What turns files into replicas/ duplicates?

DEVONthink Tips
1

I am working on an Excel file at the moment, but I have various versions of it. Before I start working on a file, I do one of two things: a. I copy or draft the file on my desktop, change the name, make my changes, and move the new file into DTPO. b. I make a duplicate in DTPO, change the name, open the file (without moving it to the desktop), work on the file.

Why is option (a) behaving in the most frustrating way? After I dragged the file from DTPO onto the desktop, I made significant changes in this file. Once I dragged the new version into DTPO, it is showing as a replica and a duplicate.

I need every single version of this file to stay as it was saved. I will be working with this file and will be saving every single version, so I really do not want unexpected replicas or duplicates to keep surprising me.

So how can I avoid these unexplained replica/ duplicate files?

2

Where did you drop the file? It might be duplicate (in case that the indexed text of the document is still the same) but it shouldn’t be a replicant. Or could you post a screenshot?

3

I can’t post a screen shot because of the nature of the file, but I can start a ticket. The same behavior occurred today with an indexed file. I placed the important file on which I will be working and make changes in a Dropbox folder and linked it to DTPO. Today before I started working on the file, I made a duplicate in DTPO, changed the name by adding the date at the end of the name, opened the file, made changes, saved it, closed it. Now the file appears as a replica?!

4

Can someone help me find the link for starting a ticket?

p.s. I found that the file I duplicated and whose name I changed today automatically appears in another non-indexed folder. I do not understand why this is happening.

(Ticket created. ~ BLUEFROG)

5

The issue is caused by a disabled “Exclude groups from tagging” option (see File > Database Properties). Therefore the Finder tags of the exported files contain also the group tags, reimporting the modified files applies the Finder tags again and therefore creates replicants.

To avoid this you could either enable the above option again or remove the Finder tags before reimporting the files.

6

Thanks. It is working.

I do have too many tags in my tag folder–more than 1000–which I do not find useful. Is there a way to clean up the Tags folder now with the new option now that the “Exclude groups from tagging” is enabled?

7

You could simply remove all undesired tags from the Tags group.

8

I did that once, and I ended up with many important files in the trash. Also the groups kept emerging on their own.

9

Those are not the original files. The previoulsy Tagged files should still be in their locations in the database.

:question: Please clarify what you mean by this.