I have come to love Evernote as a note-taking and idea collecting software. I have used it extensively for the past couple of years or more to store bits and pieces of information that has come in handy all through these years.
I always had a problem with storing sensitive information in Evernote, because of the lack of security/password protection in the app. For example, if you login to the Evernote app and leave it open, anyone who has access to your PC or mobile device can view the notes and get access to your sensitive information.
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In fact, anyone who has access to the local database storage file on your PC will be able to view those notes on another PC or installation. This is a scary proposition considering how much losing sensitive information could affect you.
Luckily, Evernote provides users with a very handy feature that allows them to encrypt part of their notes. Users can use it to encrypt sensitive text in their notes (It only works with text). To encrypt your notes in Evernote, follow the steps given below.
How To Encrypt/Protect Notes in Evernote
Step 1: Open the note that you want to encrypt. Now part or full text that you want to Encrypt and right click on the selection.
Step 2: From the available options, click on Encrypt Selected Text. A new popup box will be displayed to you as shown in the screenshot above. This popup will only appear the first time you Encrypt your notes.
Step 3: Choose an encryption passphrase for your notes and add an optional hint if required. This passphrase will act as a password while accessing encrypted Evernote notes. It would be advisable to uncheck the box next to “Remember passphrase until I quit Evernote”. This will ensure that you will be prompted for a passphrase every time you want to access an encrypted note.
Step 4: Click on Ok and you are done. The note will now be encrypted and only be accessible when you enter the passphrase. You can encrypt other notes too now without having to create a new passphrase.
Additional Notes
Once you have encrypted your Evernote notes, you will have to enter a password to access it on any device or on the web. So choose a very effective passphrase or refer to our earlier guide on creating passwords you can remember.
Bonus Tips
When I encrypt Evernote notes, I leave some text unencrypted. This text includes keywords or phrases that will allow me to search the notes using Evernote. Evernote will not be able to search notes If you encrypt the entire text.
For example, I would live keywords such as bank name, site name etc. so that I can quickly search for it and find the encrypted notes.
Summarizing
This feature has been around since 2008. However, not many users are aware of it or make use of it. Protecting your data should be your top most priority and you should definitely make use of whatever encryption is available to make it harder for the scammers to get access to your data.
This feature is definitely great, but I would also love to see Evernote providing encryption for entire notebooks. If that is not possible, it could basically just add password protection for the entire app and scramble the database files such that it only opens when you enter your Evernote username and password.
Please note: Encrypting your notes is the best option to protect your data because anyone who has access to your local database can access your notes.
