I like your system. Most of my email in DT are mbox imports. The ones from no longer used addresses work perfectly. The ones from addresses I still use are more awkward, because the sources don’t support partial exports and mbox splitting and processing can be brittle. An ongoing stream of exports into a folder DT ingests or indexed would work better, depending on the format.
Other than that, I share individual emails right away if they are relevant to a specific folder/topic/archive, usually with the double cmd+p trick on macOS.
Files in a standard format in an open place that can easily be edited by other tools f necessary. Yes, youc an do that to some extent with DT Indexed files.
I used DT for a long time. I had problems with database corruption and syncing and moved to the MacOS filesystem with iCloud and haven’t looked back. Folders are great and I use them in Finder and Obsidian. Finder is my file cabinet. Obsidian has the notes I write and my task management.
Thank you for saying this. It’s not unlike Steven Berlin Johnson’s particular usage of Devonthink. I use the app, but I never quite got the hang of these “everything in bite-sized pieces” approaches. I don’t publish as much as either author, so that may be a self-imposed limitation on my part.
I think this is pretty brilliant and may exactly solve a problem for me. Thank you. It seems so obvious once I read it: put files where you want them and then have DT index them. I can easily view and create files in DT, but they’ll also appear in the Finder.
FTR, I love markdown files, but on some occasions it’s just easier to work with RTF files. There, I’ve gone and admitted it.
.RTF is just another kind of tagged file. No reason to feel bad about using it. It’s fairly stable, aside from typeface issues. I can open RTF files from the 1990s with formatting intact.
I write in Markdown in Ulysses and Craft, but for my PKM I save and want easy access to all kinds of file formats, including photos, videos, pdfs, RTF, MindNode, etc. I don’t want everything except Markdown showing as attachments I have to fiddle with (Obsidian). Why not just have easy viewing and access to everything? You can do that with DevonThink.
I checked out this approach with DevonThink support and they said there are no problems, it should work fine. However, just to make sure, they suggested that for each database it would be good to periodically go to the “Update Indexed Items” selection under the file menu just to ensure everything changed in iCloud got picked up in DT.
Late reply here, but my DEVONthink use cases continue to be the same as they have been for years:
It’s the most powerful engine for working with files. Use it to download stuff from the web, merge it, convert it, group it, filter it, etc.
It’s an automation engine for AppleScript that can use file contents to do things. My main thing is a save-for-later workflow that automatically sorts everything into a folder per-semester while creating a citekey for the reading (if appropriate) and adding it to a special reading list I maintain including that metadata.
It’s usually my second-tier search. This is most helpful when I’m looking for a line I wrote in a file three years ago.
I rarely do my day-to-day work in DEVONthink, but it’s an important piece of infrastructure for me.
Thanks, Ryan. I glad to see you jump in and it’s fine that you took a while to do it. I know we’re all busy.
Do you use indexing, store documents in the DevonThink database, or both?
If I recall correctly, you work in Obsidian but index the Obsidian vault in DevonThink. Is that correct?
What do you do about documents that are not natively supported in Obsidian? For me, those are Microsoft Office documents, but for you they might be other things. (I consider PDFs to be not natively supported by Obsidian, because of Obsidian’s limited PDF tools). Do you store those in the Obsidian vault, in DevonThink or somewhere else?
I just started a related topic in the Obsidian forum:
I otherwise find Obsidian great, but this one issue is a huge problem for me that I’ve never really found a satisfactory solution for.
Honestly, I don’t think about it that much! I have a big folder that contains everything I’m currently working on. That’s my vault in Obsidian, and it’s also the only thing indexed by my main database in DEVONthink.
Basically everything I ever work on goes in that folder. I have a few subfolders for categories and project folders under those — but I only use a project folder if something I’m working on needs it.
Search and browsing works well to find most of the things I need. If I ever have trouble with this, then I’ll organize the stuff I’m looking for a bit better, but this happens rarely.
Files that I can’t view in Obsidian still go in this folder, 'cause I want to open those in the native app for 'em anyway. In the case of PDFs I have this whole reading list management and annotation thing going that uses both DEVONthink automations and Obsidian plugins to do things with the PDFs and the annotations, so it’s especially important that I keep these in the Obsidian vault (indexed by DEVONthink).
After reading that thread, I think a key part of my practice is that I think of the file system as where all of my stuff is. Obsidian and DEVONthink are both views and controllers of that stuff. So I do whatever I need to do with my stuff from whatever view or controller I’m in at the time, or from whichever one is best for the task.
I’m starting to think I should start simple and build. Move my entire, current, elaborate folder hierarchy aside into a bigger folder that I’ll probably just give today’s date. Then start over again with a single flat folder and let the structure grow organically.
Update: Rather than tearing everything down and rebuilding, I decided to keep doing what I’m doing and watch for where the pain points here.
Starting a new folder for every project turns out not to be a big deal.
I was having difficulty distinguishing notes from each other, because they were named too similarly. My magic solution is to choose better document names.
I have fired up DevonThink, updated it, and am indexing my Obsidian vault. I haven’t put it to work yet but I have ideas.
I keep trying to use obsidian with DT, but have issues with the DTTG sync and getting so many duplicates in DT that wasn’t worth it.
Since I use the .eml feature of DT and DTTG, and DTTG now supports wiki links I don’t see much that obsidian adds for my use case. I still think obsidian is more customizable in some ways (or spend time tinkering with), but for getting work done DT and DTTG do enough.
I’ve tried that setting. When I use obsidian on mobile/Mac and the index on DT don’t get issues. But when I use obsidian (via shortcuts for quick markdown file append for bullet journal etc) throughout day but use DTTG for meeting notes etc, when I get back to my DT on Mac I either lose data (Aka only kept most recent) or have duplicates. Duplicates seemed better than lost data.
If I keep a Mac running 24/7 so the iOS obsidian syncs via iCloud/DT index updated real time, and iOS DTTG syncs and real-time update this isn’t a problem. This is just a huge hassle to keep a Mac active without sleeping just for this.
Which is why I ended up settling on just DTTG. While obsidian is easier to shortcut from Home Screen, and easier to do some things with plugins, DTTG gives me enough of what I need and was just simpler.