Products · Product
Evernote
Raised as a usability problem by 288 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 142 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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- 4Search is poor, so finding notes is hardUnreviewed
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Every issue, all time, most people first
App is so slow and bloated that users avoid it for quick notesUnreviewed
20092026- Other note apps are becoming cumbersome and slow to launch2025-12-08
- Electron rewrite made the app slow and unreliable to use2023-07-06
- Basic note creation, titling, tagging and saving takes more clicks than it should2023-07-06
Notes fail to sync correctly and keep getting sync conflictsUnreviewed
20092026- Syncing 80K items took hours and the app crashed, resetting progress2023-09-13
- Notes disappear or fail to sync; web app slower and less functional2023-07-07
- Notes on iPhone and laptop fall out of sync, requiring logging out and back in2023-07-06
Editing formatting is messy, so simple notes get lostUnreviewed
20092026- Notes break in ways that cannot be repaired, and editing was painful2023-07-19
- Note editing and pasting were terribly glitchy, unlike the smooth editing in Bear2022-11-17
- Bulleted lists lose their formatting when copied and pasted elsewhere2019-04-02
Search is poor, so finding notes is hardUnreviewed
20092026- Search results are increasingly janky and unreliable for finding notes2022-04-10
- Search finds a note but then shows an error screen about it, about half the time2021-08-08
- Partial number searches return zero results, so you can't find notes by remembering part of a number2019-04-11
Users can't find features they knew existed as the UI changedUnreviewed
20092026- Constant UI changes made the app progressively worse to use2024-01-12
- Users couldn't find features they knew existed as the UI kept changing2019-06-28
- Constant UI and feature changes make it hard to keep using2019-01-06
Interface is too cluttered to use comfortablyUnreviewed
20092026- The interface never felt intuitive to the commenter2019-04-02
- The interface was so poor the commenter never got into the app2019-04-02
- Distracting, unattractive interface that the commenter finds hard to focus in2018-12-02
Exporting notes is a pain, making data hard to get outUnreviewed
20092026- Exporting notes requires desktop browser, hidden link buried in account menus2023-11-30
- Made it difficult to export all of your notes2023-07-06
- Exporting notes is a pain, hard to get data out2021-07-07
Search has become slow and the interface has gotten worseUnreviewed
20092026- Search has become slow and the interface has gotten worse2021-11-10
- Interface is poor and sluggish, with search indexing problems2020-04-30
- Search is sluggish and has a bad user experience2019-07-22
Must tap Done before notes sync, since the note is one text areaUnreviewed
20092026- Must tap Done before notes sync, since the whole note is one text area2015-09-30
- Every extra tap, click or wait makes it slower than paper notes2014-01-04
- Appending to or deleting text in notes is nearly impossible on iOS2014-01-04
Notes pile up and get lost, with tag cleanup needing workUnreviewed
20092026- Notes pile up and it gets lost; cleaning up tags and notes takes work2020-06-02
- Notes become a scattered dump; hard to group or wrangle back once cluttered2019-01-06
- Notes end up in a jumbled repository where information gets lost2016-06-29
Fonts look very small and the app cannot go full screenUnreviewed
20092026- Sign in button's tap target is too small, only two letters show when font is enlarged2021-03-20
- Thin font is hard to read and sites block zooming on mobile2015-09-15
- Fonts look very small and the app cannot be made full screen2014-09-12
Note-taking and search feel hard to use, unchanged for yearsUnreviewed
20092026- Core note-taking experience has never been close to good2018-09-05
- Core note-shoving and searching feels frustrating and hard to use, unchanged for years2016-01-07
- Core note reading and writing buried under too many extra buttons and gadgets2015-02-22
Search box is nearly invisible and hard to findUnreviewed
20092026- Search is still bad and shared documents made material disappear2019-06-28
- Search box is nearly invisible and hard to find2016-10-20
- Search appears not to work at all in the demo2016-01-03
UX does not fit existing habits, making it hard to useUnreviewed
20092026- UX didn't fit the commenter's habits, making it hard to use2019-04-02
- The web client is unusable for the commenter, a reason they left2016-11-19
- UX has declined so much the commenter can't tell what to click2016-02-19
Extra home screen must be clicked past to reach notesUnreviewed
20092026- Shows seven features on home screen instead of last note; slow to load2022-11-16
- Extra home screen must be clicked past to reach notes; search and app speed worse2022-04-10
- Searching across notes and folders on iOS is confusing; home screen is unpleasant2014-01-05
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Text placement is too restrictive, forcing linear typing like a Word document2026-09-12
- Bloated app makes typing in the editor laggy and infuriating2026-09-12
- Other note apps are becoming cumbersome and slow to launch2025-12-08
- Upgrade popups are too tricky, pushing user to abandon the app2025-05-19
- Update prompts appear every time, forcing users to dismiss them before reading a note2025-03-10
- Would not describe a specific usability problem beyond being dropped after a company change2024-04-23
- Saved web pages frequently lose their content some time later2024-04-23
- Constant UI changes made the app progressively worse to use2024-01-12
- Pasted screenshots silently turn into broken images when reopened later2023-11-30
- Exporting notes requires desktop browser, hidden link buried in account menus2023-11-30
- Dark patterns make the app so painful to use that the user leaves2023-11-30
- User says Evernote uses dark patterns that push people into renewing2023-11-30
- Confusing payment options, repeated prompts, and hidden close buttons push people to pay2023-11-30
- Syncing 80K items took hours and the app crashed, resetting progress2023-09-13
- Notes break in ways that cannot be repaired, and editing was painful2023-07-19
- Using the app has become painful, with no specific problem named2023-07-10
- Converted plain text notes into PDF files unexpectedly2023-07-07
- App became so slow after changes that it was unusable2023-07-07
- App became too slow to use after redesign2023-07-07
- Notes disappear or fail to sync; web app slower and less functional2023-07-07
- A simple action now takes five taps or clicks instead of one2023-07-06
- New Electron app drops tabs and forces users off the older version2023-07-06
- Made it difficult to export all of your notes2023-07-06
- Upgrade removed local notes, leaving only cloud sync, with no way to keep them locally2023-07-06
- Site breaks whenever user tries to manage subscription or reach support2023-07-06
- Search interface became so poor the commenter left the product2023-07-06
- Electron rewrite made the app slow and unreliable to use2023-07-06
- Can't figure out how to use notes; must switch apps and rewrite everything2023-07-06
- Basic note creation, titling, tagging and saving takes more clicks than it should2023-07-06
- Nearly impossible to cancel because of dark patterns pushing continued payment2023-07-06
- Notes on iPhone and laptop fall out of sync, requiring logging out and back in2023-07-06
- Android app is so unresponsive that it's basically unusable2023-07-06
- Selected monthly plan but was still charged the annual rate2023-07-06
- Unsure which of several systems to search, and whether results are missing2023-07-06
- Last major release made managing large amounts of data harder for power users2022-12-26
- Note editing and pasting were terribly glitchy, unlike the smooth editing in Bear2022-11-17
- App starts slowly on Mac2022-11-17
- Can't find the book feature on the website and no good way to export EPUB highlights2022-11-16
- Desktop app is very slow to start up2022-11-16
- Slow performance and cluttered features make writing and searching notes painful2022-11-16
- Syncing across PCs mixed local and cloud copies, deleted notebooks randomly, and corrupted data2022-11-16
- Shows seven features on home screen instead of last note; slow to load2022-11-16
- Must wait for sync before typing; lags and freezes on phone with bad reception2022-11-16
- Constantly tripped up by formatting, with no markdown or code snippet support2022-11-16
- Notes wouldn't sync correctly, needed manual fixing, and kept getting sync conflicts2022-11-16
- Windows app has become slow and bloated to use2022-11-16
- Takes about 20 seconds before the user can type a note, with long pauses and popups2022-11-16
- Cursor starts in note body, making it hard to consistently add titles2022-11-16
- Simple tasks need hunting around and excessive clicks after redesign2022-11-16
- App bloated with unwanted features that users must work around2022-11-16