Thank you so much for your advice. Perhaps I will check it out.
I have hazel but not used it in a while as the compatibility problems with Catalina.
I have David sparks hazel workflow book.
I will have a positive day and look.
Thank you so much.
Kevin
@madasafish110 I’m using Hazel 4.4.4 for a long time with Catalina with no noticeable issues. What compatibility problems are you seeing?
Replying to my own entry … I forgot to mention the importance with electronic storage supporting a paper-less lifestyle … make sure you have robust backup regimes. Consider having offsite backup also somehow or another.
I’m not using Hazel but this is pretty much the same process I use. I too started with Evernote then moved to DevonThink. I now just file everything in iCloud and use Spotlight. It is important to have a consistent good file naming scheme. This is working great for me.
Very good point. Private stuff needs to be protected. I have been wearing my thin foil hat for a while now… 
I use Synology Drive to sync all my data therefore I have no information in the cloud. All of it sits at home in my Synology NAS and I have an offsite backup on an old Synology at my office. I have not look back since then.
Cheers!
I’ve been thinking about doing something similar, building my own cloud. Are the transfer speeds OK if you are using your own connection?
Link to another discussion that might help.
I scanFujitsu too. All to PDF. I use PDF Expert. As previously advised, turn on OCR and I would make sure for all pages, not just first page. Dropbox is great for searching PDF with OCR. I use that for work. Have files all the way back to 2007. Also iCloud is pretty good for searching on a Mac. When it comes to searching, electronic copies of everything you can get are much better than a scan. Less errors in searching. Example, if I get a maintenance manual I want to save with a product, I go online and see if one is already available in PDF. do not scan if you do not have to.
To repeat my favorite rule for paperless life. “Don’t Make Paper if you don’t have to.”
The key is the upload speed. I have 20 Mbps which is ok. At first I started with 10 Mbps and it was too slow but 20 is fine. Of course your milage may vary depending what you are doing with your Synology Drive. I’m just syncing files, nothing too big. I did have to do the first sync of my offsite backups at home to avoid a very long transfer the first time. I have 3 hyper-backups… daily, weekly and monthly. They take about 1-2 hours each.
The biggest advantage of DT is that you control your data and it’s in the same format that you put it in so if you have to get it out it’s not a big deal.
Hazel works well if you can get the rules written correctly. I’m a novice at that, I prefer to do much of it by hand but I do use Hazel.
No help there, I am very anti-cloud. So I use a Synology NAS I control for my sync between devices. DEVONThink works well in those cases.
On the general design, I do not like using tags, they are not always operating system independent. Make a consistent file naming scheme that is also operating system agnostic. Filenames should give an indication of the contents and not be tied to the folder they are in.
My top level folder is called Filing_Cabinet and within that are the folders for stuff. I do not use any spaces in folder or file names. I use - to separate sections in the name and _ in place of spaces.
So for example I have a folders like Sheep-Chocolate_Welsh and Sheep-Import_Semen-Baker_Ram_Tango and within those are files like Charlie_Brown.jpg and Chocolate_Wesh_Sheep_Article.odt and 2016-09-19_Tango_Scrapie_Genotype.pdf and Tango_pedigree_chart.jpg
Stick to a few common file types and plan for upgrading all the files as your operating system and hardware changes and keep multiple levels of archives and backups both locally and offsite.
I also use a Synology and have no problems with transfer speeds. It’s wired ethernet in the house and a 5G wifi link for iOS sync
I use Dropbox for this purpose. The search is much better than Spotlight on iOS, and it allows selected folders to be always downloaded (i find this essential for receipts when i need them and there’s no mobile signal, like in some shops). I tried DEVONthink to Go but couldn’t stand the app, I much prefer Dropbox’s iOS app.
I use a ScanSnap S1300i and the ScanSnap Software. The files are scanned, run through OCR and are then automatically dropped into a folder within OneDrive. I then tag those files weekly. Hazel reads the tags and automatically moves the files to the file structure that I have set up.
Since the are in OneDrive, I have access to them wherever I am on my computer or mobile device.
I tried Evernote, Dropbox and Devonthink and they just did not work for me. I found using a folder based system was the best for me.
When I extracted myself from Evernote several years ago, I made a promise to myself to never use a proprietary database again.
I follow the same process that other have already mentioned.
I also use Backblaze to keep an offsite backup copy of all my documents.
Does hazel support Catalina ?
Yup. No problems here with Hazel on Catalina.
The website says that it has problems ?
The Noodlesoft website says there are Hazel issues with Dark Mode and a few cosmetic glitches on Catalina. None of these has any substantive effect on Hazel’s operation or performance. Hazel works fine for me on Catalina, FWIW.
+1 for #evernote. I believe the ScanSnap will send directly into EN and once there EN does the OCR automatically. Add a title and a tag or two then move out of the way and use search to find what you need. I spend a ton of my day using EN and it is literally the one place I keep everything.
Give the free tier a go and see if it will work for your needs.
@Madasafish110, I really appreciate you taking the time to post your questions. I’ve been in the same place (sadly) for the last few years. For multiple reasons like health issues, I’ve not had it all figured out yet. I’ve found the suggestions here really helpful.
What I wanted to post, even though it’s several months later (in case others find this like me), is to please avoid #Evernote at this point. There are several really concerning things. They are drastically changing their desktop software (sort of dumbing it down to achieve more consistency across all their platforms) and the recent updates have been disasters for loads of people. I know so many folks have recommended Evernote the past several years and I’ve really tried to like it, even love it. But I basically hate it, especially for my workflow with a lot of iOS/iPadOS usage. There have been a lot of concerns about privacy, too, with no fighting turning over user data. Even if it’s required by law, I’m always concerned about not fighting for privacy and what that means for the future. I’m working now to get everything out and into a MacOS based paperless setup, likely with DevonThink as the central “brains”. I’m so grateful you posted your question as it’s so similar to what I’m looking for and the replies were so helpful.
Thanks again!