Version 1 of DEVONthink to Go was very much a companion-app only, and extremely limited at that. The current v.2 (been out for a couple of years now) is more powerful and useful. I don’t use it stand-alone myself, but I know that there are users on the DEVON forum that report they are successful using it that way. Having said that, if I were to switch to an iOS-only platform, I could probably substitute Readdle’s suite of apps to meet my (also basic) needs.
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This got me to go look at “DEVONThink to go 2”. It actually looks pretty awesome.
Among other things, it seems to be very comprehensive file manager with built in MarkDown support. This is (for me) the perfect combination.
I’ve been playing with it for a few hours and as an experiment transferred several hundred files from Dropbox into it. So far I’m Really impressed…
I think I had a look at the desktop version years ago and was put of by the price and clunky UI. On iOS the price is in the range you’d expect (and want!) to pay for robust productivity software and the UI seems intuitive with good drag/drop support.
I´m a longtime user of DEVONthink, and I do like it. But it would be lovely if Omni group created and app for storing referencematerial with the possibility to archive, that could link documents and files to other omni-products like Omnifocus and Omniplan. I mean it would be lovely if referencefiles where deferred if the linked task in Omnifocus was. Also imagine if it had a someday/maybe option that actually is clean and not cluttered.
I have tried quite a few different apps for filing and yes they may work, but none of them is so well designed and great as the other omni products.
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Chiming in again - 1 month later.
I am currently in love with DEVONthink. I started to embrace OCR and tried going completely paperless. For that I went ahead and shoved everything into Abbyy and similar tools.
DEVONthinks classifier is killer! I could drop a OCRed document without any manual input into my Database inbox, and DEVONthink can with very good accuracy suggest the correct place where this document most likely belongs, and what documents could be related to it. Before I even tag or rename that is.
The UI is still clunky, but turning it minimal and only using the ‘Split View’ helped a lot.
I expanded it with a couple Applescripts for moving things around, and rewired a bunch of the keybindings with Keyboardmaestro. Not perfect (I really need quickjump, quick move to), but it’s getting better!
On my phone I started using Workflow to interact with DEVONthink to go and move everything from emails, notes, pictures and other things that need an action into it. The sharing extension can create a task with deeplink in omnifocus, or I could just select an item and hit ‘copy link’. I also have workflows that import something into DEVONthink and directly create a task in Things/Omnifocus
So my workflow currently is:
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Collect: Use scanbot / document scanner for collecting physical documents, sharing/clipping/send to DEVONthink for digital things. Use workflows within Alfred to rapidly shovel files and text dumps away. Create tasks when necessary in Omnifocus/Things with deeplink back to DT. Everything ends up in the inbox of either app, nothing floats around in ‘void’ like my email mailbox or document stack at home.
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Classify: Run OCR on physical documents, sort from inbox into correct database. Tag things, assign contexts/dates and organize
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Act: When it’s time to do the task or when I want to do more research, I usually don’t need anything else except DT and my task manager. I don’t need to search for the correct email / document because everything is neatly organized, linked and synced within DT. Not much more to explain here, we all know Omnifocus :p
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When done, if the document is important, I archive it in DT (into a separate Archive database) or kill it.
So yeah, DT silently turned into one of my most used and most important apps on my mac and phone. It gives me great piece of mind to know that all my important things are encrypted, backed up to multiple locations and organized in a clear way. And even if not, DT can likely find them anyway.
DT single-handedly replaced a ton of apps for me: notes, bookmarks, reading list, articles, document manager, RSS reader, archiver, sync agent, file search, data encrypter
I’m still not at a zen and am still trying to figure correct tagging out, but step by step I’m getting there.
Some things I wish for:
- Prettier markdown preview/editor on mac
- Quick move / Quick open / Quick navigate
- Classify from Global Inbox into correct databases
- A nicer UI
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dvcrn: thank your for your post, that really inspire me!
How have you set up the “masterfolders” in DT? One archive and one reference materials for ongoing projects?
Myself I have one tikklerfile, one archive, one someday/maybe and one for active projects. But it´s still a bit messy.
I would love to hear more in detail what scripts you use and how you use them? And it you have time, how your workflow looks in practise.
Thanks anyway for posting, just this is helped my thinking about handling reference material
I’m far from being a DEVONthink expert and mostly just mess with things until I find something that sticks. Currently I have 5 databases (strong encrypted and synced to my NAS at home and Dropbox at the same time):
- Notes&Articles: For clipping articles, rapidly jotted notes, or other random things. This is a more temporary
- Documents: For serious documents, everything from contracts, bills, OCRed scans, tickets, etc
- ~Company Name~: Database for documents/notes that are strictly related to my job. Meeting notes, specs, emails, reading material, project related things
- Local index: Database consisting only of folders that are locally indexed in DEVONthink for search. Not syncing this one. I point it to index my companies Dropbox, some code snippets, or other text based documents
- Archive: Long term archive. I move things to here from the other databases when I think something might be necessary at a future point like old tickets, emails when switching jobs or accounts, etc. This db is not synced to my phone.
My workflow is to just shovel things into the inbox, then a few times per day move it into the correct db and classify from there (classify directly from the global inbox is something that might come at a later point).
I set up Abbyy with Hazel so that when I upload something to Dropbox for example, my mac automatically OCRs the document with Abbyy, renames it, then imports it to DEVONthink.
On mac I use Alfred / Keyboardmaestro to quickly add text or files to the inbox. Being a engineer, I also added a devon shell command to do the same (devon somefile.txt).
On iPhone I use Scanbot to upload into my Dropbox hotfolders (or directly to DEVONthink if it doesn’t need OCR or is sensitive enough for me to not want Dropbox to see it), and a handful of workflow actions to:
- Copy my current clipboard
- Track expenses
- Save an email and create a task in Omnifocus/Things with a reference back to it
That’s mostly it :)
I’m not sure if I should offer a thought here or not. I’m still on the “dark side”…using Win 10 on an old HP laptop that is on its last “leg”…so to speak.
Anyway, I am already in the process of looking for new Mac applications that I am planning to try and/or use as soon as I migrate to my new MacBook Pro.
My current document management application (FileCenter Pro) is not cross-platform and the developer doesn’t seem remotely interested in developing native Mac apps…so, they will soon be history for me!
(Not interested in running Windows in boot camp, Paralells or anything else - saying goodbye and good riddance to all things Microsoft as well. Word/Excel may remain sadly…but there are native Mac versions.)
Anyway, I digress. Have you heard of, or tried, EagleFiler by C-Command Software? On the surface it sounds like just about everything I need. It has a nice interface that looks a bit like iTunes. If I do purchase it, the cost is reasonable at only $40. The license allows me to use it on multiple Macs OR another user and I can have separate accounts on the same Mac. (If you need multiple user accounts on multiple Macs you need to purchase additional licenses, but they are discounted depending on how many you need.)
You can check it out here: https://c-command.com/eaglefiler/
I tried it and it’s good - certainly worth the money. I went with DT in the end because of the IOS “To Go” version, but I think Eaglefiler is a very good product
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EF is outstanding. It’s robust, flexible and the (tech) support is amazing.
Its main benefit is that all your files are stored in a conventional subdirectory in a conventional hierarchy of the conventional filesystem.
It’s essentially a sophisticated ‘wrapper’ to those files. That also means that if you ever moved away from EF all your docs and files would be stored and 100% accessible in an entirely exportable, transparent format; and not some proprietary pseudo-system.
There are some limitations and the design is somewhat dated. But it does its job superbly… I’ve used it for, what, 15 years or more, and never regretted it.
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That’s a good point to make t might be critical to your workflow. I prefer the convenience of DT IOS sync, but I’m aware that there’s always a risk in proprietary formats
With DEVONthink one can also have all the files conventionally organized in the filesystem by indexing them into the database(s) rather than importing them. I do this with all my databases. If one chooses to import documents into the DEVONthink database(s) instead, documents are also 100% accessible and/or exportable. There is no proprietary data format system in DEVONthink that holds the uses’ data captive. Happy user of DEVONthink here for over 16 years now…
That feature is precisely what attracted me to FileCenter on the Windows platform. In spite of moving to a Mac and likely to EagleFiler, my data is all backed up in a non-proprietary folder/file system which will allow me to easily migrate it to my new system.
I don’t want to use any more applications in my paperless workflow that have proprietary databases. This system is going to be perhaps my largest archive next to my photography work and I don’t want to find myself one day unable to access it without extensive conversion to another format.
If all else fails, I would just use the native Mac file structure for document storage. It’s not as elegant or full featured, but at least I maintain access to my data in a standardized format!
Randall,
Even though you have your data as conventional files, you will - I believe - still have to import or capture them into EF; but I suspect this can be done folder by folder; and is straightforward in either case.
Suggest putting your situation to both the EF and DT (against which I have absolutely nothing: great company!) folks and see what they say.
What I like about EF (and DT may well do the same) is the balance it achieves by managing (indexing, allowing searching, organizing, importing, allowing opening from within the application, cataloguing, segmenting by colour, tagging, assigning status to, intelligently taking care of metadata etc) your docs and files with the fact that they remain docs and files completely accessible in the future.
Anyone using keep it by reinvented software?
There’s some discussion about it here:
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/31880
You can read without registering, but need t register to post
I think I found a serious alternative to DEVONthink called keep it. It’s far less powerful and barely has any of the bells and whistles that DEVONthink has but it sports a modern UI and works pretty well.
I imported a big DT database to give it a try but the app couldn’t handle the amount of files and got very slow. I messaged the dev and about a week later a few performance updates got pushed (very likely unrelated to my message but still), now everything works fine.
I’m going to try to use it instead of DT over the next days/weeks but so far I like what I’m seeing. I miss e2e encryption and Dropbox sync though. Jumping around folders and moving files quickly in big databases needs a bit of work.
/ edit
Oh I just noticed that someone mentioned keep it already before here. Whoops
I too use DEVONthink, but I really wish they would upgrade the software. Because I want to keep my databases on my iOS devices, DEVONthink is really the best alternative out there. I can do a direct sync without having to put any information in the cloud.
I also use a Synology NAS, and I’m going to investigate whether there is another tool that will allow me to sync information across devices using the NAS. My only other requirement is that it must do more than just manage files, otherwise I’ll use Finder to do that. I like the auto-classify feature of DT. I wish Omni would come up with something in this space.
I use both DEVONThink and Tinderbox. They serve very different purposes. TB is excellent for making and managing notes; DT is great for general information storage and retrieval. Neither is an alternative to the other
Since this old thread got revived:
With DEVONthink 3 released it closed the search for a new app for me. DT3 is excellent and does almost everything I want it to do. It’s my most used app these days and no other app I tried comes close. (Keep It is getting there but I had performance issues every time I tried it)
The new UI is sleek, smart rules are powerful and a lot of shortcuts got added for quickly navigating and moving things around. If I had to really nitpick, DEVONthink to go is the weakest link but I’m sure they’re working on something new already
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