Evernote ENEX Exporter

A simple java based programm to sync Evernote Attachments with your local file system.

I wrote this programm to mirgate from Evernote to Obsidan. Obsidian offers an ENEX file importer and there are other tools to convert ENEX files to Mardown or other formats.

See: https://help.obsidian.md/import/evernote

The problem is that Evernote client only exports a 100 notes at once and that the stack and notebook structure isn’t preserved.

This exporter creates a new ENEX file for every notebook named after then notebook and places in folder named by the stack.

Important

Disclaimer I use this application for my personal purpose on a Ubuntu linux system and I did not test it on other systems. Use with care and at your own risk. However, this programm is developed with best intentions in mind and I hope it’s useful.

Usage

You have to install Java (JRE oder JDK >= 17) to run this programm.

Currently, there is no standalone version of this application available. This might change in the future.

Download the latest release from https://github.com/peterquiel/evernote-exporter/releases and run the following command to see all available options:

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar --help

Output:

Usage: Evernote Exporter [-hv] -t [-d=<localDirectory>] [-es=<evernoteService>]
                         [-n=<notebooks>]... [-s=<stacks>]... [@<filename>...]
      [@<filename>...]    One or more argument files containing options.
  -d, --directory=<localDirectory>
                          Local directory to write ENEX files to. Default is
                            current working directory
      -es, --evernote-service=<evernoteService>
                          Evernote service to use. Default is PRODUCTION;
                            possible values: PRODUCTION, SANDBOX, YINXIANG
  -h, --help              display this help message
  -n, --notebooks=<notebooks>
                          A list of notebook names that should be exported. If
                            empty every notebook will be exported.
  -s, --stacks=<stacks>   A list of Evernote stack names that should be
                            exported. If empty stack will be exported.
  -t, --token             Evernote access token; read readme in order to know
                            how to extract the token from web client login
                            process
  -v, --version           print version information and exit

Token

The token is the most important option. Since, Evernote only supports OAuth 1.0 is almost impossible to provide a client side application with proper OAuth authorisation.

Furthermore, I depend on Evernote to enable Client-Id and Client-Secret on Production and it looks like they ain’t gone do it for a small client side application like this.

Therefore, you need to extract an authorization token from your Evernote Cookie. Read the following section and learn how to do it.

Read the Acquire Evernote Access Token section

Multiple Parameters

The programm accepts -n or --notebooks and -s or --stacks parameters and one of these is required and should be used to restrict to the list of notebooks its attachments you want to sync with your local hard drive.

An option to sync all notebook attachments with your local drive is currently not supported.

You can specify multiple notebooks or stacks with the following command:

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar -s "Stack One" -s "Stack Two"

or

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar -n "Notebook One" -n "Notebook Two"

Analog the -- parameter:

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar --stacks="Stack One" --stacks="Stack Two"

or

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar --notebooks="Notebook One" --notebooks="Notebook Two"

Option Files

It’s a good idea to store your often used parameters like token in an parameters file.

You can simple do that by copying your parameters into the file and using these with:

java -jar evernote-exporter-VERSION.jar @path/to/option/file_one @path/to/option/file_two

Acquire Evernote Access Token

The authorization token is the most important parameters and grants access to the Evernote API and your Evernote Notes.

Unfortunately, Evernote only supports OAuth 1.0 and not 2.0. This makes it almost impossible to ship programms that run on clients, because an application needs a Client-Id and a Client-Secret to authenticate itself. It’s difficult (impossible?) to ship these credentials securely with an application.

Another problem: Evernote needs to approve the application and activate the Client-Id and Client-Secret on their production system.

Therefore, we need to do a hack and extract an authentication token from your evernote cookie.

You need to do three things:

1. Log in into your evernote web account with your favorite browser.

2. Open the developer toolbars. On Chome it’s F12

3. Follow the steps from this Chrome screenshot:

1. Select the Application tab

2. Open Cookies and select the evernote cookie

3. Click on authn (5.)or clipper-sso in the name column.

4. In 4. and 6. you see the expire date of the token. The authn token expires in a month and the clipper-sso token expires in a your. That token is used by the Evernote Webclipper and is only visible if you logged in via the Webclipper.

5. Copy the Cookie Value. That’s token you need to pass to the program via the -t or --token= parameters.

Attention: Be aware that the token grants access to your personal Evernote account and you should handle the token with care and as careful as you handle your login credentials.

Build Project

The Program is developed with Java JDK 17 and you need to install a JDK before you can build this project with the following command

A fatjar (jar with all dependencies build in) can be build with:

./gradlew fatjar

or

./gradlew.bat fatjar

on Windows.

The fatjar can be found in app/build/libs folder.