Folder structure disappeared

DEVONthink
1

Hello.

I’ve just opened a DT database that I haven’t used in a couple years. It was saved in the cloud and then downloaded to new computer and opened in the latest version of DT3.

Initially when I opened the database, it was empty - with nothing there except the standard “All images,” “All PDF documents” and “Duplicates”, all of which were empty.

I ran Verify & Repair which turned up thousands of documents. But these are all stored as Orphaned Files and my entire folder structure is gone.

Not to be dramatic, but this is thousands of hours of work organizing excerpts and images. Any advice on how I can retrieve the original folders - with the correct files within - would be enormously appreciated.

Thank you.

2

Were these indexed documents perhaps, not imported ones?

Restoring from a backup might be a possibility.

3

How exactly did you save the database in the cloud and which version of DEVONthink (2.x or 3.x) did you use?

As databases can’t be located in cloud folders (e.g. iCloud Drive), DEVONthink tries to prevent creating/opening of databases in such folders to avoid possible issues like this one as the cloud copy might be either incomplete or damaged.

Do you have any other copies (e.g. on your old computer or Time Machine backups)?

4

Hi. Thank you for your response.

I have a previous computer’s hard drive backed up to Backblaze. Unfortunately, I no longer have the computer so the saved DT database is the only copy. It was backed up in 2022, so I would imagine the version was 2.x

5

What’s the file extension of the database in the cloud? E.g. .dtBase2, .dtSparse or a .zip archive? If it’s .dtBase2, then you could try this:

  1. Download a fresh copy of the database from the cloud to your computer

  2. Select the database in the Finder, choose Show Package Contents in the contextual menu

  3. Copy (!) the most recent Backup folder to the desktop

  4. Copy (!) the Files.noindex folder into the copied (!) Backup folder

  5. Add the file extension .dtBase2 to the Backup folder

Now you should be able to open the copied Backup folder by double-clicking on it. Afterwards use File > Verify & Repair Database (or even better, use File > Verify & Repair Database and File > Rebuild Database…) to ensure that everything’s fine.

6

Thanks very much for this, but it didn’t change anything. All the files are Orphaned Files with no folder structure or organization.

7

You could try to repeat the above steps using an older Backup folder inside the package contents if available. However, first you would have to download a fresh copy once again.