Evernote's getting tough as it tests limiting non-paying users to just 50 notes

Evernote has long been a popular note-taking app among those who like to keep everything on their computer, but its free tier appears to be in danger. Parent company Bending Spoons has been trying to find ways to generate more income for a while now, and it's been on something of a cost-cutting exercise of late. Now, in an attempt to move people from its free tier towards a paid-for one, Evernote is starting to get serious.

Currently, Evernote allows people to have a free account with limitations that include notes being a maximum of 25MB and a monthly cap on uploads. Those who want more flexibility can of course pay to save bigger notes and upload more data. And now Evernote is testing a new limitation that could force people to start paying.

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TechCrunch reports that some people have started to see in-app language that says they are now limited to just a single notebook and a total of 50 notes until they pay for more. Evernote says that it's still finalizing things and is currently rolling the limit out to less than 1% of its users, but it seems like only a matter of time before this change is rolled out to all free-tier users.

Thankfully, Evernote says that those who have more than one notebook or more than 50 notes will still be able to access all of their data even if they are part of this trial, but they won't be able to create any additional ones. Given the way the Evernote user base is already concerned about how much it costs and the way it has been run it will be interesting to see how this move is received - and how many will jump ship to alternatives like Microsoft's One Note or Apple's Notes.