Evernote 5 for Mac (beta)

By Jill Duffy

Skim any must-have-apps list, and you're likely to find Evernote. The note-making and organizing tool made its name among the smartphone community, but its desktop applications give users an incredibly powerful and reliable hub. A new public beta version of Evernote for Mac, officially called Evernote 5 for Mac (free or $45 per year for premium), does everything the mobile app doesand then some. You can create text notes, audio memos, photos, and tag all these notes and organize them into notebooks so that they're easy to find later.

Version 5 looks less cluttered, less cramped, and more sophisticated with shades of dark gray replacing much of the signature green in the user interface. A new productivity-boosting shortcuts feature lets users keep notebooks they want to see at the top of the app. Wrap this in with Evernote for Mac's excellent existing features, like having one of the most powerful search bars I've ever seen, and it's a clear and obvious Editors' Choice among software for productivity.

Evernote Basics

Since I became an Evernote user, Evernote's desktop applications have quickly become one of my primary tools for staying organized. I use a Mac at home, where Evernote for Mac gives me quick and simple access to all kinds of notes that I take, while also providing the fullest suite of tools, including good text formatting tools, for making new notes.

View the Original article