Hi all,
A couple of days ago drag & drop of Outlook emails into Devonthink folders stopped working on my machine. I rebooted the system - no change. I am not aware of any changes I made to the system that could affect this feature. What still works is dropping the email into the Finder inbox for DevonThink. The item is forwarded to DevonThinks global inbox.
I am wondering if anyone else has the same issue? One possible explanation might be that Microsoft changed something in Outlook for Mac that I am not aware of.
Cheers,
Christiane
Did you update macOS or Outlook recently?
The last auto-update for Outlook was installed on March, 21 which could match the time I started experience the problem. MacOS I did not update.
AND - I really appreciate the quick reply! Instead of being annoyed when drag & drop does not work, it will now give me a smile because of the great support.
2 Likes
Are you able to drag & drop emails to other apps or only to the Finder?
Are you using the New Outlook?
Yep, I use the New Outlook, but initially drag & drop worked. And drag & drop from Outlook still work with other apps, e.g. to Jira tickets (using Chrome).
Have you tried disabling the new UI to see if the behavior with DEVONthink improves?
Just checked. I went back to the old Outlook version and drag & drop worked. So, it has to do with new Outlook. But the new Outlook was also fine until a couple of days ago. As said before there was an Outlook update on March, 21, so maybe that causes the problem.
As I suspected and yes, Microsoft broke things for us with the new UI. Perhaps there is a way to get around it, but it’s also apt to break again when they do updates.
PS: Call me old-school but I think the new UI in Outlook is just dreadful. 
Well, then I am old-school, too. I tried too avoid the switch to the New Outlook for quite a while, but then gave in as I expected to be migrated, if I wanted or not. Maybe I just go back to the old version for as long as it is there.
I’d exercise that option if you can 
This is happening for me too. It managed to import 3 emails, but now refuses to do anymore.
Unfortunately I need to use the new UI as it has features the old UI does not that I need for work.
A workaround I found is to Save the .eml to disk in Outlook (File → Save) and then drag that file into DT. It’s annoying, but I’ll have to do it this way until it is fixed.
Is this something that will be fixed in a future DT release or is it dependent on MS?
It is a Microsoft issue, not a DEVONtech one. They broke the communication lines between Outlook and DEVONthink with their new interface.
I feel you. I can’t drop back to the old UI because my security-crazed employer has locked down all the Outlook settings.
That may well be true but many of us are stuck with the new UI and this has broken and added friction to a key part of my email workflow.
Outlook drag and drop to Finder works as intended so the incompatibility (even if due to something Microsoft changed) is specific to Devonthink.
Is this fixable from DT’s end, or if not is it possible to figure what exactly Microsoft has broken in order to submit a bug report?
A workaround for macOS is to use the shelf app Yoink.
Step 1: drag the email from Outlook to Yoink
Step 2: drag the email from Yoink into DEVONthink
According to the developers of Hook, Microsoft is purported to be adding support for AppleScript this summer, so hopefully Outlook will be better integrated with others apps.
Thanks for sharing your workaround! I use Yoink quite a lot, but somehow this solution escaped me.
As we’ve discussed on these forums, this is an issue caused by Microsoft and not something we can work around.
Hopefully what @vcbrewers mentioned is accurate.
Can confirm that it works also with the free app dropzone. However, it is a little bit annoying to park the file somewhere. Since dropzone or other apps can deal with the new UI I have high hopes that this is only of temporary nature and can be at least resolved in theory.
