Delete Database from DropBox API Sync

How do I delete a database from the dropbox API sync.

The naming convention does not readily show the database name in the DropBox/Apps/Devonthink database folder. If I want to delete a a syncing database, how do I do it?

I created some test databases that I would like to remove.

I also need to start from scratch with a very important database that fails to sync despite verifying that there are no errors. It won’t sync. I get an operation cancelled file not found error but there are no issues with verification on the local database.

Sorry for two questions but thank you

I’d also like to know how to delete a Dropbox-syncing database (mine was also used as a test).

I deleted the database from within the Dropbox website preferences page. Go to preference and then apps. Then you will get a list of apps connected to Dropbox where you can delete Devonthink. Even though this worked OK for me, I don´t know if this is the correct method.

But I only want to delete one database - not the others !!

Have I stumbled on a significant problem here? I hope not …

I want to delete one of the many databases that I have synced to the dropbox API

Is there any way to delete just some databases ?

The same problem here.
I deleted a database on the mac, now I am getting sync errors about this no longer existing database every time :frowning:

Jochen

Same problem here. The databases I used for testing take up about 10% of my Dropbox account (that is about 10 Gb!). I should like to delete them without deleting the sync store of the databases I do want to sync.

To delete a database from your DropBox account…

  1. Disconnect the database from DropBox in the Sync Preferences.

  2. Paste this little script into Applescript Editor and run…

tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro2"
	tell current database
		display dialog "Database Name: " & name & return & "DatabaseID for DropBox: " default answer (uuid as text)
	end tell
end tell
  1. Go to your DropBox/Apps/DEVONthink folder and delete the database with this UUID.

  2. Go to your online account, dropbox.com/home/Apps/DEVONthink/databases/, and delete the database there too.

  3. Rinse and repeat.

1 Like

Thanks for replying!

After pasting the script in the AppleScript editor I got syntax errors due to the presence of ‘unknown tokens’. After removing these tokens in BBEdit I was able to run the script.

Unfortunately I have already deleted some of the test databases so I can’t use the script to get all the needed UID’s.

Also, I don’t have a DevonThink folder in ~/Dropbox/Apps/. :wink:

And, I don’t understand what ‘rinse and repeat’ means (I am not a native speaker of English).

However, on Dropbox online I do have a DEVONThink folder in Apps. It contains two folders: databases and transactions. Each subfolder of the databases folder contains a file ‘metadata’ with the name of the database. This solved the problem of determining which subfolders of Apps/DEVONThink/database should be removed and which should be kept.

Unfortunately, deleting the test databases freed up only a few Megs, less than 1% of my space on Dropbox. Because the space used on dropbox increased with more than 10% during testing DEVONThink Sync, it seems that there are some remnants left.

Moreover, I couldn’t find all my test databases: the ones that crashed during the first sync are lacking. Could it be that the ‘transactions’ folder contains remainders of the databases that I no longer use? If so, which parts of that folder should I remove to free up the other 9% of space on Dropbox?

“Rinse and repeat” was a i[/i] attempt to be funny. :unamused: I merely meant to repeat the process with any other databases you want to identify.

Since you deleted the databases on your machine already, then do the opposite. Get a list of the UUID of the databases you want to keep and delete the ones that DON’T match from the DEVONthink folder on your DropBox account.

That would indeed have been easier than looking in the metadata files as I did!

Anyway, as I said in my previous comment, I have deleted my test databases from the databases folder, but that didn’t free as much space as I expected. And as I also said, those databases whose sync didn’t complete (one was about 10 Gb - after 3 days and several restarts of the sync I gave up – this is one of the databases I still use, so I have the UUID should it be needed) were not in the databases folder, although they do take up space.

So my main question remains: could it be possible that I should also delete files or folders from the transactions folder in addition to deleting the databases in the databases folder? If so which ones? if not, how do I locate and delete the remnants that apparently still exist?

As neither Bluefrog nor other people of the DEVONThink team seem interested in providing support for this problem :cry: I started experimenting again.

I discovered that in other cases after a sync succeeds the transactions folder is empty. This suggests that the entire contend of the transactions folder of databases no longer in use can be removed (as long as there is no sync going on).

To be able to restore the transactions folder in case I am wrong, I downloaded the entire transactions folder from Dropbox to my mac (via the web interface).

I then removed one of the subfolders of the transactions folders waited a day or two, and, as nothing special happened, I started removing the other folders. This freed up a lot of space and doesn’t seem to cause problems.

However, it was not possible to remove all the subfolders of the transaction folder: Dropbox sometimes refuses to remove a folder because it is too large :imp: and recommends to use the desktop application to do so. To do so I had to check the transactions folder within the DEVONThink folder in the Apps folder in Dropbox’ sync preferences which is against Devontechnologies’ recommendations. I did so, waited till the transactions folder was in sync again and removed its entire content. After this I trashed the entire content of the transactions folder, waited for dropbox to sync and re-deselected the entire DEVONThink folder in the Apps folder in the advanced dropbox preferences. Everything seems fine now.

Because it may take several days to sync the transactions folder, I recommend using a computer you do not need for other work, should you have the same problem.

Hello,

I’m a new member of the forum and have been using Devonthink for about 2-3 months and love it!.
I tried syncing all my databases to Drobox but one of them is too big so I want to remove it.
I executed the applescript mentioned above but the UUIDs I get from my databases do not match the folder name in Drobox.

I should mentioned I already deactivated the database from the sync preferences of Devonthink and also cleaned it.

I would appreciate your help!

Panos

Cleaning the database via Preferences > Sync should actually be sufficient.

Thanks cgrunenberg for your reply.
It doesn’t seem to be.
My Dropbox is still full and on the Dropbox website there are still 5 folders (all my databases) with the same sizes as before.

I did a “Refresh List” in preferences and then cleaned the database one more time.
This time it worked!!

Thanks so much for your help!!