I recently noticed that DEVONthink to go is not syncing to desktop or between iOS devices; iPhone and iPad. They sync looks like it is successful. I just added a test document on my iPad and then looked the the dropbox file on my Mac and I don’t see the new file show. Do i need to somehow grant access to DropBox from DEVONthink to go?
You would have had to authenticate Dropbox’s use with DEVONthink To Go when you set up the sync location.
We are unable to reproduce any issue so far and we have also not changed any of the code regarding Dropbox sync in a long time.
In DEVONthink’s Preferences > Sync, click the plus button under the Locations list and choose Add Dropbox Sync Store. Give it a new name and enter an optional encryption key, if desired. Choose the smallest database and sync to this new location.
Then add the location to DEVONthink To Go’s Settings > Sync: Edit Locations and/or the sync locations in DEVONthink on other Macs. Disable the old sync location but don’t delete it yet. Sync to the new location, then make some minor changes, like changing a label color on some files to see if it syncs correctly between the Mac and mobile.
When I up the new sync on the Mac everything goes ok but when i try and then sync to the new location on the iPad i get a message that says that the database has not been downloaded completely to the device. Uploading it to a new sync location will cause problems because some items will be missing. How do i force the iPad to download the entire database? I only have space to download them 1 at a time. I have databases; A (8 gigs), B ( 4gig) and C is (1 gig); and 2; A & B; appear to have sync issues.
I did create a new data base in that same dropbox sync store and it is syncing.
Never mind. I found the setting to download the entire database. I am assuming if i download the entire database and get the sync squared away i can then turn it back to only keeping some of the data and it will slowly remove data only keeping the meta data. Is that true?
It depends on two factors:
- You would have to set Download Files: On demand on the database again.
- The Settings > Sync: Keep slider should be set to a value other than all.
I have a related question here — I have been syncing with Bonjour (files on demand, keeping 100 files) but am now switching to Dropbox. I’ve set up the Dropbox sync store on my Mac, everything seems fine, and like swcoleman I got the message about the database not downloading completely. However, even though I have told DTTG to download files on demand, it seems that it is attempting to download the entire database from Dropbox. The database is 21GB, and I don’t have nearly that much storage space on my iPhone at the moment.
Should I do some shuffling on my iPhone to download the entire database once, with the understanding that DTTG will then purge the files and free up space on my phone? Or is there some other way that I could avoid having to download everything at once?
Did you set the new Dropbox sync location in DEVONtink To Go’s Settings > Sync: Edit Locations to Download Files: On demand?
Also, in the database being imported, do you see a little blue cloud icon by the items in the file listing?
The answer to your first question is yes. Not sure about the second, because in the meantime I’ve deleted the app from my phone to clear the cache, so I will walk through the steps I am taking as I attempt to import the database. Before, I had a copy of the database that I had synced through Bonjour, this time I will just go straight to Dropbox.
- Verify & Repair local database
- Sync database to Dropbox
- Download & install DTTG
- Add Dropbox (settings: On demand, labels and colors ON, Reading positions ON, Verify uploaded items OFF)
- Add location, tick slider for remote database (“Personal”)
- Navigate to main DTTG screen; pie progress icon w/ message “Personal: Downloading items from XXXX.dtCloud”
- While in progress, I can see from iPhone settings that DevonThink is taking up more than a gigabyte of space, but nothing appears in the database, just Inbox and Tags (both empty, though both showing the blue cloud icon).
This is the same state that I reached last time – the app will continue to show that it’s downloading stuff until my phone runs out of space. I’m unsure how to proceed from here.
In DEVONthink To Go 2, select Help > Contact Us to start a Support Ticket. Thanks!
Updating the thread for those who may follow along later. In the end, I was only able to get Dropbox sync working when I cleared out a bunch of space on my phone. My database is 21 GB total, and while DTTG doesn’t seem to have downloaded every file, it does take up close to 7GB. I’m hoping that once I download 100 files (the limit I set in settings) it will clear out some of this space…
it does take up close to 7GB.
Thoug I can’t say it accounts for all the space, remember the full text of documents is part of the metadata. With text-heavy databases this can require a considerable amount of space.
That’s fair, and I do have a load of OCRed books in there. When I was syncing with Bonjour it didn’t take up this much room–though perhaps it didn’t have the full text. In any case, thank you for your continued help.
You’re very welcome 
Hmmm… so I’m not the only one…
That is impossible to determine from the data you’ve given. Even if so, you are one of a very, very small number of people who have reported the problem.
Hey, didn’t mean to offend. I am a longtime, devoted DT user and evangelist. But what should I do to fix this? If I unselect the problem database in “Locations” in DTTG, then select it again, will that resynch it from scratch?
Or would I be better off to synch using iCloud instead of Dropbox?
No offense detected. Just start a support ticket per my other instructions.
I just started thinking between my Mac and my iPad yesterday and I had the same issue but with iCloud… No matter what I did the Sync database would not show up on the other device. I switched to Dropbox and it’s working perfectly