Is this in response to me? I don’t really have a bug, I just need to know how to properly update and move my databases. 
Or should I still rise a support ticket for that? If so, from the DT2 installation or from the DT3 one?
Yes to you.
Yes please open a ticket.
From the newer Mac is fine.
1 Like
Thanks so much to the DEVONthink team. Just moved my databases from an older iMac to a new MacBook and it worked like a charm with the steps described by @BLUEFROG.
Awesome 
1 Like
Woohoo! Glad to hear it. 
I want to thank @robbchadwick and all who chimed in here. Very informative. I plan to do exactly what Rob did in a month or so (clean install without Migration Assistant.)
The recent entry by @manfred9 tells me these steps still work two years later, but if something should be considered now that didn’t apply then, I’d love to know before I take on this doozie. Thanks!
Unless you’re indexing files, a migration is a pretty simple matter actually.
Check out the Help > Tutorials > Migrate DEVONthink for info.
2 Likes
I followed these instructions yesterday to do a clean install of MacOS on my MBP, and it all worked 99% perfectly.
I’m keeping that last 1% because of 3 (and a bonus 4th) minor things to be aware of:
-
my preferences didn’t copy, but I’d seen a comment on the forum that they might not, so I screengrabbed all the menus before I did it just in case
-
related to this, I hadn’t remembered that I’d customised the toolbar in the main window, and that defaulted back to the original too. I’m counting this as a plus though as I made a new toolbar that’s better than the one I had previously
-
my global inbox transferred weirdly, but luckily only had 30 or so files in it so it wasn’t a problem to fix. All my files were orphaned and when I corrected it, DT made a new folder for orphaned files and then duplicated the files into duplicate tags. As no-one else has reported this I think it was user error and I missed a step somewhere. Again, I’m counting it as a plus because I got to tidy up my global inbox and practice fixing orphaned files
-
optional 4th minor issue: my custom stylesheet for markdown hadn’t copied over. BUT, I have a vague feeling it’s because it was stored outside DT’s “infrastructure” and I need to find it and reinstall. I’m flagging it as something to be aware of because I was very confused as to why my markdown was a white Word-like document, having forgotten that it’s my stylesheet that makes it beige etc.
As a separate note, nearly all my files are stored either in DT or in iCloud. It’s the first time I’ve ever done a clean install of a Mac, and DT made it so easy to transfer files simply because I only had one major place I needed to make sure moved successfully!
(My intel MBP had a lot of random bits of software left over from apps I’ve not used for many years, hence why I wanted to do a clean install. It’s not made my MBP observably faster, but the battery lasted maybe a third longer than it usually does yesterday, which I hadn’t expected. I’ve also never had a Mac fail, so I was treating this as a learning opportunity so that if that terrible day ever comes, I know I’ve successfully done this once before.)
2 Likes
These instructions are for migrating from one computer to another, and assumes you have the original computer to copy stuff from the Application Support folder (5th and 6th screen of the Help article you used). Do you still have this folder (and any subfolders) on backup?
I did have the copy on backup.
Irrelevant now though because something didn’t work with the fresh install and Apple have said I need to erase from disk utility and do it all again to try and fix a problem (they’re calling me later).
So now I will be testing installing DT from scratch for a second time 
I’m moving from an Intel MacBook Pro to Mac Mini M1. I’ve a external drive for file storage as the internal is smaller. Can transfer the dtBase2 files to that external drive?
See…
and the follow-up…