I would like to purchase the personal version of Devonthink because of the price but have 2 questions. For number 1 I know I could purchase the pro version to solve that but I still do not know about question 2 even in the pro version.
In the personal version how do you move your database file to another drive? I have a new iMac with ssd and hard drive and want to put the program on the ssd and the data on the hard drive.
In the personal version there is an area in the information area called additional information. I think it is the metadata information and it contains information about the images etc. How do I change the data there or add information that is missing?
It is possible to do that, although of course the drive containing the database folder must always be mounted before DEVONthink Personal is launched.
The procedure below starts with making sure that DEVONthink has been Quit. Then go to the Finder.
Locate the DEVONthink database folder, which is named “DEVONthink 2” and is located at ~/Library/Application Support/. Copy the database folder to the other drive.
Move the database folder from its location on the boot drive, or select it, Control-click and select the contextual menu option to Compress it (which results in a zipped copy of the database folder, as a backup). Make certain that the folder “DEVONthink 2” is no longer present at ~/Library/Application Support/.
On the other drive, select the database folder and Control-click on it, then select the contextual menu option, “Make Alias”.
Copy the alias file to your boot drive at ~/Library/Application Support/. Then delete the alias file remaining on the second drive.
Make certain that the second drive is mounted, then launch DEVONthink Personal. It should see and access the database on the second drive.
Do you mean the metadata fields shown for a selected document when you choose Tools > Show Properties?
Personally, as those fields are available for very few document filetypes, and even for those all the fields may not be editable, I don’t use them. Why? That’s because my databases contain a variety of document types, and if I want to add information about them to a database, I want to use a method that will work for any document. Two “universal” approaches might be to add information in the Spotlight Comments field of a document, or to create a linked rich text note that holds the added information. I generally use rich text notes.
But that’s a personal approach. If “Properties” works for your purposes, pay no attention to my opinion.
I have several thousand pictures, (tiff, jpg) which have the metadata information in them and that shows up and is searchable using devonthink.
I am still thinking I want to keep it this way so I need some type of method to enter or update this information and would like it to be accessable from within devonthink.
I am looking at spotlight but I am also thinking what if I leave mac or decide to swap software in the future how would I get the spotlight data to the new program.
The current method I use is a program I developed to keep track of this information and it is a field in the database. I can export/export data into the program using csv file.
Devonthink is much better than what I have developed so I am still looking and trying.
