The short answer
You need the Evernote desktop app for Mac or Windows; the web and phone apps have no export. There is no export-all button, so you export one notebook at a time. First decrypt encrypted notes, rename child tags to Parent/Child, and move scans into a notebook of their own. Then right-click each notebook, choose Export, pick ENEX and click Export.
Export, step by step
Do steps 1 to 3 inside Evernote, before you export. Step 4 is the export itself.
- Decrypt every encrypted note. The export keeps encrypted text locked, with its password hint and no key. Decrypting inside Evernote is the fix that works for every destination. After export, only the standalone Yarle converter can decrypt it, and only if you give it every password. Select each encrypted block, decrypt it permanently, and save the note. When you’re done, no lock icons are left.
- Rename child tags to Parent/Child. The file stores each tag as a plain name with no parent, so the tag tree can’t be rebuilt after export. Rename each child tag so its name carries its parent: a tag called Auto under Insurance becomes Insurance/Auto.
- Move the scans into one notebook for scans. Each notebook exports as its own file, so a notebook that mixes writing and scans gives you a file you have to sort later. Make a notebook for scans, receipts, statements and other notes built around an attachment, and move those notes into it. Evernote Free doesn’t let you add a notebook. On Free, select the scan notes instead, up to 100 at a time, and export each selection as its own file. The section on two destinations says where each kind goes.
- Export each notebook as ENEX. Right-click the notebook and choose Export, or open the Notebooks screen, choose More actions, then Export Notebook. Pick ENEX, check every attribute box, and click Export. An unchecked box makes a file that opens fine and is missing that data. If the file is going somewhere with a size limit, set the maximum file size to 300 MB, the smallest Evernote offers. The file doesn’t record the notebook or stack name, so name each file for both. For Obsidian, use the form its importer reads: Stack1@@@NotebookA.
- Write down each notebook’s note count. Write the number of notes Evernote shows for each notebook next to the file’s name. You will check against it after the import. Optional, if you use a terminal:
grep -o "</note>" Notebook.enex | wc -lcounts the notes inside the file. - Import one file at a time, smallest first. Look at the result before you run the rest. Notion works differently: it doesn’t read the file, it signs into your Evernote account instead, and it says its import is reliable up to about 5,000 notes.
- Check the counts. Match each note count. If an app reads fewer notes than you wrote down, export that notebook again. Then open a few notes and check their attachments, links and checkboxes. Some apps drop what they can’t read without any error. The table below shows which.
- Cancel or downgrade last. Change your Evernote plan only after the counts match. Why that is safe is below.
Two destinations, not one
Most migration advice assumes the notes are writing. Many are not. A scanned receipt with “car insurance 2021” typed above it is a document with a caption, and the scan is what you will need again.
The two kinds want different homes. Writing needs an editor and the links between notes, and Joplin, Obsidian and UpNote are built for that. Paperwork is never edited again. It needs to be read, filed and found years later by someone who doesn’t remember what it was called. We built Granite for paperwork. It has no note editor and no links between notes, so notebooks that are mostly writing belong in a note app.
The notebook of scans goes to a document vault. For that notebook you can also keep a second export as multi-page HTML, which opens in any browser. Our guide to going paperless at home covers the paper that never went into Evernote.
What breaks on the way out
Evernote’s export page says an export “ensures complete data retention, including embedded files and images.” The format says otherwise. An exported note carries eight things: title, content, created date, updated date, tags, note attributes, tasks, and attachments. Nothing else is in the file.
So there are two kinds of loss. What the file can’t hold is lost in every app, and only work inside Evernote before export prevents it. What an app drops on import is that app’s choice, and another app may keep it. The table covers the four note apps that publish import documentation (Joplin, Obsidian, Notion and Apple Notes) and Granite.
| What is in the note | In the .enex file | After import into a note app | In Granite |
|---|---|---|---|
| The words themselves | Kept. The whole note body, in one block. | Joplin says the text is always imported in full, whatever the formatting. | Kept, except on a short note with no PDF or image. The rule is below. |
| Links between notes Before export: Build a table-of-contents note. Yarle, the converter Obsidian’s importer is built on, documents how. | Lost. A link ID, with nothing that says which note it opens. | Joplin guesses the target from the note title and leaves the dead link when it can’t. | Kept as written, so it still points into Evernote and opens nothing. |
| Tag hierarchy | Lost. Plain tag names, with no parents. | Apps get the plain names. Apple Notes imports tags only on macOS 13 or later. | Listed on one Tags line on the document. |
| Notebook name and stack | Lost. Not in the file. | Joplin makes a notebook per file. Apple Notes puts everything in one Imported Notes folder. Notion maps notebooks to pages. | One optional collection per file, named by you. |
| Attachments and images Before export: Save Office files and voice notes out of Evernote by hand. | Partly kept. Stored inside the file, up to 25 MB each. The format lists seven file types, with no Office files. | Joplin imports attached files. Apple Notes drops what it doesn’t support, with no error. Notion warns images may not render correctly. | PDFs and images become documents, by the rule below. Office files, zip archives, audio and video are never imported. |
| Searchable text on a scan | Kept. The text Evernote read off the scan travels with the image. | Joplin drops it, and reads the scan again only if its own text reading is on. | Not used. Granite reads each scan again itself. |
| Encrypted text | Locked. Still encrypted, with its hint and no key. | Obsidian’s importer skips the note and reports it. The other apps don’t say. | Removed, with no marker left. |
| Created and updated dates | Kept. Both. | Obsidian’s importer restores both. Notion says wrong-looking dates can be expected. | Created date kept, updated date dropped. |
| Tasks and reminders Before export: If you still use them, move them to a task app. | Kept. Status, due date and how often each repeats. | Obsidian’s importer reads them. The other three don’t say. | Dropped. |
| Checkboxes, tables, colors | Kept. Part of the note body, ticks included. | Joplin keeps tables and drops colors and fonts on very complex notes, or can import the file as HTML. | Ticks kept as ☑ and ☐. Tables and nested formatting lose some detail. |
| Trash and sharing | Never in the format. Not in the file, so no app can bring them over. Notion also skips Evernote Teams content. | ||
Scroll sideways for all four columns.
Will I lose my notes if I cancel Evernote?
No. Since December 2023 the free plan allows 50 notes and one notebook, but Evernote’s announcement says free users over the limit “will still be able to view, edit, export, share, and delete existing notes and notebooks.” What they lose is the right to create new ones. Export works on every plan, so you don’t need to keep paying for Starter ($99 a year as of October 2026) just to read or export your notes. Canceling the subscription is not the same as closing the account, so keep the account open until your notes are in their new home.
Where did all my Evernote notes go?
Check four places: the trash, local notebooks that never synced, notebooks someone shared with you, and the old Evernote apps, which stopped working on 26 March 2024.
Restore anything you want from the trash before you export. Evernote v10 doesn’t support local notebooks, and Evernote warns that unsynced notes in the old apps were lost in the move to v10. Notebooks shared with you belong to someone else, so copy what you need into a notebook you own. Notes that synced before the old apps stopped are still on the server, and the current app or the web app opens them.
What Granite does with an .enex
Our importer turns notes into documents by one rule. Every PDF becomes its own document. Photos and scans become documents only on a short note, under 200 characters of text, and that text becomes their caption. A note with 200 or more characters becomes a read-only text document, and its photos are dropped. If those photos matter, such as receipts with notes typed under them, export those notes as PDF from Evernote and upload the PDFs. A short note with no PDF or image isn’t imported. We read each document, give it a title and file it by type.
Before anything is imported, we sort the notes into groups you can tick or untick. Documents, Reference clips and Notes start ticked; Scratch and drafts and Clutter start unticked. If your writing is going to a note app, untick Notes and Reference clips.
Import works on every plan, for .enex files up to 500 MB each. On Free, every document an import creates counts toward your 25 lifetime documents, deleting one doesn’t give the slot back, and files past the limit are skipped. More than 25 documents needs Granite Paid.
To leave, you export once, on Free too. You get a ZIP of every original file plus a manifest with each document’s title, type and the fields we read. It opens without Granite, and a canceled account can still export. Granite vs Evernote compares the two products as a whole.
Sources
Read in September 2026; Evernote’s plans and the Obsidian Importer release notes checked again on 8 October 2026. Evernote: the ENEX 4.0 format definition, the note markup documentation, help articles on exporting notes and notebooks, exporting notes as PDF and note limits, blog posts on free-plan note limits (29 November 2023) and the end of the legacy apps (26 March 2024), the plans page, and the export explainer. Jon Tromans, Taming The Trunk AMA 56 (12 November 2025). Destinations: Joplin’s import documentation, Obsidian’s Evernote import page, the Obsidian Importer release notes, the Yarle README, Notion’s import documentation, and Apple’s pages on importing notes from Evernote and importing, exporting and printing notes.