Will there EVER be a Microsoft Windows version of DevonThink?

I’ve only been waiting for 15 years. Nothing in the PC OS can match DevonThink, but I’ll never be a Mac guy beyond my iPhone :cry:. Ok, I’m not meaning to get into a flame war about Windows v Apple. I’m just too invested in Windows after 30 years of Windows in software and learning curve. But yeah, DevonThink is almost worth buying a Mac and becoming bilingual :smirk:

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Although one should never say never better don’t hold your breath. And isn’t DEVONthink a good reason to get a Mac finally? :wink:

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With Devonthink, Applescript, and the Apple ecosystem
I’ll always be an Mac guy; Mac and iPad

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I gave my 77 year old father one of my unused Mac Minis. He hasn’t touched his Windows machine except to move things to thumbdrives to transfer to the Mac. :slight_smile:

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I could ask my daughter for hers as soon as she upgrades I guess :smirk::pray:t3::+1:t3:

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You get yourself a MacMini and run DevonThink Server edition on it. Then you can access your data using a browser - that work pretty good.

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Thanks for that great idea! I even asked ChatGPT 4.0 for ideas and it didn’t come up with that one. I really appreciate your creativity!!

I work with both eco systems and from experience I can say it is very stable

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A little more than 15 years ago – as soon as the Intel Macs came out – I bought a Mac specifically to run DevonThink and Scrivener (which was Mac only at the time). Have never regretted it.

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Though bear in mind that DT Server (which I use all the time, and love) offers a drastically pared-down feature set compared to the desktop app. It’s more of a supplement than a substitute, and you’d probably want to look quite carefully at what it can and can’t do before deciding whether it satisfices your DT needs.

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Thanks for those caveats Nick. Weighing how much a DevonThink Server license would cost me and a minimally configured Mac mini, it’s too expensive

The M1, M2, and now M3 performance efficiency is enough to keep me on a Mac for work and home. Literally operate at full speed for days… windows laptop 3 hours while nerfed.

Yes there are many use cases where Windows or Linux are superior- I have all of them. But DT and my M2 Pro go together like peanut butter and jelly.

But I digress, I think you’d be surprised at how easy it would be to change - I’d lend you my OG M1 13” that I use as a daily personal laptop. :slight_smile:

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I helped introduce the orginal PC, windows, lotus 123 and novell networking into the UK. Remember those heady days? Until June last year I just rolled my eyes when someone started spouting off about Macs. I could make windows dance, sing and probably make thanksgiving dinner and I was totally ignorant about Macs and MacOS. But… last June I got a MacBook pro M1 - It is fast, silent, cool runs all my MS office stuff plus Devonthink, Alfred, Tinderbox. It also integrates with my iPhone, iPad unbelievably well and I have a dual screen setup wherever and whenever I want with MacBook plus iPad. DevonThink is a stunning piece of software if you have the use case for it and could justify a Mac on it’s own but add the fast, cool, silent hardware plus apple integration with some other Mac based software and I cannot believe how happy I am. Wish I had changed years ago.

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I realized MacOS could be a survivable thing for a Unix guy when I saw a Mac running the top command in a terminal window. Very “nice” (Unix pun intended).

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The fact that you know about DEVONthink as a long time Windows user is reason enough to seriously consider a change at this point. I would recommend that you start writing down what your “use case” is for computing and then make an inventory of those Windows apps that you consider critical to your daily use case. If there are any that only run on Windows (and I’m guessing there would be only few remaining on the list), you could dedicate your existing Windows PC to that purpose, and use a new Mac for everything else, most importantly DT, and truly enjoy your workday.

I’ve converted many hard core Windows users from PC’s to Macs and not one has ever said: “I wish I had stayed on Windows”. Rather, it’s been: “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

I bought my first Apple computer in 1981. I bought the first 128K Mac when it premiered almost 40 years ago and have never looked back. I knew PC’s well from my work environment, but I always breathed a sigh of relief when I got home at the end of the day to my Mac. Eventually, I was able to integrate my Mac into the PC environment at work. As a CFO, I was responsible for overseeing an IT staff of seven supporting over 200 Windows networked users. When I started, the IT guys were “dyed in the wool” PC users, as they needed to be to qualify to support that environment. Over time, they all switched to Macs for their personal use (they couldn’t escape my enthusiasm to convince them to see what they were missing, and they saw the light).

Since, 2009, I have been using DT as my digital repository of anything worth keeping. I have long since gone paperless, by pairing DT and Fujitsu’s amazing ScanSnap scanner (the one I bought in 2009 is still working like a charm). I currently have over 35,000 items in my fully searchable DT database. Every item in the database is also immediately accessible one my iPhone and iPad using DT to Go.

Since you already have seen what DT has to offer, make the leap to the Mac and you’ll reap all the other benefits of doing so.

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I hope not. Look at what happened with 1Password. After they went cross-platform, 1Password stopped supporting its Mac app and switched to a (degraded) Electron version. I would hate to see that happen to Devonthink.

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Geez, guys, this one is sooo easy. Buy a Mac, install Parallels Desktop, install Windows, and voila, you’re rocking the very best of both worlds (and Linux, too, if you want to toss Ubuntu or Fedora on there). I began on a Kaypro CPM computer (with two floppy disk drives!), moved onto the early Mac, learned Unix, learned DOS, learned Windows, left Mac for Windows for a sad few years, went back to Mac, and nowadays I run any danged program I want on my MacBook Pro. I run Windows 11 on my Mac mostly for Regex Buddy, and I run Mac for pretty much everything else. But hey, YMMV.

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A whole VM and a Windows 11 license just for fiddling with RegExes? What about regex101.com, for example?
Aside: I did what you did (not for the same reason, though) and stopped that about seven years ago – no need for Windows anymore (nor Linux, sadly). Never looked back.

I tend to be an exhaustive fiddler .

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Nice to read that I’m not the only one who owned a Kaypro CPM, with Dbase 2, Wordstar and Supercalc (if I remember correctly) :grinning:

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