I finally have a window between gigs in which I can consider updating the Mac from Ventura (and consider possibly maybe kinda engaging with the 4.x Beta). I run a true Swiss Army Knife laptop with all the major media editing and 3D creation packages on it, some of which are extremely finicky with OS releases (Hello AVID Media Composer and ProTools!)
Before I do any of that I wanted to confirm a few things.
Staying in DT3 land for the moment, upgrading my main system to Sequoia means:
the DT MacOS mail plug-in is no longer available, which means I can still import email from MacOS mail but it’s not as fast or efficient? I archive many gig related email accounts so it’s a big part of my DT usage.
is there anything else that goes away with this OS update? (I can deal with new things, it’s losing valuable older things that’s gonna hurt)
Is there any benefit to only going to Sonoma over Sequoia? Opportunities to update the OS in a safe time frame don’t come along that often so If I have to do the big leap I’d rather go to the latest if possible. However a stable platform is always preferable to an up-to-date platform.
I never merely update to a new MacOS. My method is a complete back up of the System Drive (CC Cloner, Time Machine), then a wipe and clean install of the new OS. It’s more work that way but it’s cleaner in the long run and I have better luck with the aforementioned herd of media apps and environments.
My plan is, once I get DT3 running in the fresh MacOS, I can take a look at what methods I might have at hand to try out the DT4 beta. It’s unlikely given the time frame that I have tons of time to try it out but the experiences of people recorded on this forum seem to indicate that with careful backing up I can go back to DT3 as long as I don’t need those few things that only exist in the beta. When the next gig ramps up to full speed I have to be back on the tried and tested DT3 or maybe the first point release of v4 if that’s available, which seems unlikely.
the DT MacOS mail plug-in is no longer available, which means I can still import email from MacOS mail but it’s not as fast or efficient? I archive many gig related email accounts so it’s a big part of my DT usage.
Mail plugins were deprecated as of Sonoma. Yes, you can still import. Yes, it’s not as fast as the plugin but it still is viable.
Also, DEVONthink 4 improves on this process with an improved technological approach and hotkeys to use when you’re in Mail.
is there anything else that goes away with this OS update? (I can deal with new things, it’s losing valuable older things that’s gonna hurt)
Nothing useful I can think of but you get to now answer more Privacy & Security prompts, including Local Network access, needed when using Bonjour.
Is there any benefit to only going to Sonoma over Sequoia? Opportunities to update the OS in a safe time frame don’t come along that often so If I have to do the big leap I’d rather go to the latest if possible. However a stable platform is always preferable to an up-to-date platform.
I see no compelling reason to move to Sequoia and it has not been a bug-free release, even at 15.5. If it wasn’t for my job, I would stay with Sonoma right now.
I get traffic close to that in the busiest of times but there’s rarely a time that I have to process that much RIGHT AWAY. I can archive at a later date when time allows
Most of my day-to-day email importing is along the lines of
create an issue group and master md note in the project specific database
import related emails and attachments
as the issue persists or expires, update email imports and make notes in main document.
I am about to finish up with one company that required all freelancers to use an email account in their domain. I have 32,000 emails over three years form that account archived in it’s own DT database plus a small subset of those emails in the above issue-related topics spread out through the 4 project specific databases I created while working at this facility.
This has been a slow climb to be able to deal with. If I knew I would be getting that much email before I started I would have freaked out.
I do have a few rules in Mail to send them to folders but mostly I do it by hand when I am finishing a week or a big task as part of staying organized and on top of things. If it’s anything that I can’t respond to right away it becomes an issue group in DT.
There are some really big sub-categories based on the senders or subject. (if you spend a lot of time harping on sticking to proper naming conventions for files and email subjects, you can do a lot of organizing just based on that)
This particular company started on a Google Workspace before moving to their own Exchange server. My initial email organization relied on Google tags then folders in Outlook. Having everything in an Email Archive in DT is soooooo much better than looking for it in Mail. I can set up a smart rule in the top folder of the archive. You can do the same in Mail but when the number of folders and individual messages gets up to the big numbers it gets a little slow.
If people are going to archive email, it’s definitely a process they should get ahead of as doing it from hindsight is generally a HUGE burden and usually leads to just junking up a database in desperation.
True but the power of DEVONthink stored emails is that I can back up the whole account before they kick me out of the system and then I can organize it later. Even if it’s just into crude categories or split up by time periods, the find powers of DT make an archive of all my email from my time with this company a useful resource for future gigs.
I’ve got an archive of my personal email that’s over 20 years old. It’s come in handy to open up that archive and search a name to see if I’ve ever been cc’d or mentioned alongside them in years past.
Honestly, I don’t think they ever will 