Evernote releases redesigned Windows app with better search, trash section

Note-taking app company Evernote today announced the availability of a redesigned version of its Windows app. The launch follows the announcement of a beta program for Mac and Windows apps back in September.

The new version includes a dedicated Trash section in the sidebar, better search functionality, and a way to highlight notebooks and tags in the sidebar with colors, among other things, Greg Wén, Evernote’s marketing operations manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, wrote in a blog post.

For people who pay for the Evernote Business tier of service, there’s a big change here. Files in the sidebar can now fall under two big tabs: “Personal” and “Business.”

“Previously, personal and business notes, notebooks, tags, and shortcuts existed together within their individual sections, and it wasn’t always obvious which type of content you were looking at. We addressed this ambiguity in our latest version of Evernote,” Wén wrote. Clicking the tab will switch what you see, but you can also use the new keyboard shortcuts Alt + 1 for “Personal” and Alt + 2 for “Business.”

Unlike the recently redesigned Web client, the new Windows app doesn’t have a dedicated distraction-free writing button. But you can stop showing the Note List, and the Left Panel (aka sidebar) can be minimized into a new “slender” version, providing more room to focus on the note at hand, so ultimately the effect is similar.

Evernote’s Work Chat feature no longer appears at the top of the sidebar; now you have to manually turn it on from the View menu.

Based in Redwood City, California, Evernote has 150 million users. Evernote competes with Microsoft OneNote and Google Keep, among others. The company announced layoffs in September.