Simple one way copy of databases to Devonthink To Go

DEVONthink To Go
1

I use Devonthink To Go only rarely, and on my iPad, for example when travelling without my laptop. It can then be useful to have a copy of one or two of my many databases on my iPad.

I would therefore delete any earlier databases on the iPad, and re-copy the desired (up to date) databases for read-only purposes.

I am wondering if there is a simple way to copy over the desired databases using a lightning cable, presumably using bonjour set on the Mac as the server, without any actual syncing going on. Just a straight copy. Or instead, whether I might copy the desired databases to a thumb drive, and read the thumb drive from the iPad in some way.

I ran into problems when doing one-time copy operations as a simple (one time) sync in that not all data was actually copied over even though the “Keep All” was set to the maximum, and “Download files” was set to “Always” in all databases. Am I missing something obvious?

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You’re describing a sync process (using Bonjour protocol)
See Sync by wire

1 Like
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Thank you for that. In fact, I followed that protocol, but found that many of the documents were not downloaded to the iPad, and that only thumbnails showed up for some of the high level Group contents, despite having “Download files” selected in the options dialog for the databases as shown on the iPad. Also, it is pretty slow.

Hence my wondering if there was a simpler way just to do a straight copy. I can, for example, drag a high level group to the desktop, where it presents as a folder, copy that folder to a thumb drive, and then access my files on the iPad from the thumb drive, not necessarily through Devonthink ToGo. But that does rather defeat the purpose of having Devonthink ToGo.

Perhaps I have just been unlucky with my syncing!

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Or use the export folders&files feature; you get files, folders and tags
I use this as part of my data backups

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Thank you for that suggestion. I never used this feature before, or thought of it, although I did, on occasion, create a database archive at Bill DeVille’s suggestion! (Such a nice man). By having a single top level group, I realise it is easy to export that one top group to the desktop using this feature. I just tested it and it works very quickly. There are some strange DEVONtech_storage files created, but they can just be ignored presumably. Thanks again for this idea!

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That is metadata about the exported files should you have imported them back into DEVONthink at a later time.

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Thank you for explaining their purpose. As always!

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My pleasure.