Am I missing something here?
Thereās nothing arrogant or dismissive here.
- Itās a clarification of the situation regarding data loss.
- Itās a suggestion of one possible cause of unexpected data loss, based on our experience and tickets.
- And itās a question as to if a support ticket was opened so weād have logs and information to assess this particular situation.
If you donāt see the connectionā¦
I clearly said nothing snarky or dismissive.
I didnāt say, "There is no evidence of anyone ever having a problem! nor did I say, āYouāre making stuff up!ā.
In fact, we have acknowledged issues and apologized publicly for inconveniences when they have arisen. We have also released hotfixes when necessary.
Forums often lead to people making assumptions about things based on very little data or single data points. This can lead to incorrect assumptions, which can also lead to unnecessary trepidation. Weād prefer to alleviate peoplesā worries and hopefully address individual issues if we havenāt already had the opportunity.
Back to the topic, I was recently on the fence about using or dumping DEVONthink.
I decided for the former after sketching my filing needs with pen and paper.
My reasons are that I like the fine grained end-to-end encrypted sync options, web clipping and the classify functions.
Especially the classification is key, because I am incredibly lazy to stick to a system of folders and file it diligently. So anything that makes this easier helps me a lot. Also, I think the amount of automation I need can be satisfied within DT. So I donāt need multiple apps to make Finder and a combination of other apps do similar things. And web clipping does not have a lot of alternatives that I know of.
Full disclosure: this comes after a being on and off the DT Pro version before the considerations with only the discounted DTTG3 update to pay for. I might decide differently if I was starting from scratch but who knowsā¦
Some of the files were indexed and others only in DT databases, and this led me to believe it was the app at fault. It was a while ago, and at the time I read about lots of other users online experiencing the same problem (0kb files).
The hardware was a new M1 Mac and Iāve not had any other issues so I canāt believe itās a hardware problem.
It caused me a day of lost work and considerable stress, as the files were important, so I do not want any support to continue using the app.
True that.
However, Iām using OF not only for GTD, but also as information buckets. Then, for me, they are competitive. Even though DT is better than OF to keep documents and data. I really like the idea to have it all in one place, thus OF is the way to go for me.
We have very differet interpretations of arrogant and dismissive then.
I certainly read the message as typical of what Iāve come to learn is the issue with DT supoort. No mention of the logs and support info that has been provided. Ignoring that the evidence presented is that it is NOT a hardware failure with details of how that conclusion was reached etc.
Got it. competition can be a subjective concept for sure. Weāre glad OF is working well for you. Omni makes top-tier apps.
Iāve asked this before ā¦ but I think I want to be more clear ā¦. I am a teacher as well; I teach a variety of subjects and love the organization abilities of DT - tags, files, searches etcā¦.
My question is, has anyone seen this bug if you only index files ? No sync, no importing etcā¦. I have all my teaching materials in Dropbox and I index in DT ā¦ again, I donāt sync or use DTTGā¦
Thanks. Data loss worries me ā¦
Some of the files I lost were only indexed, not in a database. This made them lose their content in iCloud. However, I did use DTTG and sync.
This is not the support forum for DevonThink. But, taking liberty that some bleed-over has occurred, I offer these insights.
First, the underlying tone is defense. Compare instead the tone in this factually equivalent response:
Data loss has been reported, albeit rarely.
Unexpected data loss can be symptomatic of failing software or hardware.
The recommended follow-up is to file a direct support ticket (so that Devonthink can initiate a one-on-one, deeper investigation).
Secondly, across software discussion forums, when I compare the underlying tone in replies from support personnel, I find that the tone from DevonThink consistently is closer to (strongly) defensive rather than (openly) receptive. Recognizing how to get past this hurdle to be able to solve the problem at hand can be a challenge.
Finally, on this last note, taking my personal experience from living in various regions in Germany for a while and recognizing that Devonthink support has strong if not direct German roots, I offer that the Devonthink support team might consider blending a bit of jovial Bavarian temperament into what is otherwise a constant, consistent, perfunctory Berlin/Prussian demeanor.
I would be glad to meet at a Biergarten in MĆ¼nchen or a Kneipe in Berlin to discuss this further. 
ā
JJW
My ancestry is from Mosbach, Germany. Can I come?
Thanks - I only asked because this may be an old bug as some have discussed, it really only surfaced noticeably with the new version of devontthink to goā¦ And I wonder if that was always part of the problemā¦ Thanks for the update.
I came back to DEVONthink from Evernote. I really wanted to like it. I was using both tools as a digital file cabinet (Iām using Obsidian for note-taking). The really critical features for me are search and access on any device. Iāve not been able to sync my database for months because of wonky errors in the way DEVONthink does its indexing. And the solution for that takes hours of manual updates to entries. Iāve done that twice and still couldnāt get sync to work. I use a ScanSnap for paper and it does searchable PDFs on its own. I just exported everything to OneDrive (1 TB per user included in $99/year Microsoft 365 subscription for 5 users). Sync is essentially instantaneous for small numbers of new documents. Seamless access across all devices. MacOS Finder recognized all my document tags. As someone noted earlier, the desktop has too much and the interface is just too complex for my use case. Not angry about it, just sad that it hasnāt really kept up as an app.
The primary reason I started using DT was to support my work on a piece of historical fiction.
The built-in OCR was what lured me in. In the beginning, I had a lot of PDFs to convert to text.
But also, before I could start writing, I needed to learn a lot more about the period and about the people who will be the main characters. Iād never worked on anything of this scale before, so I thought DT might be useful for the collection and review of material gathered over many years. I hoped to put DT and its capabilities to work in a way that is not unlike the way Steve Johnson has described using the āsee alsoā feature.
Iām still in (and may never progress beyond) the research stage of this project, so I canāt yet comment on whether DT has paid off in that way.
In the meantime, however, I have used DT to keep track of various other things in my life, including a database of all the books I read, a database I call āSupportā that I use to take notes on periodic maintenance tasks or things Iāve had to fix around the house, and a recipe database.
I believe that, with a little effort, all of these secondary purposes could have been served just as easily by the Finder or some other, simpler app. But itās nice to have this āhomeā of sorts for tracking information as long as Iāve already got it.
To share my single, anecdotal impression of the developer, my experience has been wholly positive. I had a sync issue (no data loss, just some strange behavior) that could easily have been blamed on iCloud or the OS. Over multiple exchanges that went on for a number of weeks, I didnāt notice anything remotely close to arrogance or dismissiveness. The developer was friendly, attentive, and helpful from start to finish.
I canāt define āworth the moneyā for anyone but me. But DT has been worth the money for me.
Thanks for the excellent examples, helping to dispel the myth that DEVONthink is only for academics, lawyers, the intelligentsia, etc. And thanks for the kind words too! 
Iām a long-time DT user. I started with DT2 and Iām now of course with DT3. I use it to manage my financial life. All of my bills, receipts, policies, statements, and anything else remotely associated with the household and finances ends up in DT3. I primarily use a ScanSnap scanner to scan directly into DT3, where itās OCRed and filed. Of course, one could do something like this with just the Finder and Dropbox, but the real power is finding stuff thatās in the databases, and the extensibility. I like to start all of my filenames with the date of the document (such as ā2020-03-12 Bank Statement.pdfā). By using smart rules, with a single keystroke I can add the documentās date to its name, and with a second keystroke I can file the document in the same group as all of the other statements for this bank. And once stuff is in there, itās really simple to search, for example, for all of the receipts from a particular store, or for a particular charge in my statements. Iāve never lost any data, and always gotten great support, including help with some AppleScript extensions the I wrote. I use Dropbox Sync to sync my databases between two Macs and DT To Go. What else can I say? Iām a happy customer.
Love-hate relationship with DEVONthink. A place to store all my notes, PDF, bills, etc via Mac and iPad. Just paid for DTTG v3 once app opened up for upgrade payment. Powerful storage and search capabilities. REALLY hate its dinosaur editors - using external apps for both markdown and rich text. Cloud sync resulted in few disasters - lost files and/or spending hours restoring from backup, now using only Bonjour sync which also cause a lot of inconveniences for mobility - sometimes resulted in duplication of files because not synching enough and accidentally edited file in 2 devices. DEVONthink is only app I have that experienced problems with iCloud sync, and I have tonnes of apps. Support tried to help but couldnāt solve Cloud sync. Stuck with DEVONthink since all my data is there. A love-hate application.
Why not just export it all?