If you're looking for a perfect Evernote alternative, Amplenote may be just what you need.
It's my all-time favorite productivity tool that I've been using for a long time.
It comes with a great web clipper, task management system and advanced note-taking features for
free.
There are many amazing note apps out there - Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Reflect.
I've tried them all and ended up with Amplenote.
Of course everybody has different needs and preferences, but if you like Evernote, I think
you'll like this one too.
To try it, they have a dedicated Evernote importer that lets you import all your data
from there to Amplenote including notes, tasks, PDFs, images, office attachments and organisational
hierarchy as well.
So you can transfer everything without losing any important information and established
structure.
There are many similarities between Amplenote and Evernote.
In terms of UI, Amplenote does look like Evernote.
You have tags which are like folders in this app on the left panel, the list of notes in
the middle and your current note on the right panel.
In the active note window, you have the formatting options you'll recognise from Evernote: You
can format text, create a task, list, code block and quote block.
You can organise your data in a structured way with tables.
You can add an image, PDF file, or Microsoft Office document to a note as well.
The text inside PDFs and images is also indexed so it shows up in search results.
It's comforting to have all these options offered in a familiar way.
What's unique to Amplenote is that you can attach a file to a specific word, sentence
or even picture!
So this way, when you click on that word, it will open up the thing attached to it,
which saves space in your note.
You can even attach another note.
This makes it possible to see different notes without leaving your current note.
I like this feature because it feels like I'm building my own Wikipedia.
This is a good segue into another big difference, that is bi-directional linking.
You might know how this works already because it's been around in other note apps for a
while.
But in Amplenote, you can link notes together.
For example, say I'm writing about different note-taking methods.
I could talk about the Cornell method or the Zettelkasten method.
Since I already have notes about them, I can just use them in this note by using double
square brackets.
This way, you will know they are related from the bottom of the note where you can see the
list of backlinks.
You can even attach these notes to text as a footnote, which lets you glimpse at it when
you click on it.
But if you want to see all these notes at the same time, the sidebar will come in handy.
Simply click on the note you want to see while holding Command or Control.
You can add as many notes as you like to the sidebar so you can see them all at a glance.
Among all the note apps out there, Amplenote has the most powerful task management system.
It could easily replace your todo app.
In fact, I stopped using Todoist when I found Amplenote.
Let me show you how you can manage your todos in this app.
A great thing about Amplenote is that you can add a task from anywhere.
If it's related to the note you're currently on, you can just add it to the note.
Or if it's completely unrelated, you can write that down on the daily note.
I usually have the daily note always open on my sidebar so I can quickly add any task
or idea regardless of what it is about.
If you're using your mobile, it has a quick add bar at the bottom so you can add a new
task in a few seconds.
It even has natural language processing so you can add a task in the form of a sentence.
But I prefer to have their widget on my home screen, so I can just tap on it and add the
task right away.
There are other types of widgets you can add to your home screen like your calendar and
todo list.
The widgets on iPad are pretty cool too - they look great and informative.
Then switching to the task mode lets you see all the tasks you have added.
You can see the details of each task by clicking on it.
Here you can check the starting date, priority, how frequent you want it to repeat, how long
it takes to complete and so on.
And based on these details, Amplenote uses an algorithm to automatically figure out which
tasks you should do first and sort the task list for you so you always see the important
ones at the top.
This helps stop some todos get buried under others and you forget to do them.
But if looking at the list of tasks is too overwhelming, you can switch to the calendar
mode where you can actually put them into your calendar.
This gives you a visual overview of your schedule and lets you see how you are going to spend
your day which feels less intimidating and gives you a sense of control.
You can even connect your external calendars like Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar
to your Amplenote account.
So you can see the events or work schedules from those calendars in your Amplenote calendar.
Plus, you can publish the tasks you have added in Amplenote to your external calendars if
you want to.
It's really nice to see a note app investing so much effort into task management because
just taking notes is not enough.
Turning those notes into actionable tasks is what will help you actually get things
done.
Idea Execution Funnel is one of the core concepts of Amplenote.
There are help pages where you can read about it in depth, the gist is very similar to the
GTD method: make capture fast, and help you execute the best ideas by getting them scheduled.
This is one of the biggest reasons why I love using Amplenote.
It's great at helping you take action rather than just keeping notes.
Amplenote is also one of the fastest note-taking apps I have ever tried.
It opens almost instantly and syncs across your devices in the blink of an eye.
This is amazing because you want to input ideas or todos as fast as possible before
you forget them.
And it's also offline-first so you can write and edit notes even when you don't have a
connection.
This is great for when you are on the go or out of the office.
I can also look up notes and tasks quickly.
I really appreciate the speed because I write down many random ideas and things I don't
want to forget and need to do all the time.
So being able to retrieve them instantly is really important.
This app is also such a great collaboration tool.
Sometimes when a friend asks me for a quick piece of information, I can just send them
a link to the note I made about it.
And the published note looks amazing with the table of contents and everything.
I also love sharing a task list with my friends or family when we're working on something
together.
It's great to have one place to see all the todos and resources that we need.
And like in Google docs, you can choose to give write access or just read access.
But if you're using Amplenote with your team, you can create a shared tag.
This literally means if you put this shared tag to a note, it will automatically be shared
with your team members too.
It makes sharing a lot of notes with many people effortless.
One of the best features of Evernote is that web clipper that lets you capture almost anything
on the internet.
Amplenote also has its own web capture tool called AmpleCap.
This lets you capture text, images ,URLs and screenshots.
Say you want to save some highlights from an article you are reading.
You can just activate AmpleCap and choose "text" and start making highlights.
When you're done, you can save them all to a note and see them anytime.
By the way, if you use Readwise for importing reading highlights into a note app, Amplenote
also has Readwise integration so you can have all the highlights you've made in here.
There are other capture options too.
If you just want to save the URL, you can choose "bookmark".
But if you want to save the entire page, you can choose "full page" which takes the screenshot
of the entire page.
But since this is just a screenshot you cannot really edit the text inside or copy it.
What you can do is to run OCR which will scan the texts inside the screenshot and turn them
into editable texts.
I know it's not as smooth as Evernote's web clipper, but it works pretty well.
It's been a rough year for Evernote since it was acquired by Bending Spoons - lots of
layoffs and a price increase.
I'm not sure how it's going to be in the future.
There are many good alternatives thankfully, but I highly recommend Amplenote.
It's free and has tons of great features.
You can watch my previous video to see all of them if you're interested.
I think this is one of the best productivity tools right now and I really hope more people
will get to know about it because it's a little under-exposed.
I have a whole playlist of videos on Amplenote on my channel.
It's easy to use, but if you want to know how I use it, you can always check out the
playlist.
Thanks for watching!