and deploy the software to all my staff throughout the company or find another solution. I pray that Evernote gets this out!!
BinauralBeats —

I just updated my Account to Premium, cause I want to share my Notebooks with our Team. This great Idea MUST BE extended! Please make the Sharing Option available on our Devices. I wanna drag and drop the Notes from a sharing-notebook to my own for example. How long do we have to wait for this feature??
Stephane —

I need to see the shared notebook on my devices. This functionality is a must. When will it be implemented?
Neomie —

My Evernote account is beginning to look like my brain, which some might think would be reassuring: It isn’t. LOL
Mark —

Rumor has it that this feature won’t be available by the end of the year……ugh….
Viktor —

Gosh.. wish i read this post.. just sign up for premium to get sharing features which i think would be added… but unfortunately, i’m stuck as you guys…

Don’t know if its complicated for evernote.. technically, i think this one should be easy… but i think the problem arise with the server resources as many people will use this feature a lot..

Hoping google buy evernote.. he he he he.. i think problem solved faster
Carlos —

I am also looking for sharing right on my desktop application, not through the web version.
Ric —

So far this is the only solution that take my stuff from my desktop to anywhere my Palm Pre Plus will take me. Very cool!
Irene —

Hi, even after the most recent release (Dec 2010) it’s not possible for users of my shared notebooks to add web-clips to them. The shared notebook doesn’t appear in their list of notebooks available to put the clip in.
I am a premium user, I found evernote very effective for team working in many respects, but this problem is really hampering our ability to share inspirations.
Do you plan to do something for the new release? By when? Thanks!
Slade —

Just circling back around to this post – is there any updatd on shared folders that would work on a windows platform and not just the web ui?
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  Shared notebooks are coming to Windows. They have been implemented inside the Mac version.
Chris Whitehead —

Does anyone find it interesting that the Mac version has sharing but the Windows does not. Windows is more widely used.
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  We are working on adding sharing to Windows.
Chris Vening —

bought 2 premiums before I saw this thread. If I have this right I now have a shared notes on the web and only on the web and I have synched but not shared notes on my laptop and ipad and iphone. So I can synch with myself and have to use the web to share a note. What more the ipad/iphone browser isn’t supported so I can’t access the shared notes anyway. Until we can share everything on every platform we can’t leave onenote. Glad I didn’t buy the annual sub. I think it would have been good business practice for evernote to disclose this major shortfall. Now I am untrusting of their ethics
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  Evernote Sharing is coming to more platforms. It’s currently available on Evernote Web and Mac.
  - Austin A. —
    
    Can the Evernote team give any timeframe for such a thing?
    
    Thanks,
    Austin
Andrew —

I feel ripped off too. I am going to request a refund. I need to be able to share a notebook
Dan K. —

I’m going nuts… My friends with the Mac can share via the desktop application and I’m still stuck in Windows/Web mode!
Owen Fraser-Green —

Please can we have sharing on the other platforms too!
Louis —

Wow! I got so excited when an update was available for 4.2 thinking it was finally the update of being able to share via other platforms that we’ve been waiting for over a year now…..sadly it wasn’t…. 🙁
Brett Burky —

Jeez Guys,

You guys act like because you can’t share something this is the worst product ever. Think back 2 years ago, none of this was an option. Evernote has revolutionalized how we handle work and do stuff in the cloud. God forbid you guys pay for a month and it doesn’t have that. Its $45/year, if you don’t have that and you are complaining, then put down your ramen noodles and go back to text editor and Windows 95.

I want this feature too, because I’m PC and everyone on my team is Mac. I guess I have to use the caveman thing – email.

Whinners
Matt D —

An option to share at the Tag level instead of the entire notebook would be great. I use one notebook with tags.
Eric R —

Yes, I need sharing on my PC as well.

You would think a company that seems to have a large number of Premium users would’ve addressed this…. in 2009 when it was announced.
Jonas —

Didn’t even know this wasn’t available on Windows as I’m happily using Mac & iPad, and it just works perfectly. Evernote seems to take some time for some but boy are they all on board after a little testing. I’m still awaiting the Affiliate Network stuff for outside the US though… come on guys.
Matthias —

I can’t wait for the Evernote Shared Notebooks for desktop. Now it’s kind of a half-finished funktion.
Michelle —

I really need this ability. I was hoping that I could create the notebooks from my account to share to a “student-use” account for them to access/edit on iPads. This won’t do me much good if shared notebooks don’t show up on mobile versions.

Any updates on a timeline for when mobile apps will get this? I can still manage the sharing via the web or Mac app, but need students to be able to see/edit the notebooks via the iPad.
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  Michelle, sharing will be coming to all versions of Evernote soon.
  - Harold Jankowiak —
    
    How soon is “soon” because the post from 6-25-09 said “soon” and that was 20 months ago? Are we talking within the next 2-3 months? I know developers never want to nail down an exact date and I respect that, but those of us using Evernote for our business really need to know how to plan things out for our people.
Michelle —

That’s good to hear. Maybe it will happen before the iPads arrive.
Matt C. —

We’re dropping Evernote for now – until sharing is available for at least Windows. I’m hoping when it does become available I can convince my company to move back. I should have never mentioned that sharing would be available when Evernote said it would be available…oh well…I’ll still use it for personal use.
Jeff Brotherston —

I have been preaching Evernote for years so now my wife and employees are on it. I think Sharing is a critical feature, including using an Android in the field to update notes. Part of being an Evernote evangelist and paying for premium features includes….sharing. Sharing on the web is a mediocre experience we could get via Google docs. Having the app work natively on smart phones is what gives Evernote a great part of it’s charm. I hope you Evernote developers are listening – please keep collaboration a priority!
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  We hear you. Sharing will be coming many Evernote versions soon.
Eddie Marquez —

Although I’m not quite as beside myself as some of my fellow commenters, I do feel similarly duped regarding the sharing feature. Thankfully, I didn’t commit to the full year, opting instead to sign up for the monthly plan to limit my losses in the event of an unexpected wrinkle (such as this one).

I wouldn’t have bothered teaching my wife how to use the iPhone app, nor would I have updated our accounts, had I known the limitations of the sharing feature. At worst, I’m out $10, but along with everyone else, I’d appreciate this feature available on iPhone apps sooner rather than later.
Hank —

Any update on sharing yet? Windows and Android
- Andrew Sinkov —
  
  We’re working on it.
Dan —

When sharing becomes available on more platforms, can it include a push notification or notification system that alerts others that there have been updates to the shared notebook?
Mark —

–02/07/2011 09:07AM
–Michelle, sharing will be coming to all versions of Evernote soon.

3/19/2011 – 2/7/2011 != soon

— June 25, 2009
— Soon, you will be able to share right from your desktop or mobile Evernote.

3/19/2011 – 6/25/2009 != soon

Don’t mean to add to the complainers here, but, come on Evernote. You just came out with a huge change to the iPhone client adding all sorts of very nice new features. The thing is, these may have been requested by some users, but most were not promised as a premium service. The sharing feature was, so this really needed to be bumped up in priority, IMHO.

As a software developer myself, I’ve learned from two companies I respect. Apple and Barebones software.

1. Never announce features until you release a product.
2. Never give timeframes (even vague “soon” ones) for new products.

I know you guys will get this right and people will chill out afterwards, but your marketing group might want to offer a carrot too. Maybe 10% off each additional premium account down to some minimum. Or a reduced renewal fee for loyal subscribers.
Richard Duffy —

Syncing a shared notebook is now possible on the latest pre-release client for Windows – 4.3.0.4167

Thanks to the team at Evernote!
Andy —

Sharing works great via the web and Mac app. However, those that I share some notebooks with would love to have mobile app (iPhone/iPad) access to these shared folders. Any chance this is coming down the pipe soon?

Keep up the good work.
Steve Cameron —

Love the sharing that I can do via Evernote. I use the Evernote Mac client, my ‘partner in crime’ uses the Evernote Windows client and it flat out works! Thanks! And now for a request. We can transfer ownership of our Google docs but have not figured out how to transfer ownership of Evernote notebooks.
Ankit G —

Again , same question as many have already been asking here – When the SHARING thing coming for Android and Windows. Also lots of features in Mac r missing in other platforms , will they b ever available for Windows and specially Android !