# An Evernote alternative for iPhone

Canonical page: https://reteum.com/evernote-alternative

Evernote taught a generation to "remember everything". Reteum keeps that promise for the iPhone, without notebooks to manage, an account to make or a server that holds your notes.

## Why people look for an Evernote alternative

Evernote is a capable, cross-platform notes service, with notebooks, tags, a web clipper and search inside images and PDFs. Many long-time users have moved on as plans and limits changed, or simply because years of notes became a pile that is hard to look through. If most of your notes start on your phone, a lighter tool can serve you better.

## What Reteum does differently

- **One box, no notebooks.** Type a line, speak, or add photos, videos, links and PDFs. Nothing to file or tag.
- **Search by meaning.** An AI model on your iPhone finds a note from half a memory: "Seattle last month", "the lease", "nervous before speaking". The words inside PDFs count, and photos and videos are found by what they show.
- **Sorted for you.** The Atlas groups everything into subjects on its own and links the notes that belong together.
- **Old notes come back.** Up to three older notes return each time you open the app. Keep the ones that matter and clear the rest, so the pile never grows out of hand.
- **Private.** No account and no Reteum server. The AI runs on the phone, and iCloud sync, if you turn it on, is end-to-end encrypted so only your devices can read it.
- **Portable.** Export everything as one zip file with a Markdown copy you can open anywhere.

## When to stay with Evernote

If you need notes on Windows, Android or the web, share notebooks with a team, or clip whole web pages for reading, Evernote does those things and Reteum does not. Reteum is for iPhone, and it is built for catching things quickly and finding them again.

## Price

Reteum is $24.99 a year after a 7-day free trial, sold and managed by Apple. Without a subscription you can still read your notes, open the Atlas and export. See also [a second brain that organizes itself](https://reteum.com/second-brain.md) and [what to do about too many notes](https://reteum.com/too-many-notes.md).

_Compared in October 2026. Evernote is a trademark of its owner. Reteum is not affiliated with Evernote._