How does restoring databases work?

DEVONthink
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Hi, hope you guys are having a fantastic day so far.

Few days ago I have backed up everything in Time Machine and upgraded the system to macOS Tahoe. During that time I wrote few documents in DEVONthink. However I was not satisfied with the system overall, so I decided to downgrade the system. Before the downgrade I had synced all databases to my drives to make sure I had saved everything.

After the downgrade, I tried to use new databases from my drive to cover the old one from Time Machine, but it turned out to be a synchronisation in which the old one covered the new databases.

So how does restoring databases work? And how can I avoid ‘the old one covers the new one’ in the future?

Many thanks

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Apple describes how to restore from a TimeMachine backup:

DEVONthink databases are macOS packages with a dtBase2 extension. I suggest, before you get things sorted out properly, that when you restore you create a new copy and not over-write. (I forget the actual words on the dialog box).

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Thank you, does that mean deleting the old database also work too?

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Deleting the “old database” has nothing to do with restoring. If you “over-write” (choosing that option on the Time Machine restore), then of course you lose the old database. Hence … yes, that’s why i suggested not doing that.

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Can you clarify what you mean by this?

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Thank you.

When I downgraded the system version from macOS 26 to macOS 15, I had to erase the whole laptop and reinstall macOS 15. Time machine restored all files for me, so I don’t think I did something like ‘overwrite’.

In terms of database, DEVONthink databases from Time Machine are older (e.g. 21/08) than what I backup from another portable drive (e.g. 25/08, I created some documents). After the full recovery from Time Machine, I wanted to use the newest backup to overwrite the old DEVONthink database but it turned out that the old version overwrote (synced to) the new one

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Downgrade the system from macOS 26 to macOS 15 means I have to reinstall the macos15. To reinstall it, I need to erase the laptop.

So before the erase, I uploaded/synced DEVONthink databases to my portable drive

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I’m having trouble understanding what you did. you seem to be mixing “sync” (a DEVONthink process) with TimeMachine restores (an Apple macOS process). And when you say the old version override the new one (while saying you didn’t say to over-write) … call me confused. Sorry. Can’t help further.

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Sorry for that, it is a bit hard for me to describe that situation

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Do you have a sync running on the “old” version of your MacOS for DT? I.e. you’re syncing your DT databases to another device? (Perhaps a phone or iPad?)

And had you perhaps not set up a new sync on your new OS? Or even set up a different sync method?

Attempting to interpret what you did, it sounds like you restored your Mac from Time Machine, reverting your databases to the “old” version. I suspect you then opened DT on MacOS15, which was your mistake, as the old databases then synced with your sync store and became the latest version of your databases.

When you went to restore your databases to the “new” versions from your portable drive, they were superseded by your sync files (because they pre-dated the sync you’d just triggered) and your sync pushed the latest version through for you.

All of which is to say, if this is what happened step 1 is to disable sync before tinkering with things :grimacing:

Apologies if I have filled in the gaps incorrectly!

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Do you have a sync running on the “old” version of your MacOS for DT? I.e. you’re syncing your DT databases to another device? (Perhaps a phone or iPad?)

Don’t think so, haven’t use DTG for a long time

And had you perhaps not set up a new sync on your new OS? Or even set up a different sync method?

No, I did only the local backup (i.e. sync files to a portable drive)

All of which is to say, if this is what happened step 1 is to disable sync before tinkering with things :grimacing:

I realised I should do that afterwards. But I would also like to know what are the other steps after disabling sync because old files are still there in the database. Should I delete them?

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Steps to do exactly what?

My hunch is that however it happened (@MsLogica probably close to it), you’ve ended up with a database that is older than what you previously had – or the newer database is still lurking somewhere unknown.

If you make changes to the only database version you have, it then becomes the “newest”. Whether you delete these “older” files is up to you. If uncertain, you could move them into a new Group called, say “Older Files that I may delete someday” or something.

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Thank you.

I have looked at the manual, I realised ‘sync’ and ‘backup’ are completely different terms, and that explained a lot to my mistake

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