Excuse the noob question. I have 14000 pdfs (scientific articles) amassed over my career that I use for teaching, writing, etc. They are presently stored in 1 folder (was using Papers in past) in iCloud. My goal: migrate them to DT, for ease of searchign/finding the ones I want. Problem: I don’t have 40GB free on laptop, which is needed to import to DT (iCloud needs to d/l then drag-and-drop. Question: If I drag and index to DT, will the files need to d/l to laptop first? And…to have them available to DT to search the content all of these pdfs, will they need to be d/l to my laptop first? TIA!
Welcome @randyh
We were all beginners at something or another in our lives. Many “something or anothers”!
The documents will be download for indexing and no, you don’t have to manually download then drag and drop. In fact, there’s a good change you’ll end up importing, i.e., copying the files into the database.
My question is: Does your repository need to remain in iCloud Drive?
My second question is: How big is your hard drive and how hard would it be to clear the required space?
2 Likes
Thanks so much for the fast reply! Of my 500GB HD, I have about 20GB free (and files are 40GB total). I do reference these articles somewhat regularly. No time or energy to cull through them all to delete unneeded ones. Interestingly, in iCloud, there is no way to export these to an external SSD without first downloading them to my laptop. It’s like a Catch-22.
You’re welcome 
20GB free on a 500GB HD is not good regardless of the DEVONthink situation.
You should strive for 10-15% free space on your internal drive.
3 Likes
@randyh you can put the database in an external disk. I’m not fond in macOS system stuff but having less than 20% of free space in a disk is a risky thing, a 4% like in your case, at least in Windows, it is a candidate to a sure disaster, sooner than later (*).
When I used my first 2012 MacBook Pro with same amount of disk, I used to have a T2 disk “glued” in the cover with velcro with a short cable into one of the USB ports and put there my less used databases.
In your case, if you want to move those PDF into a database and forget the iCloud ones, attach a USB disk (or a SD card if you have slot) with enough space, and then create the DT database in that disk. Then IMPORT the files into it, assuming your files are local in disk and not evicted. If they are, you must go in batches, or first copy the files in the external disk before importing them into DT.
Once that done, remove the iCloud files to recover disk space. Close the DT database and copy the database into your Databases folder in your home folder, and then open the db from DT.
Now you have all your files into DT, and an extra security copy in the external disk.
However, this only works if your current iCloud files aren’t evicted and that 20 GB disk space is real and not faked due evicted files.
(*) And, please, don’t bother with religious wars Win/Mac: both systems have their own handicaps, and macOS with the old HFS had permissions corruptions as main problem, and new APFS have severe consistency file issues, letting cross i-nodes for different files, orphan i-nodes and non-deleted ones.
4 Likes