Use Sync. That is what sync does. Read about it in the “DEVONthink Manual”.
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Hmm. I need to dust off my skills and now rethink. I have a very convoluted path. I started out with the dear departed CircuPonies, then moved to DT for a bit, then spent years on Evernote. Just did a quick local test between two laptops at home. Will need to check in the office next week.
I’ve bailed all my files from Evernote into Obsidian, but need to look again at the DT path. Thank you all for your patience.
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Devonthink is pretty gentle with your files. The database itself is a Mac package, which looks like a single file in the Finder but is actually a directory.
When a file is imported, Devonthink finds a place to put it where it won’t have a name collision. That’s why you can have multiple files with the same name in a Devonthink group. If you use Reveal in Finder you’ll see where DT stored any imported file, which is left it its original form.
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True enough, but let me add the caution to look but don’t touch. In general, you shouldn’t mess about in the internals of a DEVONthink database. And outside of specific instructions from us, there’s generally no good reason to get in there. 
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In fact, they exist on various machines and “the cloud” takes care of having the same state everywhere.,
Which is not at all the same as “having a file in the cloud and working with it”. That’s what network file systems like SMB and NFS do. In that case, the file never leaves the server. Whereas with the usual cloud suspects, multiple copies reside on the machines involved.
And: files are quite different from the database folders DT relies on. Having search fall because a cloud service hasn’t found the time to update the metadata is not what one would want.
What one might want, would be a client-server architecture as the big databases offer. But that’s even more complicated to manage.
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I appreciate your emphasis on this point. I concur that it effectively fulfills its purpose for basic utilization.
The crux of a note-taking or knowledge system’s significance lies in its demand to seamlessly incorporate ideas while ensuring steadfast stability and accessible convenience. This challenge is further intensified by the myriad of devices people utilize, encompassing macOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and web platforms. The ultimate goal is to facilitate the unobstructed capture and retrieval of ideas, eliminating potential hindrances along the way.
In the pursuit of continuous 24/7 access to the notes database for effortless idea capture, knowledge retention, and document storage, a noteworthy challenge arises in the form of maintaining a Mac running the Devonthink server and implementing measures for external accessibility. To navigate this challenge, I personally devised a solution involving an older MacBook Pro 15 paired with frpc. However, this approach does encounter occasional stability issues. For instance, the aging Mac might experience overheating and performance slowdowns, or the frpc process could unexpectedly terminate after a couple of weeks. Despite these intermittent setbacks, this arrangement manages to fulfill its fundamental purpose, even if it doesn’t match the reliability of a local client.
A more pressing concern centers around synchronization. Designating my primary Mac as a Devonthink server isn’t feasible, prompting the use of an older Mac for this purpose alongside a MacBook Pro 21 running Devonthink. This setup introduces synchronization complexities, exacerbated by the Devonthink author’s recommendation against placing Devonthink folders within Dropbox. Consequently, ensuring synchronization and uniformity between the two Devonthink databases becomes intricate. Maintaining two separate copies without synchronization is a precarious arrangement that is prone to degradation over time.
At present, I’ve integrated several applications to establish a multi-layered system. For the initial layer, I employ applications like Flomo or Notion as quick-and-dirty inboxes, enabling swift capture of ideas or knowledge fragments. Depending on the nature of the content and the device I’m using (ios, mac, linux, or windows), I route input to the appropriate application. These entries inside Notion are lightly organized, denoted by codes like 2308XX (month) and 2308W1 (week). Once a week is completed, I cease adding content to 2308W1 and start a new note book. I then manually export a markdown copy from Notion and save it to a NAS as a safeguard against potential application closures. This layer focuses on capturing.
For the subsequent layer, I strive for meticulous organization. I predominantly use Obsidian and Logseq, the former being open-source and the latter “semi-open”, allowing for plugin development. Content transitioning into the Obsidian system undergoes a process of refinement, ensuring its cleanliness. Material sourced from Notion, for example, is trimmed and cleaned before being incorporated into Obsidian. These systems primarily house plain text, code snippets, and links, while images, PDFs, and larger files are stored externally on image beds, NAS links, or Devonthink server links. This approach keeps the Obsidian vault streamlined and could use git control. Additionally, both Logseq and Obsidian are cross-platform, enhancing accessibility. Notion’s web version serves as a quick-and-dirty inbox as it only acquires a web-browser but don’t forget to export the notes every few weeks.
Devonthink offers a valuable feature known as “index folder,” which I leverage to monitor my Obsidian vault (folder). This vault primarily comprises plain text files, along with some links directing to my NAS and image hosting service. Consequently, on my main Mac, I continue to employ Devonthink in conjunction with Obsidian. However, in instances where I’m operating on a Linux or Windows system where Devonthink isn’t accessible, I rely solely on Obsidian.
The inability to seamlessly achieve all of these tasks within a single software like Devonthink (which would suffice if I remained solely within the macOS ecosystem) is indeed frustrating. Nevertheless, given the current circumstances, it seems I must work with a setup like this to realize my preferred workflow. Unfortunately, there isn’t a singular application available that can encompass all these functionalities, and this fact is rather disappointing.
A sidelight question arises - if I have a database synced to several devices, can I simultaneously open and modify each synced copy?
My gut feeling is that would be fine, although I’m not sure how DT handles simultaneous access to the common sync store. I see the sync preferences include “use latest document” and “duplicate documents.”
I keep mine set to duplicate, but for syncing simultaneous updates the use latest option would probably make more sense.
Assuming simultaneous use of synced instances is OK.
Just curious. Have you tried this for yourself? If not, I suggest you give it a try and watch carefully what happens.
In general it seems to just work. I found that if I edited the same file on two machines I would get sometimes get a copy. The document would have the edits, the copy would have the edits from the other device.
However, it’s a little tricky to get that to happen.
I think if you don’t sync both machines close enough to the same time, the edit proliferates across before triggering the feature that creates a duplicate file.
I could be wrong. For editing different notes on different machines, I didn’t see any trouble.
Document handoff, supported by apps like Pages and Numbers, might require a little more thought. Or not, I don’t know.
There is a setting for what should happen when a file conflict arises.
From page 183 of the DT manual
Conflicts: Choose how to solve the conflict
if an item was changed both locally and
remotely. Use latest document preserves
the most recently changed document.
Duplicate documents keeps both versions
of the conflicting item and appends “copy”
to the end of one’s filename.
That whole section has useful info for the nuances of sync that are being discussed here.
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Generally, conflicts don’t happen that often.
They happen when a document is changed on more than one device before they’ve synced.
For example, if you had a database synced between two devices but disabled the sync, made edits to a file on both devices, then enabled the sync again, it would generate a copy (if that’s what your Conflict pref is set to do).
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Exactly. I have to say that the new LaTeX feature on Ulysses makes it waaaay more useful to me. I will continue to export anything important to DEVONthink 3 as a pdf, so, as you say, I don’t really see these as being in competition. I don’t write a lot of notes really anyway.
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I spent the last month trying to set up Obsidian with various plugs and themes, watching dozens of youtube videos on best practices, etc. The ration of fidgeting to productive working was probably 80/20.
So you spent a month watching videos, etc. and you’re surprised that the ratio was 80/20? Really? You do realize that none of that was necessary and you could have started taking notes immediately? The biggest problem with Obsidian is people reading their forums or watching YT videos thinking there is “one best way”. There isn’t. Like any other powerful tool start with the basics and add on where you need help.
The other problem here is thinking DT and Obsidian are “note-taking apps”. One is, one is not. Yes you can take notes in DT but that is not its forte. That is Obsidian’s forte. Tell me, how do I do callouts in DT notes? Oh yeah I can’t. How do I have multiple types of checkboxes in DT? Oh yeah, I can’t. How about multi-state checkboxes for task management? You guessed it, I can’t.
I am not bashing DT. But posts like these are a bit unserious when the tools really are vastly different with some overlap in what they do. It is quite possible to use both together for their respective strengths.
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Did Obsidian saddle that on top of (supposedly standard) Markdown, too?
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I respectfully disagree. My objective was to set up a PKMS to be my clinical knowledge base built on information obtained from pdfs of textbooks, journal articles, websites, webinars, etc.
Obsidan out of the box does not work as well as Devonthink does, but its allure is the ability to use user contributed plug ins, especially its dataview plugin that works beautifully with the book search plugin for obtaining frontmatter for books curated within your Obsidan vault.
The highlighter plugin extracts highlights from annotated imported pdfs. The Omnisearch plugin, QuickAdd plug in, and Search on Internet plugin, all help with the organizing and storing of reading material. None of these plugins really are for notetaking, but for making Obsidian usable to do what DT does effortlessly.
But the cost of learning how to build one’s ideal Obsidian PKMS is time spent learning and fiddling with these plugins. I never approached DT as a note taking app, which is why I have been thrilled to see how well it is working as one: for me. I am able to store and curate all of my material, and only use the built in scripts to make thing work the way I could not get them to work in Obsidian.
Of course people can use both these apps - it would be foolish to think a binary approach works for everyone. I simply shared my experience because I felt so happy with how my productivity unexpectedly exploded using DT.
Please remember that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour and I encourage you to learn how to share your thoughts without coming across as condescending.
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Threads like this are a little pointless since personal preference plays such a huge role in our opinions, but for what it’s worth I played with Obsidian for a few months (and bought an annual sync subscription to really commit to my test), but mostly had the same experience as OP. It’s easy to spend a lot of time tinkering with Obsidian and “optimising” it in a way that feels productive but is probably either unnecessary, or ultimately forcing Obsidian to do something it wasn’t originally designed to do.
I wasn’t looking to replace DT, I just got attracted by other folks’ experience of using both apps together. Ultimately I stopped my experiment and am migrating my Obsidian notes back into DT (actually I haven’t yet but only because I’ve been procrastinating). There were several points of friction for me (a huge one being that I want my notes next to their original texts), but I had spent a lot of time changing settings and installing plugins with Obsidian, in a way I didn’t have to do with DT.
I do very strongly feel that too much customisation/choice is a bad thing (in life generally and in apps 
). I appreciate the “railings” that are imposed on us by DT (and many other apps that are not as customisable as Obsidian), and find the cleaner “this is how this app does it” attitude conducive to work, personally.
I do also think the onboarding experience is different, mostly because of this customisation issue. With DT, there’s a manual and a couple of books, a forum, and usually one answer to the question “How do I do X?”. With Obsidian, I didn’t find the onboarding so easy: there’s a million YouTube videos, and often multiple answers to “How do I do X?”, which then drags the user into quandaries they shouldn’t have to worry about. (Honestly if you don’t know how to do X, you should just do what the app tells you to do… the problem is Obisidian often isn’t telling you, it’s presenting various plugins and you’re left to figure it out on your own without the expertise you need to make a decision… you’re a newbie after all.)
Re: cloud storage, since it’s been discussed here, I specifically chose DT because it was local app (and Obsidian!). I don’t want hundreds of my personal files in a cloud service somewhere. My work files are not so interesting, but like many DT users I also store all my life paperwork in a database. I want that to stay local.
I do also feel it’s a bit pointless paying for all this storage and processing power on our devices and then sticking everything in the cloud, but I did that for years.
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Is everyone here defending his or her favorite app? Understandable but it doesn’t help anyone.
Note-taking, PKMS or anything else. The app that does everything exactly the way you want it, doesn’t exist.
If a function/feature is completely missing, there is little you can do. But for me, the more common case is another.
The function is basically there, but access is complicated. Or I have to achieve what I want in several steps. What I don’t want if it works in another app in one step.
In such cases, a good automation app for the Mac helps. I can compensate for almost everything with it.
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Agree with @MsLogica and @FrankT, not to mention OP @Yazmsw was just expressing their joy and relief at finding something that works for them after what sounds like a long struggle with one particular tool that didn’t happen to meet their specific needs. It could have been any other tool or methodology.
I think we can receive others’ sharing about what tools or methodologies work or do not work for them without needing to respond in a way that suggests their sharing invalidates our own experiences.
And, of course, we can be honest about what did/does not work for us with other tools or methodologies without needing to position those tools or methodologies as flawed. Just because something doesn’t meet our needs doesn’t devalue it, for it could be of value to someone else.
PS. @Yazmsw, a bit late to the party but I totally resonate with how you feel! Not about Obsidian but rather the process of finally finding something that works! Good on ya! 
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@silverhuang You’re right, of course. but @jasonekratz comment wasn’t that bad either. I would say a mixture of sarcasm and irony. 
Where I come from, freedom of speech means that I can choose how I express myself, within certain limits. But the others are also allowed to choose. No one has to do what others do, but whoever wants to restrict others also restricts himself. Serenity is a good character trait.
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I agree very much.
but I also came to think these rather ‘two-sideism’-flavored threads come about by two other reasons – alongside the issue brought forward here re. the critical(!!) need of steering clear from invalidating each others experiences, needs, preferences in some kind of smurky ‘I know it all’ battles
[– which the OP here certainly didn´t engage, to be clear!]
- there simply is an ambivalency of DT being positioned – in several ways – between database, document manager, PKM, and ‘note taking environmnent of sorts’.
and I think not accepting – and reflecting – the fundamental ambivalency, and facing up to that will inadvertently create these false sideism discussions.
this whole thread is an affirmation of the ‘stereo’-view (– others might call it self-confounded, schizophrenic, or such things … –) the community takes by simultaneously declaring DT is not a note-taking environment, … while practically treating and discussing it such (– for a myriad of good & solid reasons, btw; some also stemming from DTs architecture, some – partly – its self-marketing etc.) be that as it may: certainly the forum is full of discussing DT as such a note-taking and writing environment …
// – this is basically the short recap of what I have written up here
(– and actually I think it is for a reason that there was never a substantial answer / reaction to that… ) //
- these discussions on note-taking always simultaneously discuss different scenarios, set-ups, and user-types as if they are the same, or should be, in a kind of monlithic world.
fact is, the a large chunk of the people who really want to capitalize on DTs note-taking (and other intelligent) affordances search for something that works as lo-fi notetaker (not word-processor etc.), and do so across the desktop-mobile-divide. (then, of course there are others, who embrace the friction that such a scenario brings because they are self-proclaimed tech-minimalists or -purists and expert-die-hards, differentiating themselves from 80% of the ‘normal’ user base for such apps…)
this is another ambivalency, first to be acknowledged, and basically (snd ironically) created by the otherwise superb integration of DT across desktop and mobile mode, IMO… but also one which breaks down when turning to note-taking and ‘external editors’ (– which is the standard reply / ‘solution’ by some, when some non-coding/-techie users are asking for more note-taking comfort in DT)
– this is, btw, why (a lot of) people are always bouncing between DT and … Obsidian, Bear, Craft … whatever… … a fact that actually seems at the root of this very post – comparing DT & Obsidian, with all the pre-supposed and ‘built-in’ ambivalencies of any such comparison (… obviously Obsidian is not a ‘document manager’ )
[– I also made a similar argument before, but think it was worth this kind of contextualization here…]
so, I think: better admit to the ‘native grey’ of DT – and face up to it on all sides – … instead of engaging in fruitless, all-brusing black-and-white battles… (or anything of that grade).
[– again: all this doesn´t really pertain to the thrust / intent of the OP; but it is a logic that, as I pointed out at other places, unfolds by neccessity in the ‘community’ given the basic ambivalency, and its ‘denial’ [to use a ‘big’ word, here :-D]…)
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