Restoring a Database with Indexed Folders from Backblaze

DEVONthink
1

Hi all,

I am trying to restore a database from Backblaze which contained indexed folders.

I have downloaded the zip file from Backblaze, unzipped it to reveal the database.

However after opening the database, the indexed folders are not in there.

There are no folders(groups) at all, just the standard smart groups included by DEVONthink in all databases.

I was expecting the folders to still be there, and the indexing would continue as normal.

Am I missing something?

Is Backblaze not backing up the full databases?

2

As long as the DEVONthink database is in a folder “back-up-able” by BackBlaze, it will back up the database.

But as it says in the “DEVONthink Manual”, indexing files into DEVONthink “Creates links to files outside the database.”

Files not in the database won’t be in the database to be backed-up inside the database. Files *imported" to the database will be backed up.

See in the “DEVONthink Manual” (and in the app’s Help) Chapter “IN & OUT”, section “IMPORTING & INDEXING”, page 53 of the 3.9.7 version.

While there also see page 19 “A WORD ABOUT BACKUPS” with some good advice. Hopefully you also have another more complete system backup, say with macOS’s TimeMachine from which to restore the missing files back into their previous locations.

3

Hi @rmschne

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply.

I have downloaded various snapshots of the database over the past few weeks and it is curious. Some have the groups in there and some don’t.

I will interrogate this more thoroughly.

Of course, as the files are indexed, I haven’t lost any files, and I can easily re-index, but I am trying to avoid that as I will lose all my existing DEVONthink item links.

4

Question for DEVONthink techs:

On one of my backups, all of the “files”(aliases) are there, but when clicking on the files, it shows the files are missing.

So, I “re-link” the top level folder to the folder on disk and all is well.

However there is a difference with the link.

The original indexed folder link is shown as:

~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents/Household

I cannot manually link to this location as it is in the hidden Library folder.

I can link to the Documents folder in iCloud, after which the link is shown as:

~/Documents/Household

which is an abbreviated link.

Will this be a problem?

5

Is your Documents folder synchronized via iCloud Drive?

6

Yes

and

My Documents folder and Desktop are in iCloud Drive

7

One workaround might be to set the path via AppleScript, e.g.

tell application id "DNtp"
	if (count of selected records) is 1 then
		set path of selected record 1 to "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents/Household"
	end if
end tell