Import notes — bring your knowledge home, in sixty seconds.
Drop a Notion ZIP, an Obsidian vault, an Evernote ENEX, or any folder of Markdown. Knovya rebuilds the structure — folders, links, blocks, metadata — and tells you, honestly, what didn't make it across. Five sources, three fidelity tiers, an honest report at the door. Browse the 26 elements Knovya composes from, see Free + Pro on the pricing page, or close the loop with Export — round-trippable, end-to-end.
Pick a source. See the structure travel.
Four real-shaped exports. The same workspace, reborn in Knovya — folder by folder, link by link, with every translation accounted for.
- Q3 OKRs
- Roadmap.md
- Decisions.md
- Goals (database).csv
- Hiring
- Loop guide.md
- Rubric.md
- Investor sync — Mar 14.md
- Imports / Notion / May 04
- Q3 OKRs
- Roadmap
- Decisions
- Goals (rows preserved)
- Hiring
- Loop guide
- Rubric
- Investor sync — Mar 14
Preserved cleanly Folders · headings · paragraphs · code blocks · attachments
Mapped best-effort Internal links · tags · template structures
Flagged as lossy Notion database views · embedded callouts → plain blocks with metadata kept
Free imports up to 50 notes — full fidelity, every tier. Pro removes the ceiling and unlocks bulk-API migration → See Pro
Three tiers, every translation accounted for.
Most importers stay quiet about what they drop. Knovya runs every import through three fidelity tiers — and shows you the report.
Tier I
6 signals Preserved cleanly
01
Folder hierarchy Up to three levels of nested folders transfer one-for-one. Matching Knovya's structural depth means a Notion page tree or an Obsidian directory looks the same on the other side.
02
Headings, paragraphs, lists The plain bones of any note. Every Markdown heading level, every numbered or bulleted list, every paragraph break — preserved without translation loss.
03
Code blocks & fenced syntax Triple-backtick code blocks carry their language hints into Knovya's syntax-highlighted code blocks. Inline code stays inline.
04
Image & file attachments Every embedded image, PDF, or attached file in the export bundle is uploaded into Knovya's attachment store. References inside the note are rewritten to point at the new locations.
05
Created & edited timestamps When the source format records dates — and most do — Knovya keeps them. A note authored four years ago lands with that history intact, not with today's date stamped on top.
06
Title & basic metadata Note titles, author attribution, and any standard metadata fields the source records — all preserved without interpretation.
Tier II
5 signals Mapped best-effort
07
Internal links & wikilinks Obsidian
[[wikilinks]] become Knovya block references. Notion page links resolve when the target is in the same import bundle. Markdown links stay literal until their targets land — then they wire up automatically. 08
Tags & tag hierarchies Flat tag lists transfer. Nested tag trees (Obsidian's
work/project/sprint) flatten into Knovya's tag list, with the original path preserved as a single composite tag — searchable, never lost. 09
YAML frontmatter & properties Markdown frontmatter and Notion page properties map onto Knovya's metadata system where the keys overlap (status, priority, type). Unknown keys are kept verbatim under a
source namespace. 10
Templates Notion templates and Obsidian template-plugin scaffolds become candidate Knovya templates after import. Knovya offers to register them in your personal library — your familiar structures, available again at the slash menu.
11
Callouts, toggles, embeds Notion's callouts and toggle blocks map onto Knovya's equivalent block types. Where the source format uses Markdown extensions Knovya does not natively render, the content lands as a callout with the original block type recorded as a label.
Tier III
5 signals Flagged as lossy
12
Notion database views Notion exports databases as flat CSV — the Kanban, calendar, and gallery views are the app's runtime, not the export. Knovya imports the underlying rows as plain pages with their properties preserved as metadata. The view, you rebuild.
13
Evernote tag hierarchies & note links Evernote's ENEX format flattens its own notebook structure on export. Hierarchical tags collapse into a flat list, internal note-to-note links break because they depend on Evernote's runtime IDs. Knovya flags every dropped link in the migration report.
14
Source-side version history Notion, Obsidian, and Evernote do not include their own version history in the export. Knovya cannot resurrect what the source never gave up. Every imported note starts a fresh version chain at import — but Knovya tracks edits from that moment forward.
15
Source-side encryption Encrypted notes from the source app remain encrypted blobs after import — Knovya cannot transparently re-encrypt under your account's keys without seeing them. The migration report identifies these notes by file; you decrypt at the source, re-import the cleartext, then re-encrypt in Knovya.
16
App-runtime ephemera Comment threads, presence cursors, view-state, and other runtime artifacts live inside the source app's database — not its export. What was never written to disk cannot be imported. The fidelity report names what's missing, never silently.
Migration is the silent tax of every tool switch —
and most apps charge it without telling you.
Every modern note app promises you can leave. Few make it true. Notion exports your databases as flat CSV — the views, the formulas, the runtime gone. Evernote's ENEX format predates Markdown and flattens its own notebook structure on export. Obsidian's vault is plain text, which sounds clean until you realize the canvas, the templates, and the plugin state stay behind.
The cost lands on the user — a weekend of manual cleanup, a half-finished migration, a quiet decision to stay locked in. The exit becomes the wall.
- The cost
- Switching cost is real money. Bending Spoons raised Evernote's Personal subscription to over ten euros a month and capped the free tier at fifty notes — a textbook lock-in tightening when leaving feels expensive.
- The fix
- An importer that reads what the export gives, uses every signal it can — and tells you, plainly, what didn't come across.
From file format wars to portability as a right.
Knovya's importer is the latest answer to a question every generation of software has had to ask: who owns the data, and how do they take it with them?
- 1990sThe file format wars Word .doc, RTF, ASCII, WordPerfect — every editor wanted to own the format. Interop was a business decision, not a default. The era taught users to mistrust closed formats. Document software · industrial era
- 2008Dropbox — “your data follows you” Consumer cloud storage launched the idea that data lives independently of any one device. The portability promise moved out of operating-system tooling and into the daily expectation of every user. Dropbox · consumer cloud
- 2018GDPR Article 20 — Right to Data Portability 25 May 2018: portability stopped being a feature and became a legal right. Personal data must be exportable in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. The export door, written into law. European Union · regulation
- 2024Community converters era Notion-to-Obsidian. Evernote-to-Joplin. Roam-to-Logseq. When vendors hesitated, users built the bridges themselves — proof that the demand for honest migration was always there, waiting for the tooling to catch up. Open source · user-built
- 2026Knovya Importer Five sources, three fidelity tiers, an honest report. Migration as a first-class product surface — not a help-doc step buried under a pricing page. And every imported workspace stays exportable, end-to-end, the moment it lands. ★ Knovya · production
First of its kind
Every app has an importer. Few are honest.
Most importers strip what they cannot render and stay quiet about it. Knovya is the first to read five major sources, label every translation across three fidelity tiers, and hand you the migration report at the door — including what didn't make it.
- Notion imports from Evernote, only
- Obsidian manual file copy · no converter
- Evernote no inbound import
- OneNote no programmatic export to import from
- Apple Notes email yourself, one note at a time
- Roam JSON · only-Roam reads it
- ★ Knovya 5 sources · 3 fidelity tiers · honest report
Four moments of moving in.
From the drop to the audit trail — every step has a single surface, designed to keep you informed without making you wait.
Drop a ZIP, a folder, or an ENEX. Knovya recognizes the shape — Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, or generic Markdown — and previews what it will do before any write happens.
Drop your export here
or paste a folder path
Notion export detected — 47 pages · 8 attachments
Files become navigable as they land — you do not wait for the whole bundle. Extract, parse, map, write, link: each stage shows its own progress and its own log.
Extracted 47 files
Parsed Markdown 47 / 47
Mapping blocks 31 / 47
Writing queued
Resolving links queued
When the import lands, the fidelity summary opens — preserved, mapped, flagged — with every translation traceable to a source file. No silent drops.
Preserved 39 notes · 132 links · 8 files
Mapped 5 templates · 12 nested tags
Flagged 3 database views · see notes
Every imported note carries a tag of its source and import date. Long after migration day, you can still surface, review, or roll back the entire batch — selectable as one set.
Q3 OKRs — draft v3 imports/notion/may-04
Hiring philosophy — north star imports/notion/may-04
RAG vs MCP decision imports/notion/may-04
Investor sync — Mar 14 imports/notion/may-04
Import composes with the rest of Group III.
23
Export
The mirror of Import. What comes in goes back out — round-trip,
lossless within Knovya's own format.
21
Templates
Notion templates and Obsidian scaffolds become Knovya templates
after import — your familiar structures, available again.
25
Version History
Imported notes start a fresh version chain at landing. Edit
history begins from the moment Import wrote the file.
22
Share
Knowledge that arrived through Import becomes shareable on day
one — public links, per-page SEO, expiry windows.
A few honest answers.
What can I import from?
Notion ZIP exports, Obsidian vaults, Evernote ENEX files, any folder of Markdown, HTML files, and JSON. Roam, Logseq, Bear, and Apple Notes route through their Markdown export. Knovya reads what these tools produce — you do not need a separate converter.
Will my folder structure be preserved?
Yes. Knovya rebuilds folder hierarchies up to three levels deep. Folders that match Knovya's depth limit transfer cleanly. Deeper nesting is flattened with the original path preserved as a tag, so nothing is lost — just translated.
Will my links work after import?
Internal links transfer. Obsidian wikilinks become Knovya block references. Notion page links become inline mentions. Markdown links stay as written. Where the target file lives in the same import bundle, the link resolves automatically. Where it does not, the link is preserved as text and listed in the migration report so you can decide what to do.
What happens to features Knovya does not have?
Knovya tells you. Every import generates a fidelity report — three sections: preserved cleanly, mapped best-effort, flagged as lossy. Notion database views become plain pages with metadata kept. Evernote tag hierarchies flatten to a tag list. Custom blocks fall back to text with the original block type recorded. Honesty over magic.
How long does importing take?
Most workspaces complete in under a minute. Larger ZIP archives stream as they upload — files become navigable as they land, you do not wait for the whole bundle. Very large bundles split automatically and resume on reconnect.
Can I import my templates?
Yes. Notion templates and Obsidian template plugins both produce Markdown that Knovya recognizes. After import, Knovya offers to register them as personal Knovya templates, so the structures you already use carry forward into new notes.
Can I undo an import?
Yes. Every import lands in a single dedicated folder by default — Imports / [Source] / [date]. Reviewing, organizing, or deleting the entire batch is one operation. Notes from the same import bundle share a metadata tag, so they remain selectable later even after you have moved them around.
Is there an API for bulk migration?
Yes, on Pro. Knovya's MCP server exposes an import endpoint that accepts Markdown, HTML, JSON, and ZIP. Agents like Claude or Cursor can drive a migration programmatically — useful when moving thousands of notes across multiple workspaces, or when scripting recurring exports from another tool. Round-trip with Export closes the loop end-to-end.
Bring your knowledge home — in sixty seconds.
Knovya Free imports up to 50 notes — full fidelity, every tier. Pro removes the ceiling and unlocks bulk-API migration through MCP.
Im · element 24 · Group III — Editor