Tags Not Imported Despite Being Present in .enex File

[powyncify]

System Information:

• YARLE Version: 6.16.0
• Node.js Version: v22.17.0
• Operating System: Windows 11

Problem Description:
When running a conversion, YARLE fails to import any tags from the .enex file, even though the tags are clearly present in the source XML. This happens when using both the front matter (Properties) and inline hashtag methods. All other metadata (created date, updated date, source URL) is imported correctly.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Use the final-config.json file provided below.
2. Use an .enex file containing a note with valid <tag> elements (example provided below).
3. Run the conversion via the command line: npx -p yarle-evernote-to-md@latest yarle --configFile ./final-config.json

final-config.json

4. Observe that the resulting .md file contains all metadata except for the tags.

---

1. Configuration File (final-config.json)

This configuration successfully imports all metadata except tags.

{
  "enexSources": [
    "C:\\Path\\To\\Your\\Evernote Export.enex"
  ],
  "outputDir": "C:\\Path\\To\\Your\\Output",
  "isMetadataNeeded": true,
  "isNotebookNameNeeded": false,
  "isZettelkastenNeeded": false,
  "useZettelIdAsFilename": false,
  "plainTextNotesOnly": false,
  "skipWebClips": false,
  "useHashTags": false,
  "outputFormat": "ObsidianMD",
  "taskOutputFormat": "ObsidianMD",
  "currentTemplate": "---\n{created-at-block}created: {created-at}{end-created-at-block}\n{updated-at-block}updated: {updated-at}{end-updated-at-block}\n{tags-block}\ntags:\n{tag-list}\n{end-tags-block}\n{source-url-block}source-url: \"{source-url}\"{end-source-url-block}\n{location-block}location: {location}{end-location-block}\n---\n{title-block}\n# {title}{end-title-block}\n\n{content-block}{content}{end-content-block}"
}

---

2. Example Note from .enex Source File

The following screenshot shows that the tags <tag>Research</tag> and <tag>Teaching</tag> are correctly formatted and present in the source file for the note.

---

3. Actual (Incorrect) Output

The final markdown file is missing the tags property entirely.

---
created: 2024-02-26
updated: 2025-06-28
source-url: "https://chat.lmsys.org/"
---

# Compare performance of LLM: Chat with Open Large Language Models

Chatbot Arena: Benchmarking LLMs in the Wild

---

Troubleshooting Summary:

We have confirmed that this is not a user error or a problem with the source .enex file. We have exhaustively tested:

• Using both the YARLE GUI and CLI.
• Fixing file encoding issues (UTF-8 with no BOM).
• Verifying the enexSources path and re-exporting notes from Evernote.
• Testing different template variables ({tags} and {tag-list}).
• Testing the inline hashtag feature ("useHashTags": true).

In all CLI tests with a valid configuration and source file, YARLE fails to recognize or render the tag data.

[github-actions]

Yihaa, thank you for reporting me this issue and to let me improve Yarle!

[sbliven]

I came here because tags were also not showing up for me. I noticed that the final_config.json you attached doesn't contain the same template that you pasted in. Instead it uses (with no tag block):

---
{created-at-block}created: {created-at}{end-created-at-block}
{updated-at-block}updated: {updated-at}{end-updated-at-block}
{source-url-block}source-url: "{source-url}"{end-source-url-block}
{location-block}location: {location}{end-location-block}
---
{title-block}
# {title}{end-title-block}

{content-block}{content}{end-content-block}

Are you sure you're using the right template?

---

BTW, I eventually solved my issue. Yarle is very strict about the template strings. It requires that the strings {tags-block}, {tags}, and {end-tags-block} all be contained exactly that way in the template. I had a space next to one brace, and this caused tags to be skipped entirely. User error, but frustrating to debug. A hint that something similar might be happening is if the skipTags is reported as true in the conversion log.