Even the lowest setting likely doesn’t mean “purge instantly.” Probably more like “when iOS needs this space, these files are a low priority.” Probably tied to an algorithm identifying the most recently used files.
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Did you look in the manual? See Sync > Everything or Just the Metadata. In particular the section on purging:
Manually: You can at any time remove contents to free disk space. Select items in the items list and choose Purge in the Actions menu.
Automatically: Alternatively you can let DEVONthink To Go choose the documents you haven’t used recently, and purge them for you. Choose how many files should have their contents kept on the device in the Settings.
Automatic purging keeps track when documents have been downloaded or accessed so that it only removes the least used contents. It also does not purge documents that have not yet been synchronized to some other location, that are protected by their enclosing group, or that have been downloaded in the past hour. Documents only synchronizing with a direct connection are also never automatically purged.
“Documents only synchronizing with a direct connection” = using Bonjour.
So you have to purge the items manually. (And you don’t have to select each item one by one. From what I remember you can just select a parent, even a whole database.)
Make the the Synchronization: Retain slider is not set to All items.
Thank you. Previously done.
Thanks. I deleted one database and then re-added it and this time it is On Demand, and it looks like it has sync’d without corruption this time (no obvious missing files). No change to iPhone storage yet.
As something clearly went wrong with the upgrade process, I think I will have to delete all databases and start again.
On a database on iPhone I deleted and then attempted to sync to Mac, during the sync process the above log occurred. When I examined the database on iPhone it was empty. In synchronisation local, where the list of databases is, next to the particular database it says “merge”. The pulldown does not seem to result in the sync starting again.
I turned it off and on, and now it seems to have restarted syncing.
The sync completed and I repeated the process with the remaining databases (deleting them and then re-syncing them). In the case of the inbox, this read merge on the local screen, and I turned it off and turned it back on. It re-synced.
After that, in each of the databases and the inbox, it seems that if I click on a file, it downloads at that point, suggesting that all the downloaded files have now gone.
Except… iPhone storage still reports that DEVONthink is using about the same amount of storage, which seems odd to me, unless it takes some time for this to update.
Further, there were some files in the inbox on the iPhone that uploaded to the Mac, even though those same Mac files had previously been moved elsewhere and renamed. I will now go through and work out the duplicate files. Hopefully, that is the only remaining glitch.
Once that’s done, I’ll then start the process on the two iPads that were installed the same way. I’ll later advise on the results of the squirrel’s efforts during those installations.
Once those two devices are done, I have one more device on which I will be starting from scratch with the upgrade, but can’t commence that for about two weeks.
How would you expect DTTG to figure out that you consider two differently named files in different locations „the same"?
I don’t and didn’t.
For documents less than 16MB, this is controlled by the Document > Automatically Download setting.
Thanks @BLUEFROG
The good news is that my iPhone installation of DEVONthink To Go version 4 seems to be working properly. However, the storage on my iPhone has not changed. It is still around 65 GB, and the phone storage is close to full. This, despite the fact I have changed from full download to on demand, deleted all databases and redownloaded them to correctly show the correct files listed, but not storing the files unless I access an individual file, in which case that file downloads on demand as it should.
Since achieving this new setup, I would have tested downloads on a couple of files, so it should be less than 100 MB.
I’m wondering if I should try deleting DEVONthink and all associated files to see if that frees up the space and effectively reinstall as if I am installing the product for the first time. Are there any downsides associated with this?
At the moment, that’s the only possible path I can think of to take.
I’d confirm that all your storage is in fact definitely from DEVONthink before doing anything else.
Settings>General>iPhone Storage.
Wait for it to populate all the apps storage allotment.
THEN you can assess what to do next.
Still think there’s a better option but I don’t use partially downloaded db’s so I’ll let others take it from here.
Thanks. Yes, the phone at the menu you mentioned is reporting the DEVONthink storage as 66 GB.
That’s probably all caches files now, including the sync cache. What does DTTG itself report in Settings > About this App?
The About menu item reports 1.9 GB. The iPhone is still saying 66 GB.
If so, is this something that will clear as a matter of course, or do I need to take action to resolve this?
For what it’s worth (maybe nothing), it is my understanding that Apple’s iOS takes care of all that automatically in its own time, especially when “disk” space becoming short. I also understand that this cache cleanup is considered “low-level” system information that they don’t share with the public or even third-party developers. My hunch is their over-riding priority is to not waste battery power doing stuff that isn’t really needed and only do stuff when needed–or something like that.
I did find:
My best advice is not bother about it for now.
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I have a copy of iMazing, which I hardly ever use, but it is nice to know it is there if I need it. I don’t know if it would be useful in this case, however: