What is an ENEX file?

ENEX is Evernote's export format — an XML file containing your notes, tags, attachments (embedded as base64), and metadata. One ENEX file can hold thousands of notes. It's open, well-documented, and can be re-imported into most modern note tools.

Can Bear export to ENEX too?

Yes. Bear → File → Export Notes → choose 'Evernote XML' — same format, so the same file works with anything that reads ENEX.

Will attachments come through?

Yes, ENEX embeds attachments as base64 inside the XML. Konshus extracts them but only ingests the text of the note itself — attachments are retained as references so you don't lose them, but images and PDFs aren't turned into memory unless you upload them separately as documents.

How big can ENEX files get?

A few MB for hundreds of notes, hundreds of MB for a decade of heavy Evernote use. If yours is over 500 MB, export in chunks by notebook — Evernote lets you right-click a notebook and export just that one.

What if I've already left Evernote?

If you exported to Markdown or another tool that writes Markdown, use the paste-text importer or the Documents importer for the folder. If you kept the original ENEX file, use the ENEX importer — richer metadata comes through.

Can Konshus import my Evernote notes?

Yes — /vault/import/enex takes ENEX directly. Bear notes exported to ENEX work too. Each note becomes an artifact, tags carry through, and distillation clusters the notes by theme.

A practical guide · ~7 min read

Migrate Evernote to AI Memory

A decade of notes in an app that keeps getting sold to different owners is a slow-motion data-loss event you get to schedule. Here's how to export every Evernote note as ENEX, what the format actually contains, and how to turn a shoebox of ancient notebooks into memory a modern AI can quote back to you.

Why to leave now, even if you're not leaving

Evernote has changed owners more than once, changed pricing more than once, and let its desktop app stagnate for years at a stretch. The company isn't going away tomorrow — but "the free plan can only sync two devices" was also unthinkable, and here we are. Owning a full ENEX export means whatever Evernote does next doesn't get to decide what happens to your notes.

The other reason: Evernote's search has never really worked on your terms. It finds strings. It doesn't cluster ideas, doesn't surface themes across years, doesn't tell you "you keep writing about starting a company but hitting the same fear each time." A modern AI memory tool can — but only if you get the notes out.

The ENEX format, briefly

ENEX is Evernote's own XML export format. Open one in a text editor and you'll see:

<note>
  <title>Company idea — memory graph</title>
  <content><![CDATA[<en-note>...</en-note>]]></content>
  <created>20220315T192104Z</created>
  <tag>startup</tag>
  <tag>rough</tag>
</note>

Attachments live inside the note as base64-encoded resources. Tags come through as clean strings. Timestamps are UTC ISO. It's a durable, open format — you can parse it with a few lines of code, import it into Obsidian or Notion, or feed it to a memory tool that understands it natively.

Step-by-step export

Open Evernote on your desktop (the web app and mobile don't offer full ENEX export).
In the left sidebar, click All Notes — or right-click a specific notebook if you want to export just that one.
Select all notes: Cmd+A (Mac) or Ctrl+A (Windows).
File → Export Notes.
Choose ENEX (Evernote XML Format). Do NOT choose HTML — you lose tags and attachments.
Save the file somewhere you'll find it. Big archives can take a minute.

If your archive is huge (500MB+) split it: export one notebook at a time. Every reasonable ENEX importer accepts multiple files.

Never lose your AI again

Konshus is one way to solve this — a persistent memory vault and portable persona that follows you across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and whatever ships next.

Meet Konshus

Bear users, same path

Bear supports ENEX export natively (File → Export Notes → Evernote XML). Bear is prettier and more privacy-respecting than Evernote, but if you want your notes to be memory a Konshus can use, you still need to get them out of a proprietary sync database and into a memory format. ENEX is the shared road.

Then: what to do with the ENEX

An ENEX file in your Downloads folder is a backup, not memory. Three good next moves:

Import into Obsidian — plugin exists, notes land as Markdown files you own, forever.
Import into a modern note tool — Notion, Craft, or Reflect all accept ENEX (with varying fidelity).
Import into an AI memory vault — like Konshus at /vault/import/enex/how-to — where notes become clustered, distilled memory your Konshus can reference in conversation, not just search.

You don't have to pick one. Notes are text — they can live in all three.

Frequently asked

Frequently Asked Questions

Ten years of Evernote, one Konshus

ENEX in, clustered atoms out. Your Konshus quotes your own notes back to you — the ones you wrote at 2am and forgot you wrote.

Meet Konshus