When Evernote launched in 2008, it became the go-to application for many for taking notes, tracking documents, organizing projects, and generally the place to store anything you might want to find later. In recent years, however, Evernote’s reputation has suffered from an outdated interface, privacy missteps, higher costs, and performance issues.

And now it’s being acquired by app developer Bending Spoons.

When a large number of people depend on an app – especially one that has been around long enough that some of its users have stored a lot of data in it – the first thought many will have is: what happens to my data?

While it’s usually not a good idea to panic, it never hurts to back up your data in case you decide it’s time to bail. Moving to a different app can be easier than you might think: different apps, such as Concept and Zoho laptop, have created ways to directly import Evernote files. But even if you don’t plan on switching, it’s a good idea to know how to export your data, if only to have an independent backup of your content just in case.

Evernote divides its notes into separate notebooks. On the one hand, this helps keep things organized; on the other hand, it means you have to export each notebook individually.

There is some kind of alternative. If you just want to export your notes without reference to the notebook they’re in, you can — but you can only export 50 at a time (by Notes and then click Edit > Select All). On the other hand, if you export a single notebook, you can export all the notes in it (e.g. I had a notebook with over 1,100 notes and was able to export that without any problem). But you can’t export all your notebooks at once – it has to be one at a time.

As for formats, you have two choices: HTML or Evernote’s .ENEX format. If you export in HTML, you can easily read the files in a browser; additionally, some note-taking apps will import HTML files. On the other hand, some competing apps, such as Notion, OneNote, and Zoho Notebook, will automatically import Evernote’s ENEX format or walk you through the process – obviously to encourage Evernote users to migrate.

But let’s assume you just want to export your content for backup or just in case. Here’s how.

You can only export data using the Evernote local application for PCs or Macs; you can’t do it over the web or mobile versions.

• In Evernote’s left menu, where all your notebooks are listed, right-click the notebook you want to export.
• click on Export notebook…
• You will get a pop-up window. Select the format in which you want to export your notebook — ENEX or HTML. If you choose HTML, you can export all notes to one web page or split them into separate pages.
• If the notebook has a large number of notes and you export it in ENEX, you get the option to split the file into more manageable formats — just click the button Split file size by box.
• You can also decide if you want to omit any of the note’s attributes, such as author (unnecessary if you’re the only one using the app), tags, location, etc. Uncheck any attributes you don’t need.
• click on Export.

Repeat for each notebook.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to export Evernote notebooks, but if you have a lot of notebooks, prepare to spend some time on this task.

Update Nov 17, 2022, 11:47 AM ET: This article was originally published March 14, 2019 and has been updated to reflect changes to Evernote’s export features.