I upgraded to DEVONthink Pro version 4 soon after its release, but I’ve held off on installing DEVONthink To Go due to nerves about how this installation would go. Prescient?
I’ve now taken the plunge, following all the installation advice on the website, and here is where I’m at:
None of my settings seem to carry over from version 3 to version 4. I did install version 4 before deleting version 3.
This meant that I need to set up syncing again from the beginning (on many devices). Having done that on the first device, my iPhone, the syncing proceeded to download every single file for every database onto my iPhone.
This is not the setting I had previously, and I’m surprised that this would be the apparent default.
The storage on my phone now being completely full, I have investigated how to change this in the settings. I’ve found a lot of discussion about how it works, and yes, I think I understand how it works.
It seems I have to find the menu item “Download files: …”, and adjust it from Always to On Demand. I have not been able to find where this is located. Nor understand how the slider for Retain in settings, works with this. Should I have this set to 100% or something else? Just not sure.
Any advice on how to find the setting “Download files:” and how Retain works in relation to that would be greatly appreciated.
Further exploration has revealed that the download files option appears at the level of each individual database, and I have found that for the inbox.
I attempted to adjust download files from Always to On-Demand, but it’s not possible to make this change.
Could this have something to do with the username and passwords shown higher up on this dialogue? I have never used a username or password with this app before, so I am not sure what this is? When I click on username or password, they cannot be selected.
Despite the fact that all files have now been downloaded onto the iPhone, the phone has not actually synced the list of files with my Mac installation. There are files on the phone that are not on the Mac.
So, you had DTTG3 installed before and had that syncing with your Mac? Which means that both platforms should have had the same data. How come that you now see data on your iPhone that are not on the Mac?
To be specific, these are files that are on the iPhone in a database that are not on the Mac in the same database.
The iPhone only syncs with the Mac when DEVONthink is open on the iPhone and on the Mac (I believe).
Between the last sync with the Mac and the replacement of DEVONthink To Go version 3 with version 4, some files were moved out of the database on the Mac.
What I was trying to convey was that, despite files being downloaded from the Mac onto the iPhone with Version 4, which I thought was a synchronisation, the actual files that appear in the database on the Mac were not synced with the iPhone.
I don’t follow.
You have DTTG3 on an iPhone and DT on a Mac. Both are in sync. Then you remove files from a synced database on your Mac. Is DTTG3 still in sync with the Mac after that? Then you install DTTG4 on the iPhone. Which shouldn’t have done anything to your databases. Did you remove DTTG3 then? Later? Before installing DTTG4?
You set up sync again on your iPhone. It starts syncing. And now you have the files on your iPhone database that you removed on your Mac database? Are any other devices involved in all that?
Which I’d read as “I have files on my Mac that are not on my iPhone”. Is that the case? If not – what is?
It wouldn’t have been at the time of upgrade because I did not sync it immediately before the upgrade.
I assume it didn’t until I set up Bonjour Sync.
Before setting up Bonjour Sync, I noted that each database had the same number of files in DTTG4 that they did on the DTTG3 installation. (I didn’t open DTTG3 to verify this. I had made a record of it). On confirmation of this I then deleted the DTTG3 app. I understood that this followed the instructions in the DEVONthink Guide for Installation (bar potentially not syncing immediately before upgrade).
Yes, however, the sync took a long time and it seemed to download all the files that were listed on the iPhone from the Mac onto the iPhone. I was therefore surprised that the listed files on the iPhone and Mac weren’t brought into line as part of that sync.
Yes, after completing the installation of DTTG4 on the iPhone, I downloaded Version 4 on two iPads and then deleted Version 3 on those iPads. I have not yet set up sync on those iPads, pending resolution of the issues with the iPhone.
Yes, it seems that there are files on my Mac that are not on my iPhone.
So, it seems like the file list on the iPhone was not brought into line with the file list on the Mac, but where files on the Mac were listed on the iPhone, all the actual files were downloaded from the Mac onto the iPhone.
What I wanted was for a sync to occur of the file list on the iPhone with the Mac, and I didn’t want all the files downloaded, as I want this to be on demand.
Starting with DEVONthink To Go 4.2, Download: Always is the default when you set up a new sync location because most iOS devices nowadays have at minimum 64 GB, most have much more.
How big are the databases on your Mac?
If you’re syncing all of them to your mobile device, do you actually need to?
What I wanted was for a sync to occur of the file list on the iPhone with the Mac, and I didn’t want all the files downloaded, as I want this to be on demand.
This is a choice YOU should have made when you set up the sync location. The setting is right there in the open when you set it up.
My bigger concern is that I have no path to converting to an on-demand mode.
That is incorrect. You can switch the sync location to a shallow sync and switch databases to a shallow sync, as needed.
I want to sync them to my mobile device with the files ‘on demand’ as I had on my DTTG3 app.
Noted, and I will look carefully for this capability on future installs.
By switching the sync location to a shallow sync, do you mean adjusting the setting for download of files from always to on demand? If so, how do I do that please?
My key concern at the moment is to work out how to have my iPhone sync with my Mac and have the iPhone reflect the same files listed on the Mac.
Yes, you must first change the setting on the sync location. You can’t have it set to always download files and a database set to on demand. That is an illogical proposition.
Go into the Action (…) menu > Settings > Synchronization > Locations and tap the Action button to the right of the sync location’s name and Edit.
Then long-press each database on DEVONthink To Go’s databases screen and switch it to On Demand per-database.
A sync initiated because both my iPhone and Mac had DEVONthink open.
The sync completed, and I checked the iPhone to see whether the iPhone storage had reduced. It hasn’t.
I clicked on a file in DEVONthink on the iPhone, and it was not necessary to download it. It was already downloaded. Would the actions I undertook that you recommended not delete the already downloaded files?
I checked the file list against the file list on the Mac, and there has been no change. In other words, there has been no synchronisation of the file list.
I have never used on-demand sync, and I wonder: After you initially synced in always mode, and you switch to on-demand, why would you expect files to be removed on DTTG? The app likely (and naturally in my opinion) assumes that the files already present have apparently been “demanded”.
Using your smallest DB, I would remove it entirely from DTTG. Then re-sync it from scratch, making sure that on-demand has been enabled prior, as described by Jim. That should do it. If that produced the right result, proceed with the other DBs accordingly.
Tangent: How does on-demand sync work in conjunction with Bonjour? Isn’t the latter a local network protocol? Can you only “demand” when both devices are on the same network at the same time? At least for my workflow, that renders this combo a non-starter.
Yes, that’s logical. I have now changed the Retain setting to its lowest level: 100, and still no change to iPhone storage.
I can only think that there is some corruption or some strange problem that means that when I sync’d the iPhone, DEVONthink successfully downloaded a whole heap of files in accordance with my inadvertent setting at the time (Always), but did not sync the file list, and still won’t do it.
On examination, it is not clear to me how to remove it entirely from DTTG. In synchronisation location, I can turn off the database, but that doesn’t delete it. The only other clue I would have is to delete each file and empty it, so to speak. So I may wait for @BLUEFROG to advise the best course of action.