Evernote to Markdown

Convert Evernote's .enex export file to .md Markdown files for iA Writer and other Markdown-compatible editors.

enex2writer is an offline Evernote to Markdown converter. It turns an Evernote desktop .enex export into one UTF-8 .md file per note, a shared assets/ directory, and a manifest.json conversion report. It uses only Python’s standard library at runtime, so the conversion can run without network access.

Features

• Preserves note titles, body text, headings, paragraphs, emphasis, lists, checkboxes, blockquotes, tables, code blocks, and horizontal rules.
• Extracts images and other ENEX resources, linking attachments from Markdown.
• Writes created/updated timestamps and tags in YAML frontmatter.
• Rewrites common Evernote internal links to local Markdown when the target is present in the same export.
• Preserves unresolved Evernote links and reports them in manifest.json.
• Uses safe filenames, resolves duplicate titles, deduplicates identical resources, and refuses accidental note overwrites by default.
• Makes no HTTP/API calls and does not perform OCR on scanned documents.

Requirements and installation

Python 3.10 or newer is required. Install from a checkout:

python3 -m pip install .

For development, an editable install is convenient:

python3 -m pip install -e .

The package has no runtime dependencies. Building the wheel may use the standard setuptools build backend declared in pyproject.toml.

Quick start

1. In Evernote Desktop, export a notebook as ENEX with tags and attributes.
2. Convert it into a new folder:

enex2writer ~/Exports/Research.enex ~/Documents/Notes/Research

The same command is available as a module:

python3 -m enex2writer ~/Exports/Research.enex ~/Documents/Notes/Research

Preview the counts without writing anything:

enex2writer Research.enex Notes/Research --dry-run

If the destination already contains a note with the same planned filename, the command stops safely. Use --overwrite only when replacing those files is intentional:

enex2writer Research.enex Notes/Research --overwrite

The converter never deletes unrelated files in the destination.

Output layout

Research/
├── A useful note.md
├── Another note.md
├── assets/
│   ├── diagram.png
│   └── paper.pdf
└── manifest.json

Example note:

---
title: "A useful note"
created: "2024-03-12T09:30:00Z"
updated: "2026-07-01T14:05:00Z"
tags:
  - "work"
  - "idea"
source: "evernote"
evernote_guid: "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef"
---

# A useful note

The converted note body appears here.

Relative Markdown links use the generated filenames, and attachment links point into assets/. The manifest contains the source filename, note-to-file mapping, extracted resources, warnings, and unresolved internal links.

Command reference

enex2writer INPUT.enex OUTPUT_DIR [options]

Options:
  --overwrite       Replace existing generated note/asset/manifest files.
  --no-manifest     Do not write manifest.json.
  --no-frontmatter  Omit YAML frontmatter from generated notes.
  --dry-run         Parse and plan the conversion without writing files.
  -q, --quiet       Print only errors.
  -V, --version     Print the installed version.
  -h, --help        Show help.

What to inspect after migration

Run a small notebook first, then review images, PDFs, checkboxes, tables, encrypted notes, clipped web pages, and internal links in iA Writer. Evernote encrypted content is preserved only to the extent that it is present in the ENEX export; this tool does not decrypt it. Scanned PDFs are copied as files, but OCR is outside the project’s scope.

Development

Run the standard-library test suite from the project root:

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v

The project is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

For contribution expectations, see CONTRIBUTING.md. The release-readiness record is docs/oss-checklist.md, and vulnerability-reporting guidance is in SECURITY.md.