Hi everyone! I’m a recent user and I am being amazed by Devonthink pro, in particular by its being incredibly full of functions but user-friendly, I was never overwhelmed by settings and bunch of buttons, the learning curve is smooth despite there is a lot to know, and by the visual experience.
It has been a replacement to the infamous mac osx finder, so it has a major role in my relationship with computers and internet. And here comes the question:
I clearly do not plan to get rid of it, but the world changes, rules change and firms disappear.
How can I export out the content of Devonthink pro? They are stored inside its databases with the same structure as they were in folders before. Hundreds of thousands of files, even mirrored websites. I see that every file can be recovered, but not folders. Exporting a folders creates a Devonthink file. This means I should export my stuff file by file to retrieve the original folders readable by any computer? It’s not even feasible for most of my files. Is that impossible?
Welcome here 
Assuming I have understood you correctly, you can simply
- select a database from the side bar
- mark any or all content in that database from the list view
- select File/Export/Files and Folders…
And the magic that is DEVONthink (DT) will export the structure of what you have selected - so if you select the whole content of the database, your export will look exactly like the database - the folder structure in Finder will be as it was in DT, and the contents will be in those folders, as it was in DT. Try it and see (tip: use a small test database for trying things out).
Yep! It works! Thank you!
For any passers-by here: One major aspect of DEVONthink is that it does not change your original files to a proprietary format. The files are accessible within the database from Finder (that’s an emergency mechanism; no changes should ever be made to the database via Finder) and can be exported unchanged and in the structure deployed in DEVONthink using Export/Files and Folders… from within DEVONthink. They are always stored locally and only placed in a cloud if you choose to sync that way (and then not as individual files, but as bits of raw sync data). As @Max75 points out, conditions can change and companies can suffer demise; any software which makes it difficult to extract your data effectively holds you to ransom at that point. In my opinion DEVONtech clearly recognise that your data is yours; DEVONthink helps you organise it, but never takes it away from you.