The great Evernote debate: Notebooks vs. Tags (for 2025)
October 27 2025 | Issue 67 | Link to this issue | Subscribe
Hi Reader –
Last month, I shared my framework for using Evernote for project management.
My approach is notebook-based, and when I failed to clarify that if tags work for you, you should keep using them — I poked the bear with several committed tag-based readers.
Nothing like a notebooks vs. tags discussion to polarize Evernote users!
Since I haven't laid out my POV in a while on why I'm team Notebooks, I’d love to dive deeper into why.
Let me first explicitly state: if you're happy using tags to organize Evernote, please continue. Evernote's power is in its flexibility, and you can succeed with a tags-based approach.
But, if your account feels like an unorganized mess and you're looking for a way out, here's my reasoning for a notebooks-based approach.
Why I'm Team Notebooks
Here are five reasons I consistently recommend organizing with notebooks as your foundation:
1. Your Notes Are Already Tagged
Evernote indexes every word in your notes automatically. If "quarterly review" appears anywhere in your note, Evernote can find it.
This means tagging often duplicates work you've already done just by writing the note.
Instead of creating a "quarterly-review" tag, make sure those words appear in your note title or body — and often they already do without you having to add them manually.
It's less work.
And when you're managing hundreds or thousands of notes, efficiency matters.
2. Volume Changes Everything
Managing 100 notes with tags? Totally workable.
Managing 10,000 notes? Tags can become complex fast.
I have over 40,000 notes in my account, and a notebook structure scales far more gracefully at this volume.
Here's a critical difference: With tags, every single note must be tagged perfectly for your system to work. Miss tagging one note or use "Recipies" instead of "Recipes," and that note disappears from your tag retrieval system. It's fragile.
My "Title & File" approach is more forgiving. Title the notes where search precision matters and file them in a notebook. For everything else, accept the default title and move on.
One again, it’s less work.
And, when you're managing high volume, this efficiency matters tremendously.
3. Tags Spiral Without Discipline
Was it "Q1-2025" or "2025-Q1"? "client" or "clients"?
A good tagging system demands intense consistency and planning.
Without crystal-clear rules, tags multiply into an unmanageable mess. I've seen it happen hundreds of times with Academy members who come to me frustrated with their systems.
Tags work best for limited, stable categories like family members, years, or project status — not for the hundreds of descriptive terms you might search for later.
If your tags have ballooned out of control, it’s time to give notebook based organization a try.
4. Easy Collaboration Requires Notebooks
Want to share all your client notes with a colleague? You can share a "Client: Adams" notebook instantly with full control over permissions.
But you can't share all notes with a specific tag — that's simply not how Evernote works.
Even more problematic: When you share individual tagged notes, other users can add or remove your tags. One person's reorganization can dismantle your entire tagging structure.
Collaborative workflows are a key way paying subscribers make the value of Evernote exceed the cost of Evernote. Set yourself up to effortlessly collaborate by using notebooks to organize.
5. Tags Don't Get a Lot of Development Attention from Evernote
Here's a practical reality: A former CEO of Evernote once shared that the vast majority of users — more than 95% — organize with notebooks rather than tags. And Evernote's development priorities reflect this usage pattern.
The feature request list for tags? Users have been asking for tag innovation for years – tag features that appeared in Legacy Evernote still haven't been developed for v10 (and Evernote's on the verge of releasing v11).
This isn't a criticism of Evernote — it's product development that aligns with the user base. They're investing where most users operate. But it does mean that if you're building your entire organizational system around tags, you may find yourself waiting a long time for the tag innovation you desire.
🧠 Academy Members: Learn the full advantages and constraints of Notebooks and Tags in their respective Masterclass.
My Advice: Use Both Strategically
I'm not anti-tag. They have perks.
It's true that a note can be filed in only one notebook. So tags allow users to assign more than one "place" to them. But this truth isn't powerful enough to sway me when there are features (like note links) that offer solutions to this notebook constraint.
And, I do use tags in my account.
But I use them for what they do best: filtering and searching within already-organized content.
For most, tags work best for limited, stable categories like family members, years, or lead status — not for the hundreds of descriptive terms you might search for later.
I coach users to let notebooks carry the organizational load. They're more forgiving, more scalable, and more collaboration-friendly for most. And all this tends to make them more efficient and less work when organizing large amounts of data in Evernote.
But if you're thriving with a tag-based system, keep at it. The best system is the one you actually use. And, that's the one I most advise.
Cheers to your productivity —
Stacey
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