Syncing .dpt1 file names with file's title in DT

DEVONthink Tips
1

I recall seeing the solution to this in the past, but can’t seem to find it anymore now that its become an issue for me…

If I do a spotlight search in the Finder, often times dozens of DT .dtp1 documents will be shown in spotlights results, but they usually carry very ambiguous names, such as 1778485.dpt1…Double clicking on a particular file will open the DT database that houses that file, and the document then opens in DT with a more relative file name (i.e. John’s Grocery List)…

What actions need to be taken in order to have all of the .dtp1 documents that appear in spotlight search results to have files names that match those given to the files in within the DT application?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated… Thanks!

2

In the Finder’s preferences, switch off “Advances > Show all file extensions”. This is a Finder/Spotlight “feature” :frowning:

3

That doesn’t fix the problem at all…

A file named 1778485 still references a file that within DEVONthink appears with an appropriate title…

…and the 1778485 example is just one of a couple thousand .dtp1 documents that appear in every spotlight search I run…

I thought I’d read something in the past about being able to rebuild the database, which in turn, applies the actual file name that a document has been given in DT to the file as it exists in the Finder (which for me at the moment is something like 1778485)…Is this correct?

Any one else have any ideas on how to resolve this issue?

Thanks!

4

Yes, Eric’s suggestion does solve the issue. All new and modified content will use database Names in the metadata cache file supplied to Spotlight, and it will eventually be wholly rebuilt in that mode.

But of course, you have an existing metadata cache file that is being read by Spotlight.

Choose File > Database Properties. Click on the Rebuild button for Spotlight indexing. When the reindexing has been completed, try a Spotlight search.

5

Rebuilding the spotlight cache did the trick!

Thank you both for your help with this issue!

6

After rebuilding the DTP metadata cache (with 1.5.2) I still get several dozen results (out of +10K total) listed as filenames with .dtp1 extensions when doing a Kind Others… DEVONthink Pro Document Spotlight search (on 10.4.11). If I do a toolbar search for .dtp1 on those results only two show up. And it’s easy to choke the mds process to the point of requiring a Finder relaunch.

Those issues might be resolved with Leopard, but the lack of any View Options for Spotlight results (especially dropping Date Modified column for Last Opened… wtf?!) will be sorely missed when I eventually migrate. For me any improved performance will be seriously hindered by the inflexibly of results and I still haven’t found any third party Spotlight utility I’m satisfied with.