Thinking about buying Devonthink

This is a wise idea for anyone.
I am often making test databases, for one reason or another.
Create and delete databases as you need to.

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Well, I went ahead and downloaded the 30 day trial. That’s a pretty good amount of time to see if DT is what I need or if its overkill. I also appreciate comments like yours where people have highlighted how they use the application and some of their processes, so thank you.

My system in Apple notes is basically a lot of handwritten notes from my iPad. But I have documents in there as well. Qite a bit actually. And one thing I don’t like is that the document exists in notes and doesn’t automatically update what is in the Finder. When you attach a document, you might as well get rid of the Finder version because they are now two separate documents. So indexing appeals to me personally. I like having something in the Finder and in my information manager that are linked, if all that makes sense.

I use folders in notes that I imagine would translate to databases in DT. I think my main hesitation is that from what I can tell, DT doesn’t search handwritten stuff. Maybe it does and I just haven’t found that yet. If I’m wrong, please correct me. It’s not a total deal killer if DT doesn’t search handwritten stuff. It just means I’ll have to change how I capture information. I’m just not the worlds fastest types so handwritten stuff is easier.

You guys have been incredible and I appreciate all the great feedback! Thanks again!

  1. You aren’t going to be able to index Apple Notes. They’re no longer stored as separate files in the filesystem to make this possible.
  2. Seriously read the Help > Documentation > In & Out > Importing & Indexing before committing to it. Appealing isn’t enough if you don’t recognize the ramifications of operations between DEVONthink and the filesystem.
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Thanks, I will go ahead and read that. Just try clarify though, I realize I wouldn’t be able to index notes from Apple’s system. I was referring to documents I have in notes not showing in the finder as well. Ok, now I’m off to do some reading!

That’s always been my process; deleting the finder version after import
I don’t need two copies of the document

One point on “attach a document” edit: in Devonthink
We don’t need an “attachment” to a note; the document file is the note

handwritten notes from my iPad

For handwritten notes, I use the Notability app on my ipad with an Apple Pencil,
then share to Devonthink as a pdf file.
The pdf file is searchable

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As someone who used Evernote Premium for more than 10 years, I can say that DEVONthink is a dream and I could never imagine using something else now.

There are so many possibilities, especially with smart rules and things like placeholders, that many people have no idea what they are missing when they take a look at the webpage and listed features. I think the 30 day trial is also not nearly enough to really grasp this. It took me 6 months before really settling in with some features and not changing things around all the time.

The 1 area where DT is a behind other apps is mobile text editing (especially if you don’t use markdown and use a lot of attachments and images).
Apple Notes or apps like Craft will be much better suited for a note-taking centered workflow, especially on iOS / iPadOS. But DT is currently working on improving rich text editing on mobile, so this might not be of concern in the future.

I myself use DT mostly for document management and editing, while I still use Apple Notes for note-taking. You can easily link the two (DT provides internal links you can paste into Apple Notes and Apple Notes notes can be shared to DT as bookmarks (iCloud liinks) that would open the note again in Apple Notes locally).
Generally, linking will probably get even easier in iOS 15, as soon as apps integrate the Apple Notes Quick Note API. So there is no need really to abandon Apple Notes, you can easily combine the two for the best of both worlds, document management and note taking.

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Hmm. I don’t think that’s correct about Apple Notes and the attached document given that you can add additional documents and event Witten text and type4d text to the note beyond the document, but whatever. I’m not here to discuss the finer points of the inner workings of that note application.

@chrisbarrett77 I think @DTLow was referring to DEVONthink in the quoted instance. This is generally the case in DT, documents aren’t notes themselves, just documents stored in your database.
You can however use DT like Apple Notes in the sense of attaching media to notes by using rich text documents. Given the current limitations of rich text document editing in iOS (you can’t), I prefer to keep using Apple Notes for mixed media notes like that. But as mentioned above, that’s something DT is already working on.