How big is the archive approximately? How many mails? I had performance issues years back when I tried to archive all my work mail in Dt.
I was and a long time user of DT. However since I have retired my needs are simple and I am transitioning to using a folder structure in iCloud documents and am in the process of a conscious decoupling from DEVONthink.
Actually for most things as I get older I am just going back to the stock Apple apps.
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I am running into some issues. Not with the size per se or the searching but with how to make the daily backup archives. Current DB stats 71,341 email messages, 12.2 GB, 463,994 unique words, 45,690,310 total words according to the DB properties
In all honesty I can’t tell you exactly why I am so smitten with DEVONthink 3. In the same way I can’t tell you how I worked when I had paper piles and yet could find most of what I had. I can find things and seem to ‘know’ where stuff is and also, a big one for me, can ‘see’ it in a way I can’t on finder etc. I have also made some effort to make my naming systems and so on DEVONthink 3 friendly.
I also now find the Notetaker can be operated entirely from Keyboard and I would buy it for that alone.
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I’m currently working on an article about a multi-billion-dollar company that I’ve written about a LOT over the past few years. If See Also helps me make the article significantly better, then that’ll make me more inclined to stick with DT.
It also occurs to me that DT doesn’t need to be as big an either/or as I’m making it out to be. Documents are easy to get into DT, easy to get out of them in their original format. And indexing makes it simple to index files in the Finder, so DT can serve as a back-end to another app with a more user friendly interface, such as Notebooks or Keep It.
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I have been toying with a “Workspace” database. I delete all the files in it when I’m done with it. When I’m working on something new that requires referencing a lot of documents/links/whatever, I dump everything in and make a mess. It is kinda refreshing.
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Workspace databases are awesome. I’ve done it for big final exams in school before. I had about a six week course, and I saved materials and lectures by week in dropbox. Then the last week I put everything into a database and use it to complete a final paper or exam.
This approach helps keep the overhead down and the feeling anxiousness of managing another app. Then if I’m done with the project, I just delete the database and save the class in long term storage or whatever.
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Thanks for this post Ryan. Stuff here I didn’t know about even. I have used DEVONthink 3 by ‘feel’ for a few years now. That is the truth, very little of my use is ‘conscious’ if I can put it that way so I can’t often regurgitate how I use it. I can’t do without it though. I couldn’t tell you how I ride a bike… It just works for me. I find that there was on the upgrade a curve which I got past somehow: I was very frustrated and cross. My bad and I nearly dropped the app. Then suddenly I started finding things like the Note Taker… wow.
I find the company approachable and I find they DO care how their customers use it. I know some folk here who I have a lot of resepect for say otherwise so…
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I have to say too that though I see a lot of complaints about how DEVONthink 3 team don’t respond and help and so on that I have found the exact opposite. I do think it might be a matter of ‘style’. I am not sure. I have found them amazingly helpful, beyond what I would expect regarding other apps and so on. In one case loading an app they don’t even like to work out the problem I was having.
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Your use case is mine exactly. I’ve been on Evernote forever and it’s … ok … but I keep trying to find a replacement. Keep It looked good, but despite a lot of help from the developer, iCloud sync with the Mac just didn’t work. If it were only iPad and iPhone, no problem. So I keep looking at DT … seems good, but maybe much more than I need. With your experience so far, what would you recommend?
Good point. The DT team is extremely responsive.
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@derekvan / @MitchWagner / et al., I’ve updated my iOS “save to DEVONthink” workflow and Shortcuts.
The new version saves the files in a nice clean HTML file, and then I use a Smart Rule to automatically make nice PDFs from those files when they’re synced to the Mac.
I’ve also moved the styling into an inline CSS stylesheet. It seems to work well.
Detailed writeup is here:
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My people are here. You all get me…
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Ryan,
Terrific! Thanks! Works just fine and extremely useful! Well done.
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I want to love DT, but I’m mostly iOS these days and the sync still seems annoyingly slow.
Also, as others have said… DTTG leaves a lot to be desired.
I also really wish there was an easy way to get emails into it like Evernote.
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Dark mode and context menus in DEVONthink To Go are in the very near future, for what it’s worth.
Here is the supporting conversation (at least for Dark mode in Dttg):
I was referring to the current beta of DTTG, which may or may not already have dark mode support.
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What are you using for sync?
Most of my syncing is done using local network (I guess it’s Bonjour?) syncing, with the Mac as the server. I also use iCloud syncing simultaneously just in case I’m away from Mac. (This was more sensible pre-pandemic…)