DEVONthink is often dismissed as little more than a document warehouse, but I’m curious whether others are pushing it further than that. Does anyone here use it as their primary environment for note-taking, outlining, journaling, and PKM — an all-in-one thinking and writing tool, not just a place to store files?
I’d love to hear how you’re actually working in it day to day. Thanks in advance.
Well, I certainly do… but I’m not the best example as people aren’t doing the things I do 
Ich nutze DEVONthink täglich beruflich und privat. Es ist mein Datenraum, in dem ich alle wichtigen Informationen und Daten und Dolumente ablege, verfolge, aktualisiere und bearbeite. Auch RSS-Feeds lese und speichere ich in DEVONthink. In Verbindung mit DTTG ist es mein perfekter Workflow. Mit dem seit kurzem zur Verfügung stehenden MCP-Server wird der Workflow noch effizienter.
I use DEVONthink daily for both work and personal purposes. It is my data space where I store, track, update, and manage all important information, data, and documents. I also read and save RSS feeds in DEVONthink. Combined with DTTG, it is my perfect workflow. With the recently available MCP server, the workflow becomes even more efficient.
(Translated with claude-haiku)
Like a lot of people, I fell into the shiny tool trap — Obsidian, Logseq, Octarine, Tana, Notion, Roam, Thymer, Drafts, Apple Notes. I tried them all. And every single one created friction that I just couldn’t get past, probably because I’m not the kind of user who enjoys endlessly configuring tools.
DEVONthink kept pulling me back. It’s not flashy, but it does everything I need in one place — and that’s worth more to me than any feature any of those other apps offered. I’m done tool-hopping. DEVONthink is home base.
A sprinter is faster than a decathlete, but a decathlete can throw a javelin farther than a sprinter.
Likewise, some apps outperform DT in specific areas because they are highly specialized. But I don’t know of any app that delivers such a wide range of good results across so many different areas.
Yet the sprinter would still dismiss the decathlete as being painfully slow.
Tags for organization; minimal groups - dynamic smart groups instead
Use of the AppleScript integration to automate my workflows
Data sync to DTTG for mobile access to my data
I use it for pretty much most things. At times it is my personal library of to do’s, knoweledge, tasks, trivia in fact anything of interest. I also use it as a blog of contact with clients and repository for templated emails. The ability to search and retrive almost anything i need is amazing.
It helps supports one of my life principles: You do not have to know anything, just where to go to find the solution.
Learning markdown and using it in Devonthink, has been a lifesaver.
DT for everything. One database. If it ever gets too big, I’ll notice and split it up. But that shouldn’t happen for a long time. Any alternative that doesn’t keep data private is out of the question for me.
My biggest problem is finding information. That’s not DT’s fault, but a logical consequence of having a lot of information—and more and more of it. I’ve accepted that I won’t be able to find everything. In most cases, I won’t even notice.
To search more “intuitively,” I’ve created a series of smart groups that I use for “fuzzy” searches. Combining specific criteria with “time” is particularly helpful for me.
For the things DT doesn’t do the way I’d like, I try to adapt them to my needs using BTT.
I would even encourage the DT developers to include such smart groups by default. It’s easy for them, but not for new users. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who would benefit from this. If it’s not clear what I mean, I’d be happy to explain.
Images? Music? Receipes? E-Mails? Home inventory?
I’m just asking because “everything” is so all-encompassing, I find it hard to imagine.
Irony enriches life 
What could “everything” mean in this context? Not my wife, and not my children either, but their birth certificates, for example
Only an unusual small amount of irony in my question. I was in fact wondering about images and e-mail. Which are formats I only put into DT if they are related to other documents/activities handled there.
But from posts here, I know that some people like to archive all their emails and even their photos in DT.
Okay images, yes; emails, no.
I store all my ‘important’ stuff in DT. This includes:
There are a few ‘edge’ cases where I index an external folder into DT:
Does that mean you can view, edit, and search for these documents in DT? If so, could you please briefly explain how you do that?
I add the entire scrivener project to DT (package file). Double clicking then opens it in Scrivener and I do everything there. I am only using DT as a file storage. I have not tried searching within the scrivener package file in DT as I suspect changing anything accidentally would lead to trouble (like messing with a DT database).
Yes, that’s what I suspect too.
If there were a reliable way to edit a Scrivener project in DT, I’d probably do that.
Why are you putting Scrivener files in DEVONthink? Especially since you don’t search?
While I don’t think searching in DEVONthink will modify Scrivener files, it might deposit files into the folder structure. I don’t know. But I don’t, frankly, see the point since Scrivener has full text searching and needs to control its own file system?
Me, as Scrivener with DEVONthink are my top apps that I work with, would not recommend doing that as I don’t (yet) see the point.
I like keeping everything to do with a subject in the same place. Then when finished, I can archive the DT database with everything in it.
Although it is probably not recommended, I have had no trouble so far. Here is a related discussion:
OK. I guess for me my “one place” for file storage and user-interface, e.g. display DEVONthink for my research files in one window and Scrivener in another for editing) is macOS, not the individual apps.
Hope it all works for you.