Hi All,
I am trying to find the a good way of organizing documents by projects. I need to access multiple documents, most of which are live documents - so Box, Sprocket, and intranet. There are a few local documents. Is there an app that would allow me to add links/documents from various locations in one place. Fast search would be great. From my search so far, DevonThink seems to be the one. Eagle Filer is another. I need it mainly for Mac, iOS is good to have.
An example, I could be working on project A which has reports on Box (by week) and design documents on confluence/intranet. How can I create a library where I can search for A week 5 and get the reports for project A, week 5.
Devonthink, Eaglefiler, Keep It! and Notebooks fall into the general category of shoebox-apps, but you can also consider an app like Scrivener, or a service like Evernote or OneNote, or even Apple Notes.
DEVONthink is probably the most suitable (the Mac app) allows you to index files in place without importing them so you can manage things in DT without disturbing the file locations or running into duplicate copies and all the problems that can bring.
I tried Eaglefiler but could never quite work out what it provided over native filing and tagging.
Only downside DT does not show linked files in the iOS apps but that may change when it gets updated next.
+1 for DEVONthink. It’s a little austere but it’s a powerhouse, and allows for both importing files (putting them inside the database) and indexing (making their contents available to search without touching where they are).
If you are living in a pure Mac and iOS environment and you are willing to pay for Devonthink, it might be the way to go.
I am in a all-over-the-place-environment. All my data is living on my Synology NAS. I use the Synology apps on my iOS devices (very often through the native iOS files app).
On my Mac, I use HoudahSpot to look for stuff on my NAS.
I am very happy with this solution.
A long time ago, I was using Paperless by Mariner Software. It was ok, but I will never go back to an application that bundles my data into a database. I really like to have everything available directly via the file system. I am done with proprietary databases.
Finder does a tremendous job indexing data. Smart Folders are fantastic and Houdah Spot puts it to the next level.
I also use HoudahSpot extensively, but I’m consistently intrigued by FoxTrot Pro, which just came out at v.7 and is compatible with Big Sur. It looks to be more powerful than HoudahSpot, while offering Devonthink-like concordance results. But the price is a prohibitive $120.
Thanks for all the suggestions! For now, I decided to just use Keyboard Maestro and create palette for each project. I need to manually add in the links but it’s working.
I originally bought HoudahSpot 2 in 2010, then periodically spend $7 here and there for subsequent upgrades. All told I spent maybe $50 tops for the app over the last decade, so I’m in no rush to spend $120 for Foxtrot Pro, even though it might be somewhat better.
