Zotero & DevonThink - Index or Import?

[hesperusphosphorus]

Examples of people who use import from Zotero to DT3:

@SebMacV

I would avoid indexing for now until you understand its opportunities and limitations exactly (because messing with indexed files = DT messing with your files stored in Finder).

Keep it simple with Zotero. It’s a brilliant tool. But I only use it as the repository for all citation metadata (NOT PDF storage and annotation), and to generate bibliographies at the end of the writing process. These apps clearly have overlapping capacities, but you don’t need to use them just because you can. I think it’s better to have one app do one major task: file storage (DT); bibliographical data management (Zotero); notes and thinking (Obsidian), even if all three apps allow some of these things to some degree. What is mean is, don’t duplicate these processes across different apps, but rather choose the app you like most for any one process.

@SebMacV

Because of my reliance on replicants I import everything. I dipped my toes in first, indexing a lot, but it just didn’t work as well. I trust DT to keep my data save, and of course, it’s a breeze to get it all out again.

@TommyWeir

I would also endorse use of replicants and importing over indexing. I used to index but always worried that the link would break.

Examples of people who index their Zotero files:

@mhucka

I index my Zotero storage location using DEVONthink, and can with certainty that when I do something that causes Zotero to rename files, I have not experienced problems in DEVONthink due to the renaming process. In fact, it’s kind of impressive to watch in real time: with a window open on my smart group for references (discussed in another posting), if a file has already been indexed in Zotero and it gets renamed, the DEVONthink smart group will show the updated name after a second or two.

For this to work, the entire Zotero storage folder needs to be indexed by DEVONthink.

@rpallred

I use a reference manager (Zotero in my case) for cite while you write (CWYW) features and managing the citation in individual manuscripts. I have all my PDF’s indexed in DEVONthink for research and reading the articles.

@palapapanda

I archive my PDFs in a folder managed via Zotero using ZotFile. This same folder is added to DT via indexing, so that when I have a “question” I simply search into DT to find answers.