While OneNote has been a darling of Windows users, handy for jotting down quick notes, Evernote has rapidly become a strong contender among power users. Since being acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italy-based company, the popular note-taking app has rapidly gained new features. It’s now right up there with OneNote and even beats Microsoft’s solution in some critical areas.

If you're ready to move beyond the limitations of OneNote and embrace a truly optimized note-taking solution, continue reading to find the seven compelling reasons why Evernote deserves a place on your Windows taskbar.

7 A handy home menu

Evernote introduced a dedicated Home menu with version 10. As the name suggests, it’s a personalized dashboard designed to streamline your workflow and provide quick access to your important notes, tasks, scratch pads, tags, and more. You can apply dedicated wallpaper at the top and arrange a number of widgets for easy access.

The list of widgets includes Notebooks, Calendars, Scratch Pads, Tags, Shortcuts, Pinned Notes, Filtered Notes, and more. You can also pick from small, medium, and large widget sizes and arrange them at your convenience. It basically reduces the need to navigate through endless menus and notebooks, saving you time and effort. The company is also quick to introduce new widgets to expand its functionality.

6 Tasks with reminders

Due to a smooth integration of tasks in Evernote, you no longer require a separate to-do app on both your phone and desktop. You can add tasks directly to your notes to provide context and keep related information together.

As for the task details, you can add descriptions and due dates, set reminders, assign them to a team member, set priority status, and even flag them. Once you insert tasks, add the Tasks widget to Evernote's home for easy access. Overall, it’s a smooth integration and a must-have add-on for busy professionals to manage everything in one place.

5 Calendar integration

With OneNote, you need to switch to Outlook or Gmail to check your upcoming schedule. Evernote has integrated calendar functionality that supports both Gmail and Outlook. You can set your email accounts to access and manage your events directly within the app. It basically bridges the gap between your schedule and your notes, creating a unified workspace for managing your time and information.

Evernote has recently introduced a two-way sync with Gmail, allowing you to edit and manage your events within the app, with changes reflected on the web and other applications as well. By combining your notes, tasks, and reminders in one central location, Evernote empowers you to stay organized, focused, and productive.

4 A modern editor

Taking clues from the likes of Notion and Obsidian, Evernote has started offering a modern editor with (/) slash command. You can simply type / and insert a task, calendar event, header, checklist, table, divider, bullet list, Google Drive file, code block, numbered list, table of contents, and more. It’s way better than OneNote’s standard toolbar, which may feel crowded at times.

Unlike OneNote, Evernote also supports a table of contents to navigate your long notes with ease. It updates instantly with every change you make to your headers.

3 Link related notes with ease

While you can link related notes in OneNote, it’s not exactly user-friendly and requires multiple clicks to get the job done. Evernote has made it quite seamless to link your related notes. You can simply type @note name (inserting the name of your note, e.g. @travel) and pick one of the notes from the suggestions menu.

For example, if you are creating a project note, you can link related notes for seamless project management. It helps you create a web of interconnected information within your digital workspace. You can even choose to view the link as text, title, or preview.

2 Create event notes in Evernote

I use this feature all the time. It’s my favorite Evernote add-on, which is obviously missing from OneNote. I can simply head to Calendar, select any event, and create a related note. Whenever we have a weekly team meeting, I jot down my talking points in a note and link it with the event for easy access.

1 Better notes organization

This one shouldn’t surprise anyone. Thanks to its robust tag (#hashtag) system, it’s quite easy and seamless to organize your related notes in Evernote. Evernote's tagging system is far more powerful than OneNote's. Assign multiple tags to a note for cross-notebook categorization and flexible retrieval. There is also an option to create shortcuts and pin important notes for quick access.

Embrace Evernote on Windows

While OneNote remains a valid option, especially for those deeply embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem, Evernote's unique strengths make it a worthy contender for power users looking to manage their events and to-dos. That said, it’s not perfect. The company should focus on UI and performance to ensure a smooth experience when dealing with a large number of notebooks.

If you are still wondering about the differences between OneNote and Evernote, you can learn about all the nitty-gritty differences in our dedicated comparison guide.