If Evernote is your digital file drawer of choice, you should know that are a range of handy iOS apps designed to add content to your cloud notebooks without having to launch the app itself.
Last year we mentioned five apps that integrate with Evernote, and since then several other apps have bolstered Evernote's third-party app support even further.
If you're new to Evernote, download our free unofficial manual for getting started.
EverClip 2 ($7.99)
At the top of our list is the newly redesigned and improved EverClip 2, which serves as a web and note clipper for Evernote. One significant reason why the new version of EverClip might be worth the price of the upgrade is that EverClip can now act as a system-wide history clipboard for iOS devices. When opened in the background, EverClip can save clippings from other apps, and there's no longer a time limit for recording clippings.
Each time EverClip saves copied text, URLs, or even images, it makes a short beep after each recording, and it saves and groups all clippings from the same URL into single note. After sleeping your iOS device (locking it once and unlocking), EverClip will stop recording in the background until you relaunch the app. You can also manually close the app to pause recordings. When relaunched, EverClip will ask permission to clip the current content on your device's clipboard – for this reason, privacy concerns shouldn't arise too often.
Everclip categorizes clippings by date, and clippings can be saved to a default or a manually-specified notebook in your Evernote account, with default tags and location assigned. The first line of each clipping or group of clippings is used for Evernote titles, and the contents of clippings can be edited before they are sent. Unfortunately, each clipping or group of clippings has to be manually sent to Evernote. It would be great if users had the option to either batch send clippings, or even somehow have them automatically sent when the app is open. After clippings are copied to Evernote, they are automatically removed from the EverClip clipboard.
As with its previous version, EverClip downloads articles from webpages, but now it also includes a built-in highlighter, similar to the highlighter in Evernote. The text editor in EverClip also includes bold, italic, strikethrough formatting tools. EverClip unfortunately removed a few features that previously appeared in the app, including a way to manually combine clips from different web pages into a single note, and the ability to open links within clips in its in-app web browser.
https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/7251228/type/dlg/sid/UUmuoUeUpU55491/https://vimeo.com/96568119
Despite these few limitations, EverClip is a handy tool for getting notes into Evernote without constantly having to switch back and forth between applications.
EverWebClipper (iPad $3.99, iPhone $2.99)
If you want to quickly save web pages from mobile Safari, EverWebClipper can do it with a single tap using a Safari bookmarklet.
EverWebClipper saves selected articles to a default or specified notebook. You can enable a feature called auto-clip which means that when a URL is copied in Safari, a notification drops down from the top of the page which provides the option for sending the page to EveryWebClipper where it can in turn be saved to Evernote.
The feature also allows users to immediately switch back to Safari after the content is saved.
Web Browsers
In addition to EverClip, there are four iOS web browsers I know of that allow users to save web pages to Evernote. They include Mercury Browser Pro ($0.99), Diigo (Free), Dolphin (Free), and iCab ($1.99). Check out our iPad browser round-up which features the first three, and our full review of the powerful iCab browser.)
Mercury exports read-only versions of web pages, while Dolphine and iCab provide the option to clip the article from a webpage or export an entire page to a specified notebook. Diigo exports just the title and URL of a selected page.
eHighlighter ($1.99)
The OCR iPhone app, eHighlighter, reviewed here, also allows users to export scanned passages from paper books to Evernote. Unfortunately, though, you can't batch select and send multiple notes at a time.
RSS Readers And IFTTT Recipes
Many Evernote users like to clip and save articles from various webpages. The read-it-later service and iOS app Pocket (shown below), and popular read-it-later app Instapaper (Free) share selected articles to a designated Evernote notebook.
The magazine style app, Zite, can share articles to Evernote as well, but it only exports the headline and the URL link. RSS feed service Feedly for iOS and Feedly for Android, allows for single tap sharing to Evernote, but it requires a pro version upgrade to do so. You can however use the free version of Feedly to send articles to Evernote via email using your unique Evernote email address, found on the settings page of your Evernote account.
Another way to use RSS feeds and related apps is to incorporate the automation tool, IFTTT, which includes several Evernote related recipes. For instance, this recipe can convert any item you mark as favorite in Pocket to PDF or PNG format, then save it directly to one of your designated Evernote notebooks. Another IFTTT recipe allows for saving your favorited tweets directly to Evernote.
If you prefer saving and reading articles in your Evernote, check out Nancy's article about how to actually turn Evernote into an RSS Reader using IFTTT. And if you're new to the IFTTT, download our free IFTTT guide to help you get started using the service. IFTTT can be used online but the iOS version of the IFTTT is better for browsing and setting up automations.
Other Apps
In addition to Evernote's own supporting apps, like Evernote Food for meals and recipes, the contacts apps, Hello, and the drawing app, Penultimate there are a few other apps that integrate with your Evernote account.
One example is the notebook app, EverMemo, which automatically saves notes to a designated notebook, and saves you the trouble of opening Evernote just to add a few short notes.
A notebook app with even tighter Evernote integration is a popular one called, Drafts. When you use Drafts, a new blank document opens, and you can send, prepend, or append the contents of that note to a to a designated Evernote notebook, as well as to other applications including Twitter, Facebook. Check out our step-by-step instructions for using Drafts with Evernote.
Cloud Outliner ($4.99) allows you to export, sync and update content with Evernote. This outliner makes it easier than in Evernote to rearrange and edit items in an outline.
Conclusion
The above apps offer a handful of useful ways to integrate with Evernote without having to open the application. Check out the Evernote App Center for similar iOS apps and other platforms, and let us know how you automate your note-taking workflow with apps, bookmarklets and IFTTT recipes in the comments below.