How do I import from Evernote?

Harbor imports Evernote’s ENEX files directly.

1. In Evernote, export your notes as .enex files — the desktop apps can export a notebook at a time.
2. In Harbor, open Import & export and choose an .enex file. You’ll find the screen in the web app, the Mac app, and the Windows app; it works the same way in all three. There’s no Evernote importer on the phone and tablet apps, so start the import on a computer — everything it brings in syncs to your phone straight afterwards. There’s also harbor import enex if you’d rather script it. Import one file at a time: if you exported several notebooks, run it once per file.
3. Watch the live progress. Harbor shows exactly how far along it is — “42 of 900” — and the import runs on our servers wherever you started it, so a big one keeps going even if you close Harbor or shut the laptop. Harbor can email you when it’s done.

Your notebooks, tags, checklists, attachments, web clips and the links between your notes all come across — along with your original created and updated dates. A few things can’t travel in an ENEX file at all, including notebook stacks and tag hierarchies; the full list is in What comes across in an Evernote import?

Want your note links matched exactly? Evernote’s own export doesn’t say which note is which, so Harbor matches links by title. Export with the free evernote-backup tool instead, and add one flag to its export step:

evernote-backup init-db
evernote-backup sync
evernote-backup export --add-guid <folder>

--add-guid writes each note’s Evernote ID into the file, so the links between the notes you import are matched exactly, across notebooks and in any order. The full steps.

Once imported, everything gets Harbor’s full treatment: attachments are run through OCR so the words inside them become searchable, and it all syncs to every device you use.

If you marked up screenshots with Evernote’s Skitch, you don’t need a second app for that here. Annotate is built into every Harbor app. And if you used to open attachments in Preview or Word and save them back into the note, that works here too, on Mac and Windows. Used Save PDF to Evernote in the print dialog? On a Mac, Save PDF to Harbor sits in the same menu.

Take it at your own pace. A common path is to import one notebook as a test, look around, and bring the rest over when you’re comfortable. The Switching from Evernote guide covers the whole journey.

Import went wrong? You can take it back in one step.

Coming from somewhere else as well? Harbor also imports an Obsidian vault, an UpNote export and a Standard Notes backup.