Export selected notes from Notes.app w/ attachments, import to EN

Hi, I am a complete newbie to Applescript. I am trying to find a way to export selected notes from Notes.app, including its attachments, then import those notes into Evernote. I found a script on the Evernote forums https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64814-apple-notes-app/ , and following some comments from user DTLow, came up with the following script:

tell application “Notes”

set theMessages to selection
repeat with thisMessage in theMessages
	set myTitle to the name of thisMessage
	set myText to the body of thisMessage
	set myCreateDate to the creation date of thisMessage
	set myModDate to the modification date of thisMessage
	save att in attFile
	
	tell application "Evernote"
		
		set myNote to create note with text myTitle title myTitle notebook "Imported From Notes" tags ["imported_from_notes"]
		set the HTML content of myNote to myText
		append theNewNote attachment the_file
		set the creation date of myNote to myCreateDate
		set the modification date of myNote to myModDate
		
	end tell
	
end repeat

end tell




I got this error: 
error "Notes got an error: Can't get selection." number -1728 from selection

Any ideas what I can do please?  I am on OS X El Capitan,

Hi. Welcome to MacScripter.

Unhelpfully, I don’t use Notes myself and don’t have Evernote. But looking at Notes’s scripting dictionary, it definitely doesn’t mention a ‘selection’. You could use a ‘choose from list’ dialog to choose the folder(s) from which to export. The script below is just an illustration of that. It assumes that the folders are all at the top level of Notes and have unique names.

One problem you may have to address with attachments is that a note can have more than one. Presumably these would all need to be saved somewhere and attached individually to the Evernote note. I’m afraid I can’t help with that.

tell application "Notes"
	activate
	set folderNames to name of folders
	set chosenFolderNames to (choose from list folderNames with multiple selections allowed)
	if (chosenFolderNames is false) then error number -128 -- Cancel button.
end tell

repeat with thisName in chosenFolderNames
	tell application "Notes" to set theMessages to notes of folder thisName
	
	repeat with thisMessage in theMessages
		
		tell application "Notes"
			
			set myTitle to the name of thisMessage
			set myText to the body of thisMessage
			set myCreateDate to the creation date of thisMessage
			set myModDate to the modification date of thisMessage
			set myAttachments to the attachments of thisMessage
			if (myAttachments is not {}) then
				-- Save attachment(s), if any. (Where? Repeat loop needed?)
			end if
			
		end tell
		
		(* tell application "Evernote"

			set myNote to create note with text myTitle title myTitle notebook "Imported From Notes" tags ["imported_from_notes"]
			set the HTML content of myNote to myText
			append theNewNote attachment the_file -- Repeat loop needed?
			set the creation date of myNote to myCreateDate
			set the modification date of myNote to myModDate
            
		end tell *)
		
	end repeat
	
end repeat

Edit: The outer repeat now cycles through the correct list!

Thanks Nigel. Yes multiple attachments, you are right! I may end up doing this manually in the end, we’ll see.

Hi.

  1. I’ve corrected an error in my code in post #2. :rolleyes:

  2. After fooling around with Notes myself this morning and looking at the Evernote and MacOSXAutomation Web sites, it seems that although it’s theoretically possible to save attachments from Notes notes and attach them to Evernote notes, it may not be possible to reproduce the original notes exactly.
    i. The order of attachments returned from a Notes note to a script isn’t necessarily the same as the order in which they appear in the note.
    ii. The HTML in the note body contains references at the relevant points to Notes’s ‘content identifiers’ for the attachments. These may not mean anything to Evernote.
    iii. Appending an attachment to an Evernote note presumably appends it at the end and not at a specifiable point within the note.

I’m not concerned about the order of the attachments, in most cases there is only one anyway. I’d be happy for them to be appended to the end. Still better than doing it manually. :slight_smile:

Well. On my machine, Notes’s ‘save’ command doesn’t save attachments, although it should do according to its scripting dictionary. AppleScript can get references to the attachments with no problem, but applying ‘save’ to them simply does nothing. [Corrigendum. Notes’s ‘save’ command doesn’t save attachments unless the destination files have been created for it first. Still a bug, in my view, but getroundable. Thanks, Yvan!]

The script below now works with regard to its Notes business. When it encounters any attachments in a Notes note, it creates a folder on the desktop called “Attachments from Notes” (if one doesn’t exist there already) and saves each attachment to a different sub-subfolder of that to avoid name clashes without having to do any renaming. As mentioned previously, I don’t have Evernote, so I haven’t been able to try that part of the code.

(*
	====================================================
	  [EN] Import Apple Notes into Evernote
	====================================================
	
	DATE:    2013-10-24
	AUTHOR: d.b.walker
	
	REVISED BY:  JMichaelTX on 2016-03-28 to make BUG fix. <https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64814-apple-notes-app/#comment-395941>
	
	REF:
	  ¢ Importing from Apple Mail.app's Notes - Mac Help - Evernote User Forum       
	  ¢ https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/4046-importing-from-apple-mailapps-notes/?do=findComment&comment=236445
	
	Posted 24 Oct 2013
	Modified this script to work with Mavericks Notes, which is no longer in the mail app.
	Added the original creation and modification dates
	Added multiple tags - replace with your own
	Did not add the long note name fix (I needed to preserve my note names)
	====================================================
	
	FURTHER DEVELOPED BY: Nigel Garvey 2017-03-21/22/23, based on information in the Evernote fora, to allow a choice of Notes source folder(s) and to handle attachments.
	
	CAVEATS:
		1. I don't have Evernote and can't test that part of the code.
		2. (No longer relevant. Thanks to Yvan Koenig for the fix.)
		3. Any attachments are simply "appended" to the Evernote notes in the order they happen to be returned by Notes.
		4. The effect in Evernote of Notes's references to the attachments in the note HTML is unknown.
*)

main()

on main()
	-- User choice of one or more Notes folders (by name).
	tell application "Notes"
		activate
		set folderNames to name of folders
		set chosenFolderNames to (choose from list folderNames with multiple selections allowed)
		if (chosenFolderNames is false) then error number -128 -- Cancel button.
	end tell
	
	-- Preset HFS and POSIX versions of a path to a folder on the desktop for storing any attachments.
	set tempFolderPath to (path to desktop as text) & "Attachments from Notes:"
	set tempFolderPosix to quoted form of POSIX path of tempFolderPath
	
	-- Repeat with each chosen folder name:
	repeat with i from 1 to (count chosenFolderNames)
		-- Get all the notes in the folder with this name.
		set thisFolderName to item i of chosenFolderNames
		tell application "Notes" to set theNotes to notes of folder thisFolderName
		set quotedFolderName to quoted form of thisFolderName
		
		-- Repeat with each note in the folder:
		repeat with j from 1 to (count theNotes)
			set thisNote to item j of theNotes
			
			tell application "Notes"
				-- Get the relevant note data.
				set myTitle to the name of thisNote
				set myText to the body of thisNote
				set myCreateDate to the creation date of thisNote
				set myModDate to the modification date of thisNote
				set myAttachments to the attachments of thisNote
				
				-- Any attachments will need to be extracted to the folder on the desktop and attached to the Evernote note from there.
				-- To preserve the attachment names and avoid confusion in the case of duplicated names, each attachment is saved to a separate subfolder in a hierarchy based on the folder/note/attachment structure. 
				set attachmentFiles to {}
				set attachmentCount to (count myAttachments)
				if (attachmentCount > 0) then
					-- If this note has any attachments, create or add to the hierarchy of the folder on the desktop to accommodate each one.
					do shell script ("mkdir -p " & tempFolderPosix & quotedFolderName & "/'Note '" & j & "/'Attachment '{1.." & attachmentCount & "}")
					
					-- Repeat with each attachment:
					repeat with k from 1 to attachmentCount
						set thisAttachment to item k of myAttachments
						-- Put together a specifier for a file in which to save this attachment.
						set thisFile to (tempFolderPath & thisFolderName & ":Note " & j & ":Attachment " & k & ":" & thisAttachment's name) as «class furl»
						-- Create the file before trying to save to it. (Suggested by Yvan Koenig.)
						close access (open for access thisFile)
						-- Save the attachment to it.
						save thisAttachment in thisFile -- Now it works! Thanks, Yvan!
						-- Store the file specifier for the retrieval of the attachment below.
						set end of attachmentFiles to thisFile
					end repeat
					
				end if
			end tell
			
			tell application "Evernote"

				set myNote to create note with text myTitle title myTitle notebook "Imported From Notes" tags ["imported_from_notes"]
				set the HTML content of myNote to myText
				
				repeat with thisFile in attachmentFiles
					tell myNote to append attachment thisFile
				end
				
				set the creation date of myNote to myCreateDate
				set the modification date of myNote to myModDate
            
			end tell
			
		end repeat
		
	end repeat
end main

Hello Nigel

As I don’t own Evernote, I disabled the block dedicated to this app.
I was able to get the save instruction working.
Just before it I inserted:

close access (open for access thisFile) # ADDED
save thisAttachment in thisFile -- NOW IT WORKS!

Yvan KOENIG running Sierra 10.12.3 in French (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 24 mars 2017 15:16:39

Brilliant! Thanks, Yvan! That works for me too. :cool:

I’ve now amended the script and post above.

Thanks for the feedback.

The instruction is required with 10.12.4 beta 6

Yvan KOENIG running Sierra 10.12.4 in French (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 24 mars 2017 16:44:58

Thank you Nigel and Yvan!

Have just tested it. It works to get the notes into Evernote with tags etc, (hooray!) it just doesn’t pull the attachment(s) in. (It indicates there should be an attachment there, shows the box with question mark icon.)

Since you guys don’t have Evernote you can’t test it to debug it further… well I’m pretty happy with that result, as mentioned I can manually insert the attachments into EN :slight_smile:

I wonder if there’s a way to have the name of the folders in Finder that contain attachments to be the Title of the note, rather than ‘Note 1’, ‘Note 2’ etc.? (Would make it much easier to match them up if I do have to manually transfer the attachments.)

Hi JD.

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to learn that Evernote isn’t attaching the files. I’ll see if I can find any more information on the Evernote support site.

Are you able to tell whether the boxes with question marks relate to Evernote’s attempts to attach the files or to its not being able to understand Notes’s references to the attachments in the HTML? (eg. The HTML might contain something like “

<object type="application/x-apple-msg-attachment" data="cid:389017FA-FEB0-46D8-B98E-63251F971816@home">
”, which is Note’s internal reference to an attachment in that note. This currently remains in the HTML transferred to Evernote, to which it won’t mean anything.)

The idea of having the numbered folders is to avoid clashes in the event of notes or attachments having the same names. But names are possible, perhaps in combination with unique numbers. I’ll sort something out later today (BST).

Hi Nigel.

Apparently EN does not use HTML, it uses an xhtml variant they call enml.

http://dev.evernote.com/documentation/cloud/chapters/ENML.php

The only way to view it I believe is through this 3rd party web interface:

http://enml-editor.ping13.net/

I’ll give it a go when I get a chance.

PS I posted your script in the Evernote forum where I first found scripts, to see if any of those people can shed some light on it. Will report back any feedback. https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64814-apple-notes-app/

OK I used the web interface to view the Evernote ENML code, here’s the result of my test note:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
A Test Note With Attachment

test text

modified today


attachment below: Miura jpeg



OK. The version here addresses this aspect. Since the ‘name’ of a Notes note can be its entire first paragraph (!), the script derives a name based on the first fifteen words only. If there are more than fifteen words, the derived name is the first fifteen words followed by a horizontal ellipsis and the loop index in parenthesis. Otherwise, it’s the entire note name followed by a space and the parenthesised loop index. (It sorta makes sense.) Any slashes or colons in the results are replaced with dashes to avoid path problems.

I haven’t done anything more with the Evernote code as it would just be guesswork on my part and I see that on the Evernote forum, JMichaelTX, who’s also a MacScripter member, has asked for a link to this thread. He’s more likely to come up with the right answer for importing the attachment files into Evernote.

(*
	====================================================
	  [EN] Import Apple Notes into Evernote
	====================================================
	
	DATE:    2013-10-24
	AUTHOR: d.b.walker
	
	REVISED BY:  JMichaelTX on 2016-03-28 to make BUG fix. <https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64814-apple-notes-app/#comment-395941>
	
	REF:
	  ¢ Importing from Apple Mail.app's Notes - Mac Help - Evernote User Forum       
	  ¢ https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/4046-importing-from-apple-mailapps-notes/?do=findComment&comment=236445
	
	Posted 24 Oct 2013
	Modified this script to work with Mavericks Notes, which is no longer in the mail app.
	Added the original creation and modification dates
	Added multiple tags - replace with your own
	Did not add the long note name fix (I needed to preserve my note names)
	====================================================
	
	FURTHER DEVELOPED BY: Nigel Garvey 2017-03-21/22/23, based on information in the Evernote fora, to allow a choice of Notes source folder(s) and to handle attachments.
	REVISION BY NG, 2017-03-29: "Note" folder names in the temporary desktop hierarchy for attachments now based on the notes' names. Any path delimiters in potential folder names now replaced with dashes.
	
	CAVEATS:
		1. I don't have Evernote and can't test that part of the code.
		2. (No longer relevant. Thanks to Yvan Koenig for the fix.)
		3. Any attachments are simply "appended" to the Evernote notes in the order they happen to be returned by Notes.
		4. The effect in Evernote of Notes's references to the attachments in the note HTML is unknown.
*)

main()

on main()
	-- User choice of one or more Notes folders (by name).
	tell application "Notes"
		activate
		set folderNames to name of folders
		set chosenFolderNames to (choose from list folderNames with multiple selections allowed)
		if (chosenFolderNames is false) then error number -128 -- Cancel button.
	end tell
	-- Preset HFS and POSIX versions of a path to a folder on the desktop for storing any attachments.
	set tempFolderPath to (path to desktop as text) & "Attachments from Notes:"
	set tempFolderPosix to quoted form of POSIX path of tempFolderPath
	
	-- Repeat with each chosen folder name:
	repeat with i from 1 to (count chosenFolderNames)
		-- Get all the notes in the folder with this name.
		set thisFolderName to item i of chosenFolderNames
		tell application "Notes" to set theNotes to notes of folder thisFolderName
		-- Get safe versions of the Notes folder name for possible use in HFS and POSIX paths.
		set safeFolderName to degremlinise(thisFolderName)
		set quotedSafeFolderName to quoted form of safeFolderName
		
		-- Repeat with each note in the folder:
		repeat with j from 1 to (count theNotes)
			set thisNote to item j of theNotes
			
			-- Get the relevant note data.
			tell application "Notes"
				set myTitle to the name of thisNote
				set myText to the body of thisNote
				set myCreateDate to the creation date of thisNote
				set myModDate to the modification date of thisNote
				set myAttachments to the attachments of thisNote
			end tell
			
			-- Any attachments will need to be extracted to the folder on the desktop and attached to the Evernote note from there.
			-- To preserve the attachment names and avoid confusion in the case of duplicated names, each attachment is saved to a separate subfolder in a hierarchy based on the folder/note/attachment structure. 
			set attachmentFiles to {}
			set attachmentCount to (count myAttachments)
			if (attachmentCount > 0) then
				-- If this note has any attachments, create or add to the hierarchy of the folder on the desktop to accommodate each one.
				-- Firstly, derive a name for the hierarchy subfolder corresponding to the note itself: a maximum of 15 words from the title + a unique number.
				set maxWords to 15
				if ((count myTitle's words) > maxWords) then
					set safeNoteName to text 1 thru word maxWords of myTitle & ".(" & j & ")"
				else
					set safeNoteName to myTitle & " (" & j & ")"
				end if
				-- Replace any path delimiters in the derived name with dashes.
				set safeNoteName to degremlinise(safeNoteName)
				-- Create the necessary subfolders.
				do shell script ("mkdir -p " & tempFolderPosix & quotedSafeFolderName & "/" & quoted form of safeNoteName & "/'Attachment '{1.." & attachmentCount & "}")
				
				-- Repeat with each attachment:
				repeat with k from 1 to attachmentCount
					set thisAttachment to item k of myAttachments
					-- Put together a specifier for a file in which to save this attachment.
					set thisFile to (tempFolderPath & safeFolderName & ":" & safeNoteName & ":Attachment " & k & ":" & thisAttachment's name) as «class furl»
					-- Create the file before trying to save to it. (Suggested by Yvan Koenig.)
					close access (open for access thisFile)
					-- Save the attachment to it.
					tell application "Notes" to save thisAttachment in thisFile -- Now it works! Thanks, Yvan!
					-- Store the file specifier for the retrieval of the attachment below.
					set end of attachmentFiles to thisFile
				end repeat
				
			end if
			
			tell application "Evernote"

				set myNote to create note with text myTitle title myTitle notebook "Imported From Notes" tags ["imported_from_notes"]
				set the HTML content of myNote to myText
				
				repeat with thisFile in attachmentFiles
					tell myNote to append attachment thisFile
				end
				
				set the creation date of myNote to myCreateDate
				set the modification date of myNote to myModDate
            
			end tell
			
		end repeat
		
	end repeat
end main

-- Replace any POSIX or HFS path delimiters in the passed text with dashes.
on degremlinise(thisText)
	set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"/", ":"}
	set degreminlisedText to thisText's text items
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"-"}
	set degreminlisedText to degreminlisedText as text
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid
	
	return degreminlisedText
end degremlinise

Edit: More suitable arrangement of the ‘tell’ blocks. Thanks again to Yvan.

Hi Nigel,

An update: the attachment files have not actually been saved in folders as I thought they were. It looked as if they were there, but when I tried to view one or open it, it doesn’t open. The file size is 0 bytes.

I have posted this info on the EN forums too, DTLow says he is looking into it.

Hello JD

It’s my fault.
As the tip does the job for many applications, I was too confident.
When I saw that the file descriptors were created I thought that all was OK.
In fact what we get is what is done by the close access (open for access thisFile) instruction exactly as if the save one was removed.

It seems that there is a deeper problem.
Just after the instruction : set thisAttachment to item k of myAttachments
I inserted the instruction : tell application “Notes” to (get properties of thisAttachment)
When I executed the script I got :
error “Erreur dans Notes : La lecture n’a pas été autorisée.” number -10005 from properties of attachment id “x-coredata://CABFE677-3CC1-4D76-A9FF-7B60DEA99F51/ICAttachment/p10”
which seems to demonstrate that something is wrong between Notes and AppleScript.

Yvan KOENIG running Sierra 10.12.4 in French (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 30 mars 2017 15:18:37

Drat! I’m sorry. I was sure that part was working. But I’m getting zero-byte sizes too. At least that explains why the attachments weren’t appearing in Evernote. I can’t think what to do about a bug as determined as that. :confused:

I think this may be a red herring. There’s no problem getting the individual properties of an attachment (on my system, anyway). There’s just no ‘properties’ property.

Thanks Nigel.
Here, 10.12.4, properties compile but fails at execution.
every property refuse to compile.
I am forced to ask for every property by its name.

Below is a piece of GUI scripting code which may help.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Notes"
	set frontmost to true
	tell window 1
		class of UI elements --> {splitter group, button, button, button, toolbar}
		tell splitter group 1
			class of UI elements --> {button, scroll area, splitter, splitter group}
			tell splitter group 1
				class of UI elements --> {group, splitter, group}
				
				# not for us
				tell group 1
					class of UI elements --> {scroll area}
					tell scroll area 1
						class of UI elements --> {table}
						tell table 1
							class of UI elements --> {row, row, row, column}
							tell row 1
								class of UI elements --> {UI element}
								class of UI elements of UI element 1 --> {image, image, static text, static text, static text, image}
								value of every static text of UI element 1 --> {"trucmuche", "2 pièces jointes", "vendredi"}
							end tell -- row 1
							tell row 2
								class of UI elements --> {UI element}
								class of UI elements of UI element 1 --> {image, image, static text, static text, static text, image}
								value of every static text of UI element 1 --> {"tartempion", "Pas de texte supplémentaire", "17/02/2016"}
							end tell -- row 2
							tell row 3
								class of UI elements --> {UI element}
								class of UI elements of UI element 1 --> {image, image, static text, static text, static text, image}
								value of every static text of UI element 1 --> {"azerty uiop", "Son of a .", "18/09/2015"}
							end tell -- row 3
							tell column 1
								class of UI elements --> {}
							end tell -- column 1
						end tell -- table 1
					end tell -- scroll area 1
				end tell -- group 1
				
				tell group 2
					class of UI elements --> --> {static text, scroll area}
					tell scroll area 1
						class of UI elements --> --> {text area, scroll bar}
						tell text area 1
							class of UI elements --> {UI element, UI element}
							tell UI element 1
								description --> "image jointe, grande"
								position --> {1807, 316}
								size --> {300, 601}
								value of attribute "AXValueDescription" --> "bordereau Chronopost.jpg"
							end tell -- UI element 1
							tell UI element 2
								description --> "fichier joint"
								position --> {1807, 933}
								size --> {292, 72}
								value of attribute "AXValueDescription" --> "test Shane.scptd, 13 Ko"
							end tell -- UI element 2
						end tell -- text area 1
						
						tell scroll bar 1
							class of UI elements -->{value indicator, button, button, button, button}
							class of UI elements of value indicator 1 --> {}
							subrole of buttons --> {"AXIncrementArrow", "AXDecrementArrow", "AXIncrementPage", "AXDecrementPage"}
							properties of button 1 --> {minimum value:missing value, orientation:missing value, position:{2167, 260}, class:button, role description:"Flèche d'augmentation", accessibility description:missing value, focused:missing value, title:missing value, size:{0, 0}, value:missing value, help:missing value, enabled:missing value, maximum value:missing value, role:"AXButton", entire contents:{}, subrole:"AXIncrementArrow", selected:missing value, name:missing value, description:"Flèche d'augmentation"}
						end tell -- scroll bar 1
						
					end tell -- scroll area 1
				end tell -- group 2
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

It may be used with cliclick to double click every attachment (the UI elements for which I grab position and size).
Doing that open pictures in Preview
it open scripts in our current editor .
so that we may save them as we want.
It’s awful but at least it would do the job.
It seems that it would be a good idea to file a bug report to Apple engineers.
After all, they corrected the bug forcing us to use close access (open for access thisFile) when driving many applications, maybe they would be fair enough to kill one striking upon an Apple one.

Yvan KOENIG running Sierra 10.12.4 in French (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 30 mars 2017 17:14:08

JMichaelTX on the Evernote forum (https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64814-apple-notes-app/?page=2#comment-461374), and I, are wondering about why this is a bug in Sierra, yet we are getting the same behaviour in El Capitan which we are both running?

We don’t seem to be able to get Apple Notes to export and save the attachments at all, can we?

As I wrote, it’s my fault.
i thought that the inability to save the attachment was the problem which stroke upon Mail, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Word, Excel.
I was wrong. With Notes we are facing a different problem.
You wrote that it strikes under El Capitan. Thanks, I learnt something.
It would be interesting to know if it already stroke before.
As I have both installed I will test under 10.10 (Yosemite) and 10.9 (Mavericks).

I’m back.
I was able to save attachments under 10.9.5 and 10.10.5.
I tried under 10.11.6 with the folder on the desktop and with the folder in Containers:com.apple.notes.
In both cases it failed.

It would be fine that one of you, real Notes user, send a bug report to Apple.

I sent one registered as #31398740:

[i]Summary:
When we use 10.11 or 10.12 we can’t save Notes attachments thru AppleScript (worked under 10.9 and 10.10)

Steps to Reproduce:
open the attached script
execute it

Expected Results:
it was supposed to save the attachments in a folder desktop/Attachments from Notes

Actual Results:
the folder is created with its internal hierarchy but the attachments aren’t saved. No error message issued

Version:
I tested under 10.11.6 and 10.11.4 on my iMac 2012

Notes:
At first look the problem resembled to one reported under 10.12 for :
TextEdit, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Word, Excel, Mail and was killed in 10.12.4.
Notes odd behavior is a different problem.

Configuration:
Several users reported the problem running 10.11 or/and 10.12 on different machines.
I tested under 10.11.6 and 10.11.4 on my iMac 2012[/i]

Yvan KOENIG running Sierra 10.12.4 in French (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 3 avril 2017 09:52:39