digital organizers

[kareila]

This is a topic I've had at the back of my mind for quite a while but haven't explored until today.

I got an email from Delicious reminding me that their site is migrating and all my data is belong to them. Since I used it more as a simple organizer for my own bookmarks than anything else, I'm looking at Mac software that will more flexibly fill that same gap, plus allow me to organize stuff I've starred in Google Reader and stashed in temporary files on my desktop. A digital junk drawer, if you will.

Here are the contenders I've unearthed so far:

• Evernote: web based, free for basic use, $5/mo otherwise
• Yojimbo: $40
• Together: $40
• EagleFiler: $40
• DEVONthink Personal: $50
• ShoveBox: $25

(DEVONthink was previously mentioned in our writing tools thread as well.)

Together and EagleFiler use the file system for storage and organization, which means you can access your data in the Finder and Spotlight as well as within their applications, and their libraries easily integrate with Dropbox for backup and browser access.

The other four all have iOS companion apps: Evernote free, Yojimbo $10, DEVONthink $15, ShoveBox $4. The Yojimbo iOS client is read-only.

Evernote is unusual in that it stores all of your info on the web and either you pay a service fee or you see ads. That means you can access your information from any web browser, but it raises the issues of privacy and data portability. The others have free trial versions that expire after a certain period of time.

Thanks to MacHeist, I already have license keys for ShoveBox and the previous major version of DEVONthink Personal. I will try those first and if neither one satisfies me, I'll probably try Evernote after that.

If you have experience with any of these or a different alternative to recommend, leave a comment!

Comments

[holyschist]

Evernote does allow you to make private folders and notes that are NOT synced with the web version--so they're only available on your home computer and must be backed up manually, but OTOH, they aren't floating around in the cloud.

I actually don't use the web version much and I find the ads in the desktop client pretty unintrusive. But I mostly use Evernote for storing things like booklists and passwords and whatnot, not for links. I am not sure it would be great for storing bookmarks.

[firecat]

I have used yojimbo as my digital junk drawer for a while now. I haven't tried the iOS version. When I was syncing with MobileMe a while back yojimbo wasn't playing nice with it, but that might have been fixed by now. I really like being able to print PDFs to yojimbo.

[floatboth]

Evernote is cool for capturing ideas or keeping scanned documents (searching text on photos!), also voice notes. And sharing stuff.

I don't use Evernote as an everything bucket – there's Pinboard for web bookmarks, iCloud (iOS Reminders, iCal/Anxiety for Mac) for to-dos and 1Password for confidential info. Just ideas and docs.

[vlion]

emacs org-mode is epically useful.

You know, if you like Emacs. :-)