You have already decided to leave Evernote — this page is the practical part. Export your notebooks, set up InkSync, rebuild them as shared lists, and invite your household. No sales pitch, just the steps, including the honest manual part.
Try InkSync for FreeA switch has two halves: getting your notes out of Evernote, and setting them up in InkSync. Do the export first, while your Evernote account is still active — and do not cancel anything until you have checked the new home. Evernote lets free accounts export, even accounts over the free plan’s limits, so you do not need to keep paying to get your notes out.
Start by listing your notebooks and how many notes each one holds. Evernote’s export format, ENEX, keeps each note’s text and formatting, its attachments — images, PDFs, scans — its creation and update dates, and its tag names. What it drops: notebook stacks, nested tag structure, saved searches, shortcuts, version history, and the links between notes. Knowing that before you start decides what is worth moving and what is fine staying in the archive.
Two jobs before you export anything. First, decrypt any encrypted notes inside Evernote — an export keeps encrypted text locked, with only its password hint. Second, write down each notebook’s note count next to its name: the .enex file does not record which notebook a note came from, so the file name is the only place that name survives. Name every export after its notebook.
For scale: Evernote’s free plan holds 50 notes in one notebook on one device. If you are over that limit you can still view, edit, share, and export everything — you just cannot create new notes until you are back inside it. Starter is $99 a year for 1,000 notes and 20 notebooks; Advanced is $249.99 a year or $24.99 a month for unlimited notes (prices as of late 2026 — Evernote changes them often). None of that matters for the export itself: it works on the free plan.
Export only works in the Evernote desktop app for Mac or Windows. Evernote Web and the phone apps have no export at all. If Evernote lives only on your phone, install the desktop app and let it sync fully before you start — a partial sync exports partial notes. One wrinkle on the free plan: it allows one device at a time, so you may have to sign out of Evernote on your phone or in the browser first.
Work notebook by notebook — that is the whole method. There is no export-all button, so the steady way through is one file per notebook:
ENEX files can be large, so Evernote lets you cap each file between 300 MB and 2 GB. If you have hundreds of notebooks, the open-source evernote-backup tool exports everything in one run instead of notebook by notebook. Either way, check each file afterwards: the note count inside should match the count you wrote down. Keep the .enex files as your backup — do not delete them until the move is done and checked.
Create your free InkSync account from Google Play on Android, or open app.inksyncnote.com in any browser — the web app works on any device, and a native iOS app is coming soon, so iPhone members of the household join on the web for now. No credit card, no trial clock: the free plan is free.
The free plan covers up to 50 notes and checklists, with real-time sync across your Android and web devices, local-first offline access, tags, color-coded notebooks, note locking, and instant search. That 50 deserves a straight answer: InkSync’s free plan holds the same number of notes as Evernote’s free cap. If you are moving more than 50 notes, either clear out ruthlessly first or go Premium — $0.99 a week or $33.99 a year for unlimited notes. It is the one number that decides what the switch costs.
Set up your structure before you move anything: one color-coded notebook per Evernote notebook, and tags for everything that used to be a stack. A note in InkSync can carry several tags at once, so “work”, “receipts”, and “tax-2026” can all live on the same note instead of forcing it into one folder. If you are still weighing the decision, the Evernote alternative page covers the why; this guide is the how.
Here is the honest part, stated plainly: InkSync has no one-click Evernote importer, so this step is manual. Open each exported note and recreate it in InkSync — paste the text, re-attach the files that matter, set its tags. For most households it is an evening’s work, and it doubles as a clear-out you have been avoiding for years.
Work one notebook at a time so you can stop and start without losing your place. Move the notes you actually open first — the lists, the ideas, the reference notes — and leave the rest in the .enex archive. You do not have to move everything to leave Evernote; the archive is yours to keep, and the notes you move are the ones that earn their place.
Turn the recurring ones into checklists as you go: the weekly groceries, the packing list, the household chores. A checklist in InkSync checks off and syncs, so the list you rebuild once keeps working every week. What will not come across: links between notes, version history, nested tags, and searchable scans — InkSync does not do OCR, so if you scan documents and search inside them, that is a real loss to weigh before you commit.
Sharing a note with your household is a Premium feature — $0.99 a week or $33.99 a year — and it is the part that makes the switch stick. Open any note or list, share it, and invite each person by email. They get their own account and edit the same note in real time with you: one grocery list, one packing list, one set of household notes, always current on every phone.
Start with a single shared list and let it prove itself — the weekly groceries are the classic first one. Then add the rest: the chores, the holiday packing, the notes you used to text back and forth. Everyone joins from Android or any browser at app.inksyncnote.com; iPhone members use the web until the native app lands.
Do not cancel Evernote yet. Wait until everyone in the household has the lists they need and the shared lists have survived a real week. Then cancel: your notes are in InkSync, they sync in real time, they work offline, and you can export them any time. A notes app should not hold your words hostage — leaving should be as easy as arriving was.
In four steps: export each notebook from Evernote’s desktop app as an ENEX file; create your free InkSync account on Android or the web; recreate your notebooks in InkSync — manually, since there is no one-click importer — turning recurring lists into checklists; and invite your household by email to share the lists. Keep your .enex files and your Evernote account until you have checked everything, then cancel Evernote last.
No — InkSync has no one-click Evernote importer, and this guide will not pretend otherwise. Export your notes from Evernote as ENEX files first (desktop app only, notebook by notebook), then move them into InkSync manually. It is the least fun part of switching, and most households finish in an evening. It also doubles as a long-overdue clear-out of notes you have not opened in years — and the .enex files stay as your archive either way.
Your notebooks become color-coded notebooks in InkSync, and your tags carry over as tags — a note can hold several at once, which replaces Evernote’s stacks. What does not survive: notebook stacks themselves, nested tag structure, links between notes, version history, and searchable scans (InkSync has no OCR). If any of those are load-bearing for you — especially scanned documents you search inside — weigh that before you commit.
Create your free InkSync account — up to 50 notes, real-time sync, offline mode, no credit card — and move your first notebook this evening.
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