Move from Evernote to OneNote on a Mac

by Volker Weber

Since last March, we have helped Windows users import 71 million Evernote pages to OneNote. Following the great feedback we received, we want to help even more people make the move. Today, we are launching the OneNote Importer tool for Mac. You may feel hesitant about moving all your notes from a place you know to a new online home. Don’t worry, the Importer tool makes moving day easy.

This was announced just two days ago, but I missed it.

I moved from EverNote a long time ago, even before Microsoft had a migration tool. And I never looked back. That's not the same for everyone. I know quite a few Evernote users who tried OneNote and did not like it. The thing that convinced me was that I could easily move pages to where I wanted them. OneNote is very much like a regular notebook in that it has sections and pages. And you can write and draw on these pages whereever you want.

OneNote is free to use on as many devices as you want. It's supported on Android and iOS as well as Mac and Windows.

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Comments

My main issue with OneNote is that it insists on using smart quote marks so if I put in a snippet of code then I can't simply copy it back out and use it. If it weren't for that I'd switch.

Matt White, 2016-08-20

I am using Evernote mainly for scanning everything I get via Snail Mail into it.

So the biggest feature missing from OneNote for me is the text search in Images and PDFs - otherwise it looks great.

Thomas Einwaller, 2016-08-20

Matt, I just tried that on my Mac and it did not convert any quotes.

Thomas, Microsoft added OCR a while ago. It was moved from the Windows app to the cloud. I can search for text in images and PDFs.

Volker Weber, 2016-08-20

And I like Office Lens as a pretty good scanning app which can save to OneDrive and/or OneNote. The way how it recognizes the sheet of paper to scan and corrects a less than perfect angle between your phone and the paper is really convenient!

Ragnar Schierholz, 2016-08-21

That is very convenient for scanning documents. But it gets really crazy when you scan whiteboards after meetings. Everything turns into vector graphics and can be pasted over any background.

Volker Weber, 2016-08-21

I love to read the comments... I always said that Onenote is THE killer app of Microsoft and the additional features of OfficeLens are such a breeze. I do not get it how Microsoft could be so bad at marketing it...

Ingo Seifert, 2016-08-22

Does OneNote support IFTTT?
... and can I forward documents from Pocket to OneNote?

Just two features I am missing, apart from getting used to the UI (ok, I better know Evernote, maybe I can get used to OneNote).

Markus Sperzel, 2016-08-22

Yes, OneNote does support IFTTT.

Yes, you can forward any document from Pocket to OneNote, either every one as it is created or as you favorite it.

Volker Weber, 2016-08-22

My main gripe with OneNote is that the free version is a one way street.
One can't export any (in other apps) useable format from it.

Apart from that, I find the Mac client not very responsive, but since I moved there and can't leave...

Dirk Moeller, 2016-08-22

If you want to do the old switcheroo, I am pretty sure that Evernote imports OneNote.

Volker Weber, 2016-08-22

How do you import scanned documents (Fuji ix500 ScanSnap) on a Mac?

With Evernote this happened automatically. There I could use Scanable on iOS or the ScanSnap Software on the Mac.
I can point that software to dump files to One Drive, but where to go from there?

Mariano Kamp, 2016-08-23

No idea. I scan with OfficeLens. 3000px by 4000px is plenty for DIN A4.

Volker Weber, 2016-08-23

This article says it can't be done. Comments give some ideas. I would look into Automator (local) or IFTTT (cloud). You can also mail into OneNote.

http://www.documentsnap.com/scan-onenote-mac/

Volker Weber, 2016-08-23

I read the same article, before I came here. I just thought I couldn't post links.

With OfficeLens you mean to not use the scanner but take a photo, right? Just double checking. I do that for small stuff, but to really scan this is not a solution for me.

If you use Scanable that's a really cool tool that controls the scanner. But it is also focused on Evernote.

Mariano Kamp, 2016-08-23

I tried to attach PDFs and images to some notes but I can not find any of the text inside the files.

Thomas Einwaller, 2016-08-24

Thats strange, in my experience that migrating tool provided by MS does not work properly.

It migrated all text notes into one note, but dropped all tags. Which is odd and not supported as it seems. it does not support locations, it didn't import any large attachment only the smaller ones. It said i'd have to attach them myself because of some syncing issue. It kills all reminders. Maybe i'm to heavy into Evernote. Is there even an Option to sort by tags? Scanning not that well integrated, no searches on handwritten notes.

It was a painful experience to be honest, maybe thats only on Mac. I did it anyway just to give it a go, and because i'm a paying Office 365 Customer.

Heres what worked really great... exporting from Evernote to Apple Notes. Select all Notes (CMD+A) drop them on your Desktop, it generates an .enex File.

Apple Notes imports .enex Files. Even imported my large attachments. But also drops tags, locations and all the other advanced stuff. But works fine with reminders because it hooks right into the Apple reminders app so you see it in OmniFocus & Fantastical. Yeah, i know. There is no contest between OneNote and Apple Notes, but if you want to get people to switch you'd be better of to make it as seamless as possible.

I imported 4500 Notes with attachments with tags, some GPS tagged some with reminders.

Stanislaus Landeis, 2016-08-25

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