Is it safe to use DevonThink with OneDrive?

DEVONthink
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I recently took a new job. The employer is a Microsoft shop and would prefer that we use OneDrive to store work files.

I vaguely recall reading a post that recommends against using OneDrive for a DevonThink database—but I did some Googling just now and it seems that my memory is incorrect—it seems that OneDrive may be supported?

For now, I just want to create a database, store that database on the OneDrive folder on my Mac, and use it on one machine. For now, I will not sync that database to iCloud or any other cloud service. Will that be a problem?

In the future, I may want to index folders on OneDrive.

And I may also want to sync to another Mac, iPads and/or an iPhone.

Will any of that be problematic?

I suspect if I decide to sync between machines, I’d be better off doing Bonjour syncing than using OneDrive.

Thanks!

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For now, I just want to create a database, store that database on the OneDrive folder on my Mac, and use it on one machine. For now, I will not sync that database to iCloud or any other cloud service. Will that be a problem?

Nothing has changed in cloud in this regard. You should never put DEVONthink databases in any cloud-synced location or you could irreparably damage them. To this end, DEVONthink disallows creating, opening, or syncing a database in such a location and issues a warning about it.

In the future, I may want to index folders on OneDrive.

If maintaining tags on the documents isn’t important, then yes, it’s feasible. See…

I suspect if I decide to sync between machines, I’d be better off doing Bonjour syncing than using OneDrive.

You couldn’t sync to DEVONthink To Go via OneDrive in any situation.

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So I absolutely should not put a DevonThink database on OneDrive, but indexing is OK, so long as I don’t care about Finder tags? Correct?

What about DevonThink native tagging? Will OneDrive remove DT-native tags?

Thanks!

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Yes, you technically can index OneDrive items. However, they should ideally be stored locally, not just in OneDrive on the cloud.

DEVONthink tags are automatically applied as Finder tags on indexed items. If OneDrive strips them off, then yes they would disappear on the documents in DEVONthink.

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When I used to index it was with OneDrive. I always applied tags locally and never lost them. But as @BLUEFROG says do NOT store your database there. It will be a disaster.

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When were you doing this? I’ll need to check if something changed re: Finder tags.

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I think I moved from indexing maybe a year ago. Tagged files in DT never got stripped of whatever I applied to them. Again, tagged locally in DT. Putting DT aside I VERY rarely assign tags in Finder. It’s probably been at least 5 years since I last did.

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Hello,

Regarding the disappearance of tags on indexed OneDrive folders: what about documents assigned to tag groups or replicated to a group within a folder?

I like to keep a running chronology of docs for a case in a master folder with sub folders holding replicants of some of those chronology docs for categorization.

If I were to move this data to OneDrive and index, would the replicants in groups in DT3 survive the OneDrive sync?

I get that this is a OneDrive issue. I also understand that OneDrive in the finder will not reflect replicants in DT3. but I was also under the impression that replicants in groups and tagged documents were functionally similar - does OneDrive jeopardize replicants stored in groups?

Thanks.

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