[SOLVED] How do I uninstall DEVONthink? HEEEEELP 😩

DEVONthink
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Completely new to DEVONthink. Wanted to try it out. I did something that in hindsight was very silly: I had DEVONthink just index my entire Mac Dropbox folder. It’s synced to my Dropbox (which also contains a copy of my Mac backup).

My hope was that DEVONthink would index all the pdfs I have scattered around my different files, allowing me to then simply remove everything else from the database without affecting the underlying files in Finder. From what I understand so far, anything you do to a file in DEVONthink will also affect the underlying file. Not sure if this is right, but it’s what I’ve gathered by reading through the forum so far.

I want to start over from scratch, but I have no idea how to remove the database I’ve created without impacting my underlying files. We’re talking about terabytes of data, so it would be very difficult for me to duplicate my entire computer in case something goes wrong.

tl;dr: I’d really really appreciate if someone could advise me as to how I can remove a database without impacting any of the underlying files. It seems like getting this wrong could be a costly screw-up :grimacing:

I’m running a MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon on Ventura 13.3

Edit: Sorted! All I had to do was delete the database, and then when I emptied the trash folder DEVONthink asked me if I wanted to delete just the database or if I also wanted to delete the underlying files. Very quick and easy. Happily, my fuss was completely unwarranted!

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When you move the databases content to the trash and then empty the trash, DT should ask you if you want to remove the files from disk or only from DT.

You might want to read the manual delivered with DT first, I suggest.

2 Likes
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Or simple delete the complete database (see File menu or the sidebar’s contextual menu) if all items were just indexed.

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Welcome @marshall.to

  • If you indeed indexed the folder, you can delete the indexed parent and empty the database’s Trash. You will be prompted whether to delete the references in the database or the actual files and folders as well.

  • Deleting the database has no effect on the indexed files. They don’t exist inside the database.

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Amazing! You’re an absolute godsend, thank you so much :green_heart: