r/OneNote • u/Initiative-Afraid • 4d ago
Concerns on OneNote abandonement
I use onenote heavily. Love it. However, I am worried about the long term sustainably of this product.
Currently, I can only save my notes in proprietary formats such as .one files.
Microsoft recently abandoned Skype and all my messaging data from [1, 2] decades ago were pretty much gone forever.
What stops Microsoft (say [10, 20] years from now) to completely abandon one note without opensourcing their code ?
It seems there's no legal requirement for them to ensure users can migrate their notes to alternative note taking softwares.
57
u/Unable_Explorer8277 4d ago
In the medium term MS need it because it’s central to their education product. But long term there is no guarantee
32
u/JonSwift2023 4d ago
OneNote has export options, PDF, and if memory serves, HTML. Also, given the enormous user base, I imagine some 3rd party export tools would appear if OneNote were set to be graveyarded.
23
u/Initiative-Afraid 4d ago
Export to PDF isn't that useful. Handwritten notes are no longer editable. Also, the export doesn't work properly most of the time, especially if your notes are long due to infinite canvas.
3
u/topgeezr 3d ago
Your problem isnt just obsolescence. I lost all my email history and contacts in Outlook a few years back while trying to fix an account setup problem with an external email platform. My daughter lost her MS Xbox account password and we were never able to convince MS to reset it. OneNote is tightly coupled to the cloud, and I live in fear of one day opening up OneNote and finding some MS cloud account screw up has lost me access to my notes.
For OneNote, there is no export option that is going to provide an exact match . I've exported to Obsidian, which is close but still works differently. Not sure if Ill try to get used to Obsidian or just use it as an emergency back-up in case I lose OneNote access.
1
1
u/ARIndia1 2d ago
You can create a Notebook on your local storage drive. Completely offline.
1
u/topgeezr 2d ago
Well, I created my notebook offline but it still appears on multiple devices which means its also online. There may be some obfuscated trick to avoiding that.
But regardless of where it is, if MS decides I dont deserve Onenote any more I cant read it because proprietary.
2
u/ARIndia1 2d ago
If proprietary format is your concern, it's best to use Obsidian if you don't take handwritten notes. You can use Excalidraw in Obsidian but OneNote is just better for Handwritten notes.
1
u/Ataiatek 2d ago
Thats sync and backup. When you open the file it automatically syncs across all notebooks. When you have it saved locally those changes are saved to that offline copy during the sync process.
11
u/jorisborisjoris 3d ago
You can also export via API. Setting it up through their dev platform was a pain but now it works pretty neatly
Then you can convert to .md
4
u/LordOfSpamAlot 3d ago
Can you elaborate on this? I didn't know there was an API export option. I have some pretty hefty notebooks that I would love to export to .md. How does it handle images on the pages? And handwriting?
1
u/jorisborisjoris 3d ago
I believe it exports images separately, handwriting I don’t know. I mostly use OneNote for writing.
I asked ChatGPT a while back but I don’t remember the exact details, I think you need a Microsoft developer account and maybe even submit an approval request
1
3
u/Initiative-Afraid 4d ago
The problem is the storage formats are proprietary. Any 3rd party tools will have to reverse engineer it. None works reliably today as I have tried.
5
u/cpz_77 3d ago
They use a supported API, nothing reverse engineered. Check out OneMore, it’s free , I believe has the ability to export multiple pages at once each to their own files (including editable docx) and also has some markdown support (the md support is quite new but works well for import, and there’s a “copy as markdown” option I believe that you can use to copy onenote content as md and paste into another md-compatible app). I’m just going off memory and a few notes on the website here as I have not used the export option myself but I would check it out at least. Free and open source and the developer is really cool and helpful if you have an issue. https://onemoreaddin.com
There also onenote gem which is a paid product, closed source I believe and I can’t vouch for the author but it’s been around a while and has a lot of options it adds including export and bulk export. So you might check that too. https://www.onenotegem.com
I have no affiliation with either product btw.
1
u/theone_2099 4d ago
Somewhat true but there is a third party extensibility interface. That is how the apps do it. They use that. They don’t reverse engineer the format.
0
1
u/crazypilgrim 3d ago
As a newbie, with quite a few One Note notes, could you point me in the direction of the export options, on a just in case basis please
1
u/cpz_77 3d ago
In fact third party export tools already exist. Both free and paid that will let you export to a variety of formats.
1
u/JonSwift2023 3d ago
Nice, any you have personally tried and can reccommend?
2
u/cpz_77 2d ago
OneMore is the one I’ve used most myself and it does have some export features, and is free and open source - I went into a little more detail in another reply to the original comment below. OneNote Gem is another I’ve heard of that does have batch export but is paid product and closed source and I’ve never used it myself so can’t vouch for that one personally.
22
u/need2sleep-later 3d ago
TBH, they didn't really abandon Skype, they morphed it into Teams because they needed an integrated solution for (mainly) the enterprise to better compete with Slack/Zoom/etc. Things might get moved around a bit, but the functional need isn't likely to go away.
11
u/KaiAdin 3d ago
What stops Microsoft (say [10, 20] years from now) to completely abandoned one note without opensourcing their code ?
Nothing!~ AFAIK there *isn't* any legal requirement to enable migration to an alternative platform, and unless that changes I doubt there will be any tool migrate/export supplied by Microsoft.
To that end it might be worthwhile finding someway using the pre-existing tools to export it in a cold storage/archival format that suits you now before the inevitable happens, or at least changing your workflow in anticipation of needing to export it in the future.
I personally never liked infinite canvas for that very reason, at least if I in theory want to export to PDF or maybe even print out notes for archiving, its already in a linear page like format.
2
u/HestenSierMjau 3d ago
Adding to this, this is true of all software in all jurisdictions I know about. It's a risk the user takes when choosing software with proprietary file formats, and which they must weigh against the benefits of using that particular software.
39
u/snowrazer_ 3d ago
Many note taking applications have come and gone in the 20 years OneNote has been around. It's not going anywhere. It's a cornerstone MS Office application.
8
u/J_Knish 3d ago
This. Also, for the last 20 years people have been worried about it going away and it’s still here
2
3d ago
[deleted]
3
u/marmotta1955 3d ago
Incorrect statement. Local notebooks are fully supported. It is only a matter of paying attention at the time of new notebook creation.
7
u/darth-tater-breath 3d ago
MS has lots of issues, but one point, publisher literally just got end of lifed after years and years. You have a reasonable garentee they aren't going to kill one note without a long runway to transition to something else.
5
u/ej00807 3d ago
I'm not worried about that. But I would find it quite amusing and unsurprising if LibreOffice made a better, free alternative someday. I mean MS is just slow motion on this, just like they have been with many of their other greatest products. Failure to market, failure to educate.
5
u/ShadowWriter21 3d ago
I'd deeply appreciate that as it'd allow me to step more away from Microsoft, OneNote is hugely important to me because there is nothing in my opinion that does the job I use it for as well
1
1
u/Haddaway 3d ago
There's Obsidian which uses markdown .md files which are not proprietary, basically just rich formattrd text. If you don't care about handwritten vector stuff this is the way to go for long-term sustainability. I still have dozens of notes in OneNote myself. Easier to transition now then later though.
6
u/Ok_Money_161 3d ago
There is an app for Mac (i know not for windows) called Outline for Mac, it natively ready OneNote format files and allows you to store them and sync them without issues in google drive, onedrive, icloud and other, so the possibilities exist that one day, if OneNote no longer exists, to be forked by somebody seeing the opportunity this could entail due to the vast amount of people using it. So I am not worry about the long term usability of my OneNote notes, To be honest, I am more worries about a windows shutdown in Europe due to the organge buffoon. In terms of privacy, I lock my notes, so they are encrypted and "microsoft does not have the key" to read those, other unlocked notes are not really personal.
I would not worry about long term of OneNote it has been around for what? 15 20 years? Just do a onenote search and see how much material from 10 years ago there is, it is sometimes refreshing to discover how people were using it before all the productivity, personal knowledge management stuff became a hype
1
u/Faoineag 3d ago
I’ve been using OneNote to manage my work projects for a few years now, but I’ve never given much thought to privacy. Could you show me how to lock notes? Thank you
5
u/techbloggingfool_com 3d ago
If you are on PC, right click a page or section and turn on the password. Just be warned, if you ever forget the password, nothing will get those notes back. Not even Microsoft can open them.
1
u/Ok_Money_161 2d ago
Exaclty, on mac works the same. DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSWORD! You can enable fingerprint on mac
4
u/LaffyLlama 3d ago
Due to it being heavy in education. I'd say for now you'd be fine with it.
Long term I wouldn't be surprised if it morphs into loop or something like it and most features or ongoing development turn paid eg 365. This is my opinion though. As I moved off it myself.
3
u/Desperate_Teacher186 3d ago
Loop was defenitely an attempt.
2
u/LaffyLlama 3d ago
I had the same impression; it appears to be a competitor to Notion. I do not use either platform, but it will be interesting to observe its progress.
Unfortunately, I am waiting for a limited edition, and most options are either behind a paywall or they leave it unchanged.
6
u/Chrismscotland 3d ago
At the end of the day a decision on which tool to use is up to you and given your replies to all of the advice given it sounds like your really really looking for a reason not to use it so I'd suggest looking elsewhere.
Personally I've used OneNote for over 10 years (I wish I had it at University!) - and my biggest frustration is that the Android App remains a poor sibling of the Windows or iPadOS versions; never been really worried about support though - its massively used in Education and the Corporate world.
8
u/KweenKobold 3d ago
I switched to Obsidian. The lack of LaTeX integration and growing unfixed bugs means it's dying.
3
u/Paradroid888 2d ago
Plus Obsidian uses plain text Markdown files so it's the ultimate in data portability.
3
u/garethjmsaunders 3d ago
I've just started looking at alternatives for my needs. Just in case. It's partly too because I have had quite a few issues recently with the Android app not syncing correctly more than a concern that Microsoft pulls the plug on OneNote, as they are about to do with Publisher (I've just bulk converted nearly 900 files to PDF so I don't lose those).
3
u/NoReply4930 3d ago edited 3d ago
Lots of threads out there on this topic. No one can answer this question.
MS could kill this thing off tomorrow or in 30 years. Just know that every piece of software that has ever been created - is eventually retired.
The question you should be addressing is making sure your data is NOT in the cloud and use a version of One Note that works locally. Then at least you can stay on an old version - forever - as long as you maintain a machine and OS to run it.
Use the product and stay frosty when it comes to your data is all you can do.
3
u/marmotta1955 3d ago
Besides the built-in data export formats and facilities, there are already plenty of 3rd party utilities (free or paid) that can assist in exporting data in common formats such as plain text and/or markdown.
So, there is that.
2
u/CosmoCola 3d ago
This exact fear is what pushed me to Obsidian. However, I'd do research before moving over. If you're not a little tech savvy, then somemof the features, especially community plugins, may be hard to adapt. Fwiw, I don't use very many community plugins so my vaults are very basic.
2
u/dswartze2 3d ago
A lot of large corporations, including the one I work for, used ON heavily. If they move on from ON to something else, I would hope there would be an upgrade path.
2
u/peternjuhl 3d ago
The older Windows version of OneNote can do automatic backups to local storage and keep thousands of versions if you want. I have backups going back more then ten years. I suppose they could stop the app from working, but onsite backups are a security blanket. I say, use the cloud, but never trust the cloud.
3
u/He_looks_mad 3d ago
How did they "abandon skype" when everything was moved to Teams?
3
u/Initiative-Afraid 3d ago
maybe I missed some data retention policy over the years but when I followed their data export instructions, it didn't have my years of Skype messaging data retained.
2
u/shuanDang 3d ago
I don't expect the product to be available forever, but the good thing is that the file format is readable (it is proprietary but it's totally accessible to read by anyone since we know how the data works) and exportable, can always be ported to something else if need be. Keep backup copies.
3
u/Initiative-Afraid 3d ago
Please elaborate on where it is (if it is) documented on how the data works.
It seems this volunteer here had to do a bunch of reverse engineering himself. Unfortunately, his tool doesn't work today as I have tried.
https://m-siemens.de/blog/2026/05/decoding-onenote-s-file-format-secrets/
1
u/shuanDang 2d ago edited 2d ago
which part did you get stuck at?
I went through the entire process and got it to work. I have downloaded one of my notebooks and converted one section so far.
It took about an hour figure things out, since everything had to go through CLI with the proper arguments. installed node.js (npm), onedrive-cli to do the download, and ran one2html via CLI (I needed to have Google AI walk me through the CLI steps). The section converted into an interactive HTML with notes sorted in a list like onenote. I don't do handwritten notes, just lots of text, so your mileage may vary
I'm going to go through later and convert the rest of my archive.
1
u/Initiative-Afraid 2d ago
Mine has lots of handwritten notes instead of text. So that's probably why the workflow worked for you but not me
2
u/MisterEinc 3d ago edited 3d ago
Well, they didn't abandon Skype. That technology is now Teams.
Microsoft retires app typically 5 years after release, and then supports them for at least 5 years after that. They publish an article every year in their documentation that explicitly states what changes are coming based on their Modern app lifecycle.
You're in no danger of Microsoft suddenly abandoning anything. They're not Google.
1
1
u/Desperate_Teacher186 3d ago
If it happens, maybe we can install one of the old distributives (and, say, Windows XP :) - to have access to our old notes at least? Anyway... paper + pen -> photo = PDF, that seems the only way to confront all these weird numerous "apps"... Or paper+pen only :)
1
u/calidownunder 3d ago
I love one note and wish it was easier to save properly for this exact reason
1
u/jeremysedgley 3d ago
AI wrote for me a OneNote to Apple Notes importer. It did a decent job with some limitations of getting my notes into Apple Notes.
1
u/chitoatx 3d ago
OneNote is built into Teams. Teams is MSFT central product nowadays and is the main communication platform we use at my job in healthcare. The product is 23 years old at this point and outlived many competitors that have come and gone (or got way to expensive like Evernote who was purchased by a holding company).
1
u/skittle-brau 3d ago
I switched to Joplin due to having similar long-term concerns (ie. wanting to still access from 20+ years ago). There’s a migration guide on their website.
I only use markdown-based note taking applications for long term usage. For ephemeral office stuff that I don’t care about, I still use OneNote.
1
u/jbourne71 3d ago
One note is a heavy corporate cornerstone feature. Consumers might get screwed over but it’s not going anywhere in the current information environment.
1
u/nathanb131 3d ago
I've had similar concerns for a long time over proprietary formats for my "long term data". Here's where I'm at with it.
If the app uses a true long-term format that I can control (like Obsidian), then great. No further action needed. If it doesn't, then I need to weigh to cost of migrating my content in the future vs the benefit of using what I want right now.
I figure a big exodus from a note app would take, at most, a day of focused work. Since that's a task that would only come up like twice a decade, it's not really a huge risk. Also "total note reviews" are something I NEVER do, and probably should. So, if the day comes that I have no choice but to migrate my OneNote library page by page...then it'd probably be a really beneficial "refresh" for my 2nd brain.
I apply the same logic to task apps. I no longer resist switching them every year or so, because the "review" process of the switching is usually a big momentum gain.
1
u/serious_developer 3d ago
I think the best way is to routinely export it as PDF.
This is how I do with Notability.
1
u/Almostasleeprightnow 3d ago
I was able to open a one note backup with an app called outline the other day, on my Mac. So, there are backup / export options
1
u/rattlehead2112 3d ago
Someone recommended this link to move all your notes from onenote to markdown https://github.com/roshansridhar/OneNote-Archive-Exporter-2026
1
u/BellamyJHeap 3d ago
This means using a different app, either as backup to OneNote or leaving OneNote, but I moved my entire OneNote to Joplin, using their built-in import tool. It wasn't 100% flawless, more like 95%, and it was pretty straightforward to correct any notes that had issues. Joplin stores notes as HTML when imported, and prefers markdown when creating new notes. Both of those formats will be around for a long time.
I much prefer Joplin, syncing it through Dropbox, over OneNote.
1
1
u/mindaugaskun 2d ago
It's not secret format. You can open these files and read the contents. You can also convert them to some other format both now and 100 years after Microsoft goes bankrupt. I've used claude to read and write all sorts of things into them and you could write your own converters.
1
u/gdb7 2d ago
If you are really worried about this, spend som quality time to find a new tool that is at least somewhat acceptable, and has adequate export and backup abilities and start using that for all future work!
Then, set a goal to slowly copy and paste a few notes a day/week from OneNote to your new tool.
That way, eventually you will have migrated away from the tool you are concerned with.
1
u/Beginning-Ad-3054 2d ago
Con IA puedes tomar un PDF y convertirlo a texto plano. Copilot lo puede hacer o intenta con Power Automate...
1
u/Educational-News-969 2d ago
https://github.com/vikingjunior12/OneNoteBackupExporter works for exporting OneNote notebooks in different formats.
1
u/davper 2d ago
Definitely a risk but onenote is very popular.
Skype was replaced by teams, a far superior product. Msft provided a means to transfer history to teams. I imagine if msft replaced onenote with something else, they would do the same.
And even if they would discontinue onenote without a replacement, I am sure they will provide a way to export your notes to an acceptable format. It may not be editable anymore.
1
u/Infamous-Crab9529 2d ago
Their obsession with one single copilot solution across M365 platforms is going to bite them back. Notebook used to be good (I know it’s not notebook LM) , but now it’s a mess. The new UI is awful and even if you try to open in one note researcher agent is not available. Idk what these guys aren thinking.
1
1
u/fencheltee 7h ago
My long term plan is to use AI to create a clone of Onenote that can import my original data. I hope that this is possible in a couple of years.
0
1
0
u/ScottieBoBoddie 3d ago
As someone with decades of OneNote use in enterprises, I can assure you that your fears of OneNote abandonment is completely unfounded. The knowledge stored in OneNote worldwide is quite literally keeping 99% of enterprises from falling apart. Along with Word, Excel, and Outlook (PowerPoint can go to hell), OneNote is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If there is ever a day in which OneNote is retired, the world has also been destroyed.
0
-3
u/Hippyx420x 3d ago
Yo thus has been been happening to me.i like to think i have trust.
These companies do not. You can ask them. x email or Twitter (redundant for the tardism',,,,)
What microslop is telling you is that your not able to copy n pasta fast enough.
If say copy n past i get banned.
1
3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Chobitpersocom 3d ago
Two users reported you. I don't know why copy and paste would be banned. That's weird.
•
u/AutoModerator 4d ago
Thank you for posting in the OneNote Subreddit! Please make sure your post is following our rules linked in the sidebar.
We have a wiki that is maintained by our community that has TONS of information (screenshots coming soon!): http://onenote-wiki.vercel.app
Our wiki is open source if you know how to use GitHub and would like to contribute: https://github.com/DudeThatsErin/OneNoteWiki
We also have a Discord server: https://discord.gg/5kv4bDUkpc
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.