I’ve just purchased the course and watched the first few pills. They are quite well produced and have to say that David’s voice, though not melodious, has a nice cadence to it, the videos are a pleasure to watch.
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Can I ask what may be a dumb question.
I am trying to go paperless and want to scan in my old documents (bank statements, utility bills, tax records, etc). Previously I was using Evernote as my document capture but I dont want this information in Evernote as its on their cloud servers.
I see that in the DT field guide, David suggests that for most things using an unencrypted database is fine, this makes sense as I have FileVault turned on on my Mac. However, I also have Backblaze running to back up my machine to the cloud. If I scan my financial documents into an unencrypted DT database, will I be at risk of this data getting exposed if Backblaze has a data breech?
How do other DT users handle the storage of sensitive documents?
Backblaze is encrypted both in-transit and at-rest:
I like Backblaze - it is straightforward to set up and priced well - but its not fully encrypted both ways. If you need to restore - Backblaze decrypts on its servers and then transfers this data (along an encrypted connection). This is different c/w Crashplan which always sends the encrypted data back to the client during a restore and then expects the client to do the decryption.
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Interesting.
I assume I will initiate the decryption by using my key and the decrypted files will be deleted after successful transfer as they remain available within the encrypted backup?
thank you for the advice. So is the consensus that I should not encrypt my database and now worry about it backing up to Backblaze?
I’m getting huge value out of this new guide, in part because it’s inspired me to work on the peanut-butter-and-chocolate goodness (as @MacSparky would say) of mixing DEVONthink and Obsidian. I’ve indexed my main Obsidian vault in DT3, and I can do lots of resorting of files via DT3, largely because I’ve really come around to using folders in Obsidian. Only thing to keep in mind is that I need to do this with Obsidan open (including emptying the trash), otherwise my Obsidian Sync overwrites my changes when I start up Obsidian. But with both open, it works great.
Don’t think you have to worry about backing up to Backblaze.
In a normal backup scenario on Backblaze, there is encryption in place so no worries. Only when you have to restore files on Backblaze decryption takes place on the Backblaze servers (using your encryption key to access the files). If you download the restored files they will transfer over an encrypted connection to you.
Doesn’t hurt to ask Backblaze support what happens to successfully transferred restored files? Are they deleted (as a version is already available within the encrypted backup) or kept on the server. Hopefully someone on this forum has the answer, otherwise let us all know what you find out from Backblaze.
Holy crap, I’m learning so much… I’m three videos in on the Automation part, and my brain exploded on the “Group similar items” part.
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I paid yesterday, watched the Gabe Weatherhead, Drafts, and Obsidian videos, and am looking forward to watching the rest. I am enjoying the video very much and am glad to have enrolled.
The more I go through the Devonthink Field Guide, the more I also return to other Field Guides to x-reference or connect the dots.
It’s time for @MacSparky to think about doing a:
SparkyOS Field Guide. “the paperless and low code integration between human brain, productivity and automation tools using Markdown as the secret sauce”
Is it just me, or does syncing with DTTG with CloudKit NEVER work right? It’s slow, uncertain, and keeps losing files!
How can I just keep a single database in iCloud Drive and use that with DTTG?
Apple’s CloudKit is (as you can see here Developers Unhappy With Bug Causing iCloud Unreliability - MacRumors and elsewhere) has its issues.
If you must sync, sync with something else.
Then there is: Apple Tells Developers iCloud Sync Bug is Fixed.
As someone who started seeing this problem after installing iOS 15 last fall I have to wonder how Apple was now able to fix it so quickly and why it took so many developers publicly complaining to make it happen. That’s assuming that they did fix it. The timing of the post from @Shruggie suggests not.
It’s also quite unfortunate that Apple chose to bury earlier complaints instead of, you know, actually doing something about the reliability of such a key service.
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I have seen several 503 errores in DT log from time to time, but they were not prevalent.
Do you have iCloud Drive folders indexed into DT? That’s not recommended by the guys at DEVON Tech and I can confirm is a weak setup, but it’s not due to CloudKit but the way iCloud Drive file syncing works.
It not only is not recommended, but DEVONthink will not open a DEVONthink data that is stored on a cloud server.
Assuming you can get Apple CloudKit to work, setup a sync store on Apple CloudKit on your Mac. Once fully synced, on DEVONthink ToGo, point to that sync store.
FYI, Bonjour is the quickest and most reliable of the sync methods DEVONthink provides. Requires being on same network, of course. In addition consider using something other than Apple CloudKit if you want to minimise problems. Maybe Apple has fixed their service, but I don’t know.
Yeah, I thought so. iCloud Drive is untrustworthy for everything but archiving.
That is how I use Devonthink - the problem is that every time I open DTTG it spends 5+ minutes syncing and indexing.
I still use Dropbox for files I genuinely need to be synced everywhere, but with Devonthink, that won’t work with DTTG anyway.
I wish DevonThink and iCloud would work happily together and solve the problem.
Of course, DevonThink could solve the problem by supplying their own sync system and charging a premium subscription like Oblivion or 1Password. They’d have my money if it worked as well as those two.
When I think about it, they should add cooperative functionality as well - shared databases would be an excellent addition if they’re going to be tackling diff/merge anyway.
Just to clarify, you are saying DEVONthink DeskTop ToGo does not work with Dropbox? Not my experience.
On the DEVONthink forum DEVONtechnologies has explained their reservations for going with their own sync system. I’m not suggesting they won’t ever do it, but there are technical and financial barriers to do so. There are third party on-the-internet methods that do work reliably, and you can use WebDav on your on NAS if you like.
I use Bonjour most the time and when “out and about” Dropbox kicks and does the job.
Never tried Dropbox - I don’t have enough space on the free plan.