Indexed folder names: any tricks to naming them?

DEVONthink
1

I have an indexed folder which is controlled by another application. I can’t control the name of that folder (it’s set by the other application), but it’s not a very descriptive name in my DEVONthink 3 database. It would be convenient to change the name displayed by DEVONthink. Is there a way to achieve that?

MacOS won’t let you create hard links to directories, which would have been a solution if it worked. I’ve tried creating an alias in the Finder for the folder in question, but indexing it in DEVONthink resulted in DEVONthink displaying the actual folder name, not the aliased name. And of course, renaming the item in DEVONthink causes the folder on disk to be renamed, which causes problems for the other application.

I’m hoping there is a solution that I’ve overlooked and that people here can point me to.

2

No. You’re dealing with the folder in the file system so the change will happen outside the database too.

3

In cases where the indexed folder’s content isn’t changed anymore (either via DEVONthink or via another app) it’s possible to lock the folder in Finder and then rename it in DEVONthink.

However if the content is still changing I think your only option is to create a group with the name you want and then index the folder into this group.

4

If you’re familiar with homebrew, there is a package called hardlink-osx that installs a command hln that will create hard links.

Caveat emptor. I’ve never used it.

5

Thanks for the suggestion. I use Homebrew, and actually already know about hln. It doesn’t work for directories on APFS file systems; APFS doesn’t support hard links to directories. (hln just ends up creating a symlink instead, if you try it with directories.)

References:

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6

In cases where the indexed folder’s content isn’t changed anymore (either via DEVONthink or via another app) it’s possible to lock the folder in Finder and then rename it in DEVONthink.

Sneaky :slight_smile: . Unfortunately, the directory in question is not at all static…

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

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