Switching
Bring Your Notes.
Leave the Upkeep.
Honest migration guides for fourteen tools: what actually exports, what is worth bringing, and how Mindly organizes it the moment it lands. Direct .enex import from Evernote, honest steps for everything else, no drama.
The approach
A Migration Is a Curation Moment
The best switch is not a copy. It is the one chance you get to choose, from years of accumulation, what your library should actually contain.
Every migration guide on this site tells the same truth: you should not want to move everything anyway. Evernote is the one direct path, since Mindly imports .enex files natively; from every other tool you export in its standard format and bring the files in. Either way, keep the full export as a permanent archive on your own disk, and bring over only the material you still reopen. The archive means nothing is ever lost. The curation means what arrives is all signal.
What makes the move worth it is what happens on arrival. Each item you bring in gets read, tagged by topic, summarized if it is long, and connected to related saves, automatically. OCR makes screenshots and scans searchable, and voice memos are transcribed. The organizing system your old tool expected you to rebuild is the part that no longer exists, and plain-language search replaces remembering where anything was filed.
Fourteen starting points
Where Are You Coming From?
Each guide covers what exports, what to bring, and what changes once you land.
Direct import
Evernote
The easiest move on this page: Mindly imports Evernote .enex files directly, reading, tagging, and summarizing every note on arrival. Export from Evernote, drop the file in, done.
Migration guideWorkspace
Notion
Brilliant for team wikis, heavy for personal saves. Notion exports Markdown and CSV; many people keep it at work and move the personal library somewhere it maintains itself.
Migration guideMarkdown vault
Obsidian
Your vault is already a folder of local Markdown, which makes this the easiest move on the page. Drag in the notes that still matter and skip rebuilding the plugin stack.
Migration guideThe default
Apple Notes
Genuinely fine until your library outgrows folders and keyword search. Notes export one at a time or by copy and drag, so this move rewards curating as you go.
Migration guideMicrosoft
OneNote
The freeform canvas grows into sprawl, and exports are famously awkward. Curate hard: copy the sections you still open, and let the archive stay where it is.
Migration guideNetworked notes
Roam Research
The tool that popularized backlinks exports Markdown and JSON. Bring the pages that still earn a place; the graph gets rebuilt for you on arrival, automatically.
Migration guideOutliner
Logseq
Local Markdown already, like Obsidian. The journals and blocks come over as text, and the outline discipline stops being a requirement for staying organized.
Migration guideObject notes
Capacities
Markdown export brings your objects out as plain notes. The typed structure stays behind; the content gets tagged, summarized, and connected without the modeling work.
Migration guideDaily notes
Reflect
Markdown export carries your daily notes and backlinked pages. What changes is range: links, PDFs, screenshots, and voice land in the same library as the notes.
Migration guideSupertags
Tana
JSON export with selective pasting is the honest path. Supertags, fields, and queries do not translate anywhere, but the ideas inside them do.
Migration guideMeeting notes
Granola
AI meeting notes are most useful next to everything else you know about the project. Bring the summaries that matter into a library that connects them.
Migration guideResearch
NotebookLM
Keep it for interrogating a bounded pile of sources. The conclusions it helps you reach deserve a permanent home that outlives the notebook.
Migration guideRead-it-later
Pocket, Instapaper
Pocket is gone and queues everywhere run long. Saved articles become searchable, summarized library items instead of a list you feel guilty about.
Migration guideEverything else
Somewhere else
Text, files, PDFs, images, links, voice: if your current tool can produce any of these, Mindly can hold them, read them, and organize them. Start free and test it with ten items.
Migration guide
Free tools
Stuck on the Export File?
Two formats derail more migrations than anything else. Both tools run entirely in your browser, take no account, and upload nothing.
.enex → Markdown
Evernote ENEX Converter
Turns an .enex export into clean Markdown with attachments extracted. Optional if you are coming to Mindly, which imports .enex directly, and useful if you want a portable archive either way.
Open the toolNotion .zip → clean Markdown
Notion Export Cleaner
Strips the 32-character ID Notion stamps onto every exported file and folder, resolves the name collisions that creates, and rewrites the internal links so the export is navigable.
Open the tool
Cheat sheet
What Exports From Where
The export options of every tool on this page, in one table. Run the export first, decide what moves second.
| App | What exports | You bring | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evernote | ENEX or HTML per notebook | The .enex file itself | Mindly imports .enex directly and processes every note |
| Notion | Markdown and CSV (zip) | Files and text | Databases flatten to CSV; pages become Markdown |
| Obsidian | Nothing to export | The Markdown files themselves | Your vault is already a local folder |
| Apple Notes | Per-note export, copy, drag | Text and attachments | No bulk export; a natural curation filter |
| OneNote | Section files, copy-paste | Text and files | Weakest exporter here; move only keepers |
| Roam Research | Markdown or JSON | Files and text | Choose Markdown for readability |
| Logseq | Nothing to export | The Markdown files themselves | Local folder, same as Obsidian |
| Capacities | Markdown | Files and text | Objects flatten to notes |
| Reflect | Markdown | Files and text | Daily notes come over as dated notes |
| Tana | JSON | Selected text | Paste what matters; structure stays behind |
The playbook
The Whole Move, In Five Steps
The same afternoon-sized plan, whichever tool you are leaving.
Export from your current tool in whatever standard format it offers, and keep that full export as a permanent archive on your own disk. Whatever else happens, you now own a copy no vendor can touch.
Choose what actually moves. The honest filter: material you have reopened in the past year, plus anything you know a future project needs. For most people that is a fraction of the archive, and the rest stays safely in the export.
Bring it in. Coming from Evernote, drop the .enex file straight into Mindly and it imports every note directly. From any other tool, drag the exported files in, paste text, or capture with ⌘M: files, text, images, links, and voice are all first-class captures.
Let the organizing happen. Each item is read on arrival: tagged by topic, summarized if it is long, run through OCR if it is an image or scan, transcribed if it is audio, and connected to related saves. The structure your old tool expected you to rebuild simply appears.
Point your capture habit at Mindly from day one. The migration matters less than the routine that follows it: one keystroke for everything new, and the library grows organized from here on.
Common questions
Switching, Answered
Can Mindly import my notes automatically?
For Evernote, yes: Mindly imports .enex export files directly, reading, tagging, and summarizing every note and connecting it to related items you already saved, on the free tier included. For other tools there is no dedicated bulk importer, and this page will not pretend otherwise; you export in the tool's standard format and bring the files in with a drag or one shortcut, and the AI organizes them the same way. Either path, a migration is a good moment to curate rather than move everything.
Should I move everything over?
Almost never. A migration is the one moment you get to curate years of accumulation for free. Move the material you still reopen or genuinely expect to need, keep the full export as a local archive, and let the rest stay archived. A smaller library of things you chose beats a complete copy of things you were merely storing.
Will my notebooks, folders, and tags carry over?
The structure does not transfer, and for most people that turns out to be the point. Mindly does not use your old hierarchy: the AI reads each item you bring and builds tags, summaries, and connections from the content itself. The organization you spent years maintaining is replaced by one that maintains itself, and plain-language search replaces remembering where things were filed.
What formats can Mindly hold?
Notes and text, links, PDFs, Word documents, images and screenshots, voice memos, and files generally. Text inside images and scanned PDFs becomes searchable through OCR, audio is transcribed, and long documents get summaries, so what you bring over becomes findable rather than just stored.
How long does switching actually take?
The honest answer for a curated move is an afternoon: an hour to export and decide what matters, an hour to bring it in, and the AI organizes as items land. People who try to move everything at once tend to stall, which is one more argument for curating. New capture starts working for you on day one either way.
Can I keep using my old app alongside Mindly?
Yes, and many switchers do exactly that during the first month. A common split: the old tool stays for whatever it is genuinely good at, such as Notion for team work, while Mindly becomes the home for personal capture. The deciding moment usually arrives on its own, the first time search finds something in seconds that the old system would have buried.
My app is shutting down. What should I do first?
Export immediately, before anything else, because shutdown export windows close and data past the deadline is usually gone for good. Get the full export onto your own disk, then curate into Mindly at leisure. If you want the longer argument for choosing tools your data outlives, read our guide on the app graveyard at mindly-ai.com/blog/app-graveyard-data-longevity-rules.
What happens if I switch away from Mindly later?
Your library lives in a folder on your Mac, and you can export to standard formats whenever you want. The same standard this page applies to other tools applies to Mindly: your data should outlive any app, including this one.
An Afternoon to Move.
Years of Upkeep Gone.
Free for macOS. No account required.