Evernote Home – The Ultimate Guide
In early January 2021, Evernote released the first of many updates to their notetaking platform, called Evernote Home. You can access Evernote Home across all Evernote platforms. Ultimately, Evernote Home serves as an all-in-one dashboard to give an at-a-glance view of everything you need to start your workday.
As a lover of productivity software, I know Evernote Home has many features to unpack. I’ve created this guide to make it easier for you to jump right in. It contains everything you need to know to make the most out of Evernote Home.
What Is Evernote Home?
Evernote Home allows you to see everything you need to start your workday. When you open Evernote, you’re led to the Home dashboard. The dashboard consists of a variety of widgets. Everyone has access to three primary widgets:
- notes
- scratchpad
- recently captured.
There are additional widget options for premium Evernotes users, as well.
How Do I Access Evernote Home?
Accessing Evernote Home is relatively easy.
- Startup Evernote on your computer, tablet, mobile device, or web browser.
- In the left panel, select the “Home” tab under the “New Note” button in Evernote as shown in the screenshot above.
Once there, you’ll have access to your Evernote Home dashboard. All Evernote customers will see the notes, scratchpad, and recently captured widgets. Premium users can access notebooks, pinned notes, tags, shortcuts, and calendar widgets through Evernote Home, as well.
What Elements Are Contained In Evernote Home?
There’s plenty of great content in Evernote Home. Below, I’ve explained some of the key elements you’ll find on your Evernote dashboard.
Widgets
As previously mentioned, there are tons of great widgets to give you an overview of your workflow. Premium users have access to all of the available widgets and Evernote Home customization options, while everyone has access to the following widgets:
- Notes.
- Scratchpad.
- Recently clipped.
You have the option to move widgets around the screen and change their placement to suit your workflow. Click and drag the widgets to arrange them accordingly. There are specific widget slots on the Home page where you can automatically place them.
Additionally, as a premium user, you can add and remove widgets from your Evernote Home.
To access all of the available widgets available to use in Evernote Home, do the following:
- From Home, simply click on the “Customize” button located at the top right of the page.
- Select any of the available widgets from the list and drag them into any of the open widget slots.
To remove a widget, do the following:
- Click the customize button again.
- Navigate to the widget you’d like to remove
- Click the “X” button located on the top right corner.
This process removes the widget from your home screen, but you can add it back at any time using the steps above.
Scratch Pad
Scratchpad is unique to Evernote Home and is one of the new features I was exceptionally excited to see. Scratchpad looks and works just like the “sticky note” program on your computer. However, it’s integrated into Evernote, meaning you can take a quick “sticky note” idea in Evernote.
What makes it even better is the fact you can convert these scratchpad notes into a note if you decide to, so it ultimately functions as a quick note when you’re on the go.
To convert contents of your scratchpad into a note in Evernote, do the following:
- In the Scratchpad widget, click on the ellipsis in the upper-right corner of the widget
- Select “Convert to note” from the available options
Your scratchpad entry will be converted into an Evernote note, as shown in the screenshot above.
There are a few limitations to scratchpad, however. It can only contain up to 600 characters of plain text in total, and free users can only place one scratchpad widget on Evernote Home. Another thing to keep in mind is that when you clear the scratchpad widget, the note is moved to the trash.
Notes
Finally, all users can access the Notes widget on Evernote Home. The Notes widget offers you a selection of:
- recently saved or converted notes
- suggested notes, each in their tab within the widget.
As the titles suggest, the recent notes tab lets you see the notes you’ve most recently added, saved, or converted. Evernote Home displays notes that you reference, add to, or edit most frequently in the suggested tab.
The Notes widget is great for quickly finding notes you need or have recently worked on and is the perfect way to remind yourself of important upcoming tasks and information as soon as you access Evernote Home.
How Do I Customize Evernote Home?
Premium Evernote members have the option to customize Evernote Home in a variety of ways. Users can add, select, move, and resize widgets to change their appearance on Evernote Home. Additionally, premium users can also change the background in Evernote Home and change the color of the scratchpad.
Widget Customization
While all Evernote users have access to the widgets for notes, scratchpad, and recently clipped, premium Evernote users can also select and add additional widgets to their home screen, using the process detailed above.
To resize a widget on Evernote Home, do the following:
- Navigate to the Home screen.
- Click the “customize” button located in the top right corner.
- Hover your mouse over the widget you’d like to resize.
- On the bottom right, you can select the ideal size for the widget.
Moving widgets on the home screen is simple, as well. Hit the “customize” button and click and drag your widget to one of the open widget slots on the Home screen.
Changing Background Images
Premium users can customize the background image in Evernote Home. To change the background image of your Evernote Home screen, do the following:
- Click the “customize” button in the top right corner of the Home screen.
- In the left panel underneath the “Background” toggle, click the “Change” button
- Either select one of the backgrounds provided by Evernote or drag an image into the “Or use your own image” area
4. Click the “Done” button to save your change
You should now see that your background image in Evernote Home as shown in the screenshot below:
Change the Scratch Pad Color
Finally, premium users can also change the color of the scratchpad widget.
To change the background color of the scratchpad widget in Evernote Home, do the following:
- Click on the “customize” button on the top right corner of the screen
- Click the pencil-shaped icon located on the scratchpad widget.
- Select one of four different scratchpad colors.
- Click the “Done” button to save your background change
You should now see your new color as the background color for the scratchpad like shown in the screenshot below:
I hope this tutorial was helpful to you. Good luck!
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Resources:
https://evernote.com/blog/see-evernote-like-never-before-with-home/
https://evernote.com/features/home
https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056265514-Home-Overview
https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058119773-Customize-Home
