I am a nearly new user, about to get the pro version. Planning on Pro, not seeing need for Office yet, I have a SnapScan scanner that I will be using much more in the future, but I see DT as easily importing from or indexing a folder (the scanned to folder) and so direct import on scan seems unnecessary at this point.
I have been looking at the demo and the help files for a while now. I Have my own challenges which I will get to in a moment but my questions is, how does it work for others to import vs index files? It worries me to import ALL my files into a proprietary db. I am a writer and a photographer. Is DT a safe place to import my picture files? Or is DT just for text, web and basically… Research?
As a proprietary DB, if I did import all my files and deleted the originals, how are my files available in the future? Sometimes apps fail or some day in the future I may not upgrade DT and then what, can I still access my files that were imported? I have been a Mac user since the mid 80s, sometimes apps to stop being supported, it happens. Of course I may not need to ever do this, but I Want to make sure that I can if I want to.
It seems like DT will work better if I import my files, is that right? I can edit them directly, etc. But, I also use scrivener and Word for my writing. And I use DTP/Art/Layout programs for design projects. I am still assuming that DT is a huge organizational tool for the Mac. Did I miss anything? Is this going to work like the Finder as in, I can import my whole drive essentially? OR just the Documents but not the Microsoft DB (just did that and lost Outlooks files).
Other than making sure my indexed files remain in the same place and that I May not want to take my whole drive to go, why is import a smarter idea than indexing?
Still trying to get my head around this program.
About my own case: I have some real challenges with organization. I Had a pretty severe head injury a while back and I have some other cognitive issues that make organizing information, pretty darned difficult. I like the AI feature a lot. Suddenly things I Had written years ago but had forgotten about appear. I like the auto classify feature, now it looks like I Will get a little help organizing.
Now the embarrassing part, for years I Have made copies of whole documents folders and bought new drives. I Have so many duplicate and misfiled files … Its a real mess. But now I am getting help and getting things done (finally, hooray). I don’t know if DT is a duplicate finder per-se, I have been hacking away and a backed up version of my documents folder with Gemini for now.
And so, for learning how to file, to categorize and to sort, DT seems like a pretty good option. I guess the only thing I really don’t understand yet is, import or index?
IF anyone would be kind enough to comment on using DT as a boon to previously messy management skills and bad organizational habits I would appreciate it. And, there is the question of importing everything (including photos and files that still need other applications to open them) into DT - as opposed to simply indexing everything on my drive that I still need to have answered.
Much thanks
Dg