Duplicates to the same file

DEVONthink
1

Hi. I have been playing around with using Noteplan for my daily journal. It creates a single folder called Calendar which has one file for each day (.md) file. Since I like to search for things in DevonThink (and because my last 6+ years of daily notes are in DT), I have indexed the Noteplan Calendar folder.

This works just fine and I can search across all of the notes, etc. But I noticed today that quite a few items in the DT group are duplicated, for example there are two duplicate entries 20241021. They show in blue (duplicate) - they both point to the same file and the folder only has a single file. I can’t figure out what why this is happening.

2
  • Are you syncing with another Mac or DEVONthink To Go?
    • If so, is your Settings > Sync > Conflicts set to Duplicate documents?
  • If not, do you have smart rules running that could duplicate a document?
3

Sigh… That’s probably it. (my laptop)
Sorry.

4

No worries at all.
Note there is a similar setting in DEVONthink To Go’s Settings > Sync. Also, the setting affects conflicts for both imported and indexed documents.

5

I am not sure how to avoid this. If I just leave it will it cause me any trouble?

6

Having duplicated documents isn’t dangerous but it is likely undesirable when it happens without you initiating it.

I’d say you need to determine why you’d be having sync conflicts and how often it’s happening. If you just started indexing the Noteplan directory, more than one document could have been duplicated during conflict resolution. I would work as you normally do and see if duplicates continue appearing. And if they do, are they only the document you’ve been working on.

7

I just created a new database on both systems that is not synchronized in DT. I moved the indexed Noteplan folder into the new database on each system. Noteplan keeps the folders synchronized through iCloud, so this should have the desired effect. (almost).

8

I’d say: maybe. Bear in mind you have no control over iCloud and when it syncs. Also, if it doesn’t notify other applications of changes it received, the indexed group in DEVONthink may not update automatically. So you may have to select the indexed parent group and use File > Update Indexed Items to update it. (This behavior isn’t specific to iCloud as other cloud-services can behave similarly).