New DevonThink user...love it...need regular Apple Notes imports

I am still using Apple Notes for both personal and professional notes. I appreciate the native import on the DT side. I’m wondering…if I remind myself to do this import regularly, will it also import all notes again? I’d like to just import new or altered notes.

I don’t store notes in Apple Notes
When a note is completed, I export to Devonthink in pdf format

Not an option for me. I have lots of shared notes with family members.

Welcome!
Unfortunately, you can only import all notes at once. This is because of how Apple Notes is designed. I don’t know the technical details well enough to explain it, but it is a very closed system without any proper files. See here if you’re interested to learn more:

… So I don’t even know if you can consider DEVONthink’s import “native”. But it does work surprisingly well.

You could use a Smart Rule to filter duplicates like suggested here:

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Very helpful. thank you

You actually can export single notes and their attachments from Notes. Or at least you could some time ago. As scripting support for Notes is fairly bad, this might have gone downhill meanwhile.

This is just about exporting the notes, one would then have to import them into DT from the file system.

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Even so, perhaps another software would be better. Apple’s Notes is a very siloed app – as you are already experiencing. Exporting from it into other apps is difficult at best and sometimes failing. There are more open alternatives like Obsidian for Markdown notes (with the inherent MD issues like “where do my images go”) and Pages.

With these programs, you could also decide not to import but to index. But make sure that you understand the implications of each approach before deciding to do so. The topic has been discussed extensively here and in the DT user manual.

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Yes, I was probably too hasty. I was only referring to DEVONthink’s built-in import function.

My solution is a bit stupid but useful. Just select all content in Notes and then save to a md file. So I use a shortcut tool (keysmith) to automatically do these actions.

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Can you clarify this process?

I use a little tool called Shareful that inserts a “Save As” action in the macOS Share menu available in Notes (and elsewhere). It will save a Notes note as an .rtf file. (Doesn’t handle images well, however.)

Sindre Sorhus makes very cool utilities :heart:

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I find an easier way. The service “Devonthink3: Create Markdown Document” is quite useful. I set a shortcut Cmd+B for this command. Then in keysmith (I suppose similar for other alternative apps):


So I just cmd+L then the notes will export to devonthink. My way can handle image well, but unfortunately, not for attchments. They will be replaced with a image instead.

Cool

This doesn’t work for me as expected in notes, though I may be missing something. When I select share and want to copy the note it pops up with a link to share the “copy” with and while I have “save as” installed as an extension with Shareful, it doesn’t show up in the share menu. I also realise this may not be the forum to sort this out, but wondered how you manage the save as in notes (you started it :slight_smile: )

They have a FAQ, where this “doesn’t show up” issue is the 2nd one.

When you select the Note (in Notes App), change ‘Share Note’ from ‘Collaborate’ to ‘Send Copy’ at the dropdown box at top of the menu. This worked for me.