API Key Permissions

Determining the correct level of access needed by your application


When you request a new Evernote API key, you choose the access permissions that your application will need:

  • Basic access - for apps that create new content in Evernote, but do not read or update existing content
  • Full access - for apps that create, read and update notes, notebooks, and tags
  • App Notebook - for apps that create, read and update notes, notebooks and tags in a single notebook

The table below summarizes the operations that your API key will be granted when you choose one of the two permission types:

Access Permissions Basic access Full access
Create new notes
Create new notebooks
Create new tags
Read existing notebooks
Read existing tags
Read existing notes  
Update existing notes  
Update existing notebooks  
Update existing tags  
Create new shared notebooks  
Email notes    
App Notebooks: Single Notebook Authorization

App Notebook keys have the same permissions as a Full access key but are sandboxed to a single notebook chosen or created by the user upon authorization of your application. To learn more see our app notebook documentation.

If you request a full access or app notebook API key, you will need to justify the permissions when you request activation of your API key on our production service. If your application doesn't require permission to read existing notes or update existing notes, notebooks or tags, we will remove the unused permissions during the activation process and work with you to re-test your application.

Certain API functions are only available to official Evernote applications and services. These functions are described as such in the API Reference and will throw an EDAMUserException with the error code PERMISSION_DENIED if called by a third-party application. If you feel that your integration should be granted access to one or more of these reserved functions, contact Evernote Developer support.

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