How to restore a deleted Folder?

DEVONthink Tips
1

Hi,

I accidentally removed a whole folder. Is there any way to restore it?

Thanks,
Helge

2

In DEVONthink 1.x, only by using Tools > Restore Backup. Hope you had a current backup.

But assume that you didn’t have a current backup. With DEVONthink Pro or Office, one could make a zipped copy of the current database (QUIT DT Pro, first!). Then open the current copy, run Restore Backup, then export the recovered group to a new folder. Now close the current database. Move its package file to the Trash. Unzip the copied database and open it. Import the ALL the contents of the folder that holds the exported, recovered group. That should have you up to date, unless the previous state of that group had been changed since the last backup.

In the upcoming DEVONthink 2.0, there’s a database Trash, from which such an accidental deletion could be recovered.

3

Bill,

thanks for answering. If I understand you correctly, I can only recover the folder if had it backed up. Unfortunately I hadn’t.

I guess, I am one of the first people who will update to Version 2 :wink:

Thanks,
Helge

4

Are you sure that you don’t have any internal DTP backups? These are on by default, so unless you have switched them off there should be something.

Johannes

5

Johannes,

I have some “automatic” backup instances, but they are a couple of days old, where the folder I deleted was just a day old. But thanks for mentioning.

Helge

6

Here’s another repetition of one of my “belt and suspenders” sermons:

Whenever I’ve been expending time and effort that I wouldn’t want to lose, at a break time I’ll manually invoke Tools > Verify & Repair to check database integrity, then Tools > Backup & Optimize. For users of DT Pro/DT Pro Office there’s a convenient script that does this and more, Scripts > Export > Backup Archive. The archive file that’s created outside the database is great protection against a hard drive failure or other untoward events if stored on an external medium.

7

Thanks for the tip. I will try to remember running the script regularly.