Mark as Crazy/Read

[MickeyT9]

I feel like I have to mark myself as ‘Crazy’… because I can’t figure out what is going on with the ‘Mark as Read’ function… or ‘lack of’?..

I have 1604 unread items:

And when I click on an item, I ‘expect’ the Read/Unread status to ‘change’… just like it does in most Mail apps right?..

Of course, I can’t ‘expect’ this database to function like a Mail Client… although?.. isn’t it kind of ‘standard’ or at least ‘optional’ to set the parameters for such a function?.. So I went looking…

I tried typing “Mark”, “Unread” and a few other search guesses in the help database.

But I couldn’t seem to find what I’m looking for. I must be fundamentally ‘missing something’ here?..

[troejgaard]

@MickeyT9

when I click on an item, I ‘expect’ the Read/Unread status to ‘change’… just like it does in most Mail apps right?..

That is indeed what should happen. At least if you open the item in the View Pane or a Document Window. I personally don’t use the read/unread status, so I basically ignore it… But I just tested to be sure, and opening in an external application doesn’t change the status.

So it won’t change automatically if you
(a) open the item with an external application (meaning: Data/Right Click > Open with… or you set Double-click open documents externally in the preferences), or if you
(b) click the item while you have set your window to View > Preview > None.

What exactly is the problem? Are you confused about the number of unread items? Does the status really not change? Or can’t you figure out how to manually change the status?

DEVONthink assigns every new item in you database the status “Unread”. It seems all the unread items are from your Global Inbox… Where you have an indexed folder called “Inbox”. Did you just index it? Then all the files in it are new to DEVONthink, and thus, unread.

You can manually change the read/unread status in several ways. It is visually indicated with a circle/dot, which you can click to toggle. In the inspector Info > Generic:

In the window toolbar:

You can show it as a column in the item list, if you like. Choose View > List Colums > Flag. Here you can also click it to toggle.

Or you can right-click one or more items and choose Mark > As Unread (Checkmark = Unread. Click and the checkmark goes away = Read). This is the easiest way to change the status of multiple items.

The same command is available in the Menu bar: Data > Mark > As Unread (which means you can assign it a keyboard shortcut, if you wish).

Now, I don’t know if you have any weird smart rule set up that changes the read status… but I suspect not.

Hope this helps you

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I actually agree that for this particular topic, it is not so easy to search the built in Help. It is much easier if you download the PDF manual and use DEVONthink’s search inspector. You might search for:

I prefer the PDF in general, because I can make highlights and notes, easily link to specific places, or use the Table of Contents to navigate. Highly recommended

[saltlane]

There is a menu option that takes you to the next unread item (I think the short cut is CMD-Enter), if that helps.

Be aware that this won’t take you to unread items in the trash, but these items appear in the unread items count as well. I see you have a lot in the trash and this could be where the unread count is lurking.

[MickeyT9]

Thanks! Changing the View > Preview > None worked!

Each time I click on an item, it ‘clears’ the Mark.

However, I favour the ‘columns’ view, and now I get a ‘redundant’ preview:

The problem was that the mark wasn’t ‘clearing’ as I previewed each item. And there wasn’t much ‘help’ in the help section. I will try your advice thanks, using the PDF version of the help file.

[BLUEFROG]

Items are marked as read if they’re displayed in the view/edit pane. You can globally change this behavior in the Settings > General > General > Automatically mark items as read.

PS: It’s not a “redundant preview”. It’s the item details, similar to what the Finder displays. Choose View > Hide details if you don’t want to see it.

[troejgaard]

I never use the columns view, so I actually wasn’t aware DEVONthink has something similar to the Finder’s details pane. But think of it like this: You are not opening the file (and thus “reading” it) – you are browsing a list of files, with a pane that shows file details/metadata, including a thumbnail. (If you have thumbnails disabled for most things like I have, it will just be a file icon.) As @BLUEFROG says, you can simply hide this if it takes up too much space.

If you want to quickly change the read status of all currently unread items: Open the “Unread” Smart Group, select all, and toggle the status in one of the ways I mentioned above.