Evernote in 2025. A Year in Review.
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Newsletter housekeeping: The latest version for PC & Mac is 10.167.4 (not 11 yet!). You can grab it from the download page. Latest mobile version is 10.167.1.
At the beginning of every year I compile a recap of what’s happened in Evernote world over the previous year and there’s always a few features that I’ve forgotten about and then I start using them again.
Let me know in the comments what you totally forgot about!
Here we go. This is what happened in 2025. There was a lot!
January 2025
We started the year with a new feature that I now take for granted, draggable paragraphs.
It seems like this arrived years ago but it was only January.
Selectable thumbnail images for your notes also came in January and this is something I also use quite a bit as I like the visual aspect of the note list in snippet view.
January was a busy month. The new template gallery system started rolling out for all users and again, this is something that I use almost every day. It’s much more flexible than what we had before.
February 2025
The ability to share a space arrived in February and I’ve used this a couple of times with clients. I also share spaces between my two Evernote accounts so I can see certain notes everywhere.
AI Edit also had a update adding a new feature for changing the tone of your note. I’ve not used this a lot, maybe once or twice.
March 2025
A comment system was added in March. Do you use it? I must admit I don’t use it that much and when I do, I tend to leave comments for myself.
Importing Markdown files and pasting Markdown code into a note also arrived in March and this is something I use quite a bit as I use Markdown from time to time. It also lets us have an easy way to import content from other note taking apps like Obsidian and Notion.
Finally the PDF and image annotation user interface had a huge overhaul and if I’m honest I can’t remember what it looked like before so the new must be working.
April 2025
There wasn’t a huge amount going on in April, just a few small improvements like an undo link added to the tool tips when you move or delete notes. We also got a small feature back from the old Legacy Evernote app, we can now paste text when annotating a PDF or image.
May 2025
A slightly quieter month for May but one very big improvement did arrive, the ability to set default fonts, sizes and colours for headings and normal text. This was a big improvement and lots of folk were happy.
June 2025
June was also quiet for new features.
Evernote did change their data retention policy so dormant/abandoned accounts would be closed and all data removed after 3 years. To keep your account active, you need to log in once every three years.
July 2025
Something simple but very useful arrived in July. A bunch of keyboard shortcuts to change the view in the Evernote desktop apps. You could hide/show the note list and sidebar without having to touch your mouse.
A new import feature was also added where we could convert Word documents into notes and preserve most, if not all, of the formatting. I’ve used this quite a few times when clients have sent me briefs or reports.
August 2025
A lot of mobile improvements arrived in August for iPhones and Androids. The first couple included the ability to instantly get back to the top of the list by clicking the icon in the navigation bar again and tags, reminders and back links were moved to the top of the note, plus they had a redesign.
Another huge improvement for the phone apps was the ability to multi-select notes and process bulk actions like tagging and deleting.
September 2025
It was a bit more exciting in September with the launch of a brand new audio recorder giving you the ability to continue recording when looking at different notes.
Then the big one! Version 11 (not out yet) of Evernote was first mentioned but not a lot was known about it.
October 2025
This was a busy month. It started with the redesign of the Evernote logo and a website redesign, a lot of this was in preparation for the launch of version 11.
Next up, we found out about the new AI Assistant and semantic search, which is now rolling out in preview to all paid users.
We then found out about AI Meeting notes that brought together recording local and remote audio sessions, transcribing and annotating them. This worked out as one of the most popular new additions to the app.
November 2025
Another busy month. November saw new prices and plans introduced and some folk were not happy.
November also gave me the chance to explore the AI Assistant and I put together a deep dive.
I also managed to get access to semantic search and ran a deep dive on this new feature as well.
December 2025
Only a few weeks ago, we saw the introduction of a new mobile Insert menu and the ability to set favourites for items that you use the most. We also saw improvements to the display of links in preview mode, we got a new focus mode and Evernote became ISO 27001 certified.
Conclusion
So that’s my recap. A lot happened and we’ve not seen version 11 arrive, hopefully in the next few weeks. Most of the new AI functionality is rolling out to paid users right now.
What’s your biggest positive taken from 2025?
What’s your biggest negative from the year (probably price increase!)?
Let me know in the comments.
And finally...
So, what was the most popular article on Taming the Trunk in 2025. Which one had the most views? Which had the most comments?
This was the most read article. See if you can guess... it’s this one. Not really a surprise.
The most commented on article in 2025 was... this one. Again, not a huge surprise!
That’s it.
Happy New Year
Have a great weekend
All the best
Jon
It's great to see Evernote investing in more features that will give people much more control over how they manipulate their data. In the age of AI and where context is king, Evernote should be able to take advantage of that by giving their users better tools to leverage that context in their tool of choice. But, I think there still seems to be some work to do.