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It is baffling that there is a video for the $5 version (which is barely more than "do google searches or searches of a pre-canned list of sites, with site prev

It is baffling that there is a video for the $5 version (which is barely more than "do google searches or searches of a pre-canned list of sites, with site previews, from your menu bar" - thanks, I'll keep my $5) but nothing for the $50 software? devontech has been around for something like two decades and has always struck me as being borderline snake oil. Lots of hand-waving elevator pitch, but I just never see anything explaining how the fuck it's actually useful. https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/technology https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/technology is basically several pages of lorum ipsum buzzwords.

_zzaw 4y ago
There was a point where I had most of my work and ideas in Devonthink. Then I noticed that a few important files had somehow vanished. I don’t know for sure if this was due to the software, but it unnerved me, and I moved to Obsidian. I used DT primarily as a knowledgebase/notes app; I never found its smart features to be particularly useful. Nowadays, I’d definitely recommend Notion over DT.
- lab14 4y ago
  I had a similar experience. Used Devonthink for about 10 months and suddenly some files disappeared. Asked for a refund and they said “sorry, no”.
  - _zzaw 4y ago
    Were you keeping your databases on Dropbox? It crossed my mind that maybe that was related, although I only ever viewed/edited them on one machine.
    - innocentoldguy 4y ago
      I had something similar happen in Logseq when I stored my main directory in Sync, which is similar to Dropbox. After moving my main directory out of Sync, everything became stable again. Perhaps Dropbox was the root cause of the problem.
      - tengwar2 4y ago
        The problem could be the way you used the directory. I don't know Sync specifically, but DEVONtech don't recommend storing the databases in directories which will be synced. Rather you are supposed to set up the system to use whatever sync API is available, which presumably makes sure files are internally self-consistent before syncing. It's a while since I set it up, but that's how I did it with WebDAV to my NextCloud server.
  - pomatic 4y ago
    I lost four to five years worth of data, the database just vanished. The backups I had were useless (some sort of systemic corruption?). Having been badly burnt, I can’t go back, but I’ve yet to find a tools that matches my workflow as well as DT does. Bummer.
sndean 4y ago
> Lots of hand-waving elevator pitch, but I just never see anything explaining how the fuck it's actually useful. No idea about DEVONagent, but the trial of DEVONthink I've done suggests it would make sense for someone with a few TBs of PDFs (e.g., me). The OCR plus search function makes it like a better Finder. I just can't justify paying $200 for that.
- kstrauser 4y ago
  I love DEVONthink, but I understand that it’s not for everyone. What I appreciate is that I can automate an awful lot of routine tasks. For instance, if I drop a PDF of my bank statement that I downloaded from the bank’s website, DEVONthink will recognize that it’s from my bank based on the URL metadata that macOS attaches to it. Then it OCRs my statement (no idea why or how my bank manages to send it as an image), finds the string like “Closing date: X/Y/Z”, renames the file like “Bank statement - 20ZZ-0Y-0Z.pdf”, and moves it to the directory where I keep them all. I pair it with Hazel, which monitors files that show up in my ~/Downloads folder and does stuff with them. (Examples: moving bank statements to the DEVONthink inbox folder. Opening any *.ics files with Calendar.app so that they’re added to my calendar, then deleting them.) I could totally do all those things myself. I’d sure hate to go back to having to, though.
  - sndean 4y ago
    > Then it OCRs my statement (no idea why or how my bank manages to send it as an image), finds the string like “Closing date: X/Y/Z”, renames the file like “Bank statement - 20ZZ-0Y-0Z.pdf”, and moves it to the directory where I keep them all. If you can have it do that automatically... then, okay, I think you've convinced me to do another trial. That's pretty cool.
    - kstrauser 4y ago
      Oops, my bad. Hazel does the OCR, because the day I was setting that pipeline up, I was able to get it working first. DT definitely does all the rest. I have smart rules set up in it for all the bank / credit card / loan statements we get, certain types of email I archive, and a bunch of other stuff. In all cases, my workflow is the same: get a file onto my computer and into DEVONthink’s inbox somehow. For email, that’s using the DT plugin in Mail.app to import the message(s). For downloaded files, it’s using Hazel rules to move them into it. Again, none of that’s stuff I couldn’t do by hand, but neither is really anything we do with computers, right? I’d rather script it up once and let it handle the toil for me every day.
kstrauser 4y ago
I got DEVONagent for free as part of a package deal way back when I first bought DEVONthink. It’s not game changing, but it’s still quite nice in a few ways: - You can use advanced query operators like “word1 BEFORE/3 word2” to specify that word2 must appear within a couple of words after word1. Compare with searches that say “oh, you want all documents that contain both word1 and word2? Here’s a dictionary! Here’s your document index! Hope that helped!” (I’m looking at you, Notion.) - The agent supports that on search engines that don’t natively support that grammar. If it must, it’ll search for all documents that have both “word1” and “word2”, then filter out all the ones that don’t meet the more specific criteria. - You can automate searches, and get notifications when it finds new results. Not super handy, but still nifty. - Want to search 23 search engines simultaneously? Fine. I wouldn’t buy it alone for $50. I’m glad I have it, though, for the rare times that I need it.
oefrha 4y ago
It’s an everything bucket. By this point the concept is very well established and has many implementations. Most people don’t care about it, but some do. Snake oil it is not.
blihp 4y ago
It's not snake oil, it basically provides customized client-side meta search. For people (especially non-programmers) who have search-heavy workflows, I could see it as being a useful tool.

_zzaw 4y ago

There was a point where I had most of my work and ideas in Devonthink. Then I noticed that a few important files had somehow vanished. I don’t know for sure if this was due to the software, but it unnerved me, and I moved to Obsidian. I used DT primarily as a knowledgebase/notes app; I never found its smart features to be particularly useful. Nowadays, I’d definitely recommend Notion over DT.

lab14 4y ago
I had a similar experience. Used Devonthink for about 10 months and suddenly some files disappeared. Asked for a refund and they said “sorry, no”.
- _zzaw 4y ago
  Were you keeping your databases on Dropbox? It crossed my mind that maybe that was related, although I only ever viewed/edited them on one machine.
  - innocentoldguy 4y ago
    I had something similar happen in Logseq when I stored my main directory in Sync, which is similar to Dropbox. After moving my main directory out of Sync, everything became stable again. Perhaps Dropbox was the root cause of the problem.
    - tengwar2 4y ago
      The problem could be the way you used the directory. I don't know Sync specifically, but DEVONtech don't recommend storing the databases in directories which will be synced. Rather you are supposed to set up the system to use whatever sync API is available, which presumably makes sure files are internally self-consistent before syncing. It's a while since I set it up, but that's how I did it with WebDAV to my NextCloud server.
- pomatic 4y ago
  I lost four to five years worth of data, the database just vanished. The backups I had were useless (some sort of systemic corruption?). Having been badly burnt, I can’t go back, but I’ve yet to find a tools that matches my workflow as well as DT does. Bummer.

sndean 4y ago

> Lots of hand-waving elevator pitch, but I just never see anything explaining how the fuck it's actually useful. No idea about DEVONagent, but the trial of DEVONthink I've done suggests it would make sense for someone with a few TBs of PDFs (e.g., me). The OCR plus search function makes it like a better Finder. I just can't justify paying $200 for that.

kstrauser 4y ago
I love DEVONthink, but I understand that it’s not for everyone. What I appreciate is that I can automate an awful lot of routine tasks. For instance, if I drop a PDF of my bank statement that I downloaded from the bank’s website, DEVONthink will recognize that it’s from my bank based on the URL metadata that macOS attaches to it. Then it OCRs my statement (no idea why or how my bank manages to send it as an image), finds the string like “Closing date: X/Y/Z”, renames the file like “Bank statement - 20ZZ-0Y-0Z.pdf”, and moves it to the directory where I keep them all. I pair it with Hazel, which monitors files that show up in my ~/Downloads folder and does stuff with them. (Examples: moving bank statements to the DEVONthink inbox folder. Opening any *.ics files with Calendar.app so that they’re added to my calendar, then deleting them.) I could totally do all those things myself. I’d sure hate to go back to having to, though.
- sndean 4y ago
  > Then it OCRs my statement (no idea why or how my bank manages to send it as an image), finds the string like “Closing date: X/Y/Z”, renames the file like “Bank statement - 20ZZ-0Y-0Z.pdf”, and moves it to the directory where I keep them all. If you can have it do that automatically... then, okay, I think you've convinced me to do another trial. That's pretty cool.
  - kstrauser 4y ago
    Oops, my bad. Hazel does the OCR, because the day I was setting that pipeline up, I was able to get it working first. DT definitely does all the rest. I have smart rules set up in it for all the bank / credit card / loan statements we get, certain types of email I archive, and a bunch of other stuff. In all cases, my workflow is the same: get a file onto my computer and into DEVONthink’s inbox somehow. For email, that’s using the DT plugin in Mail.app to import the message(s). For downloaded files, it’s using Hazel rules to move them into it. Again, none of that’s stuff I couldn’t do by hand, but neither is really anything we do with computers, right? I’d rather script it up once and let it handle the toil for me every day.

kstrauser 4y ago

I got DEVONagent for free as part of a package deal way back when I first bought DEVONthink. It’s not game changing, but it’s still quite nice in a few ways: - You can use advanced query operators like “word1 BEFORE/3 word2” to specify that word2 must appear within a couple of words after word1. Compare with searches that say “oh, you want all documents that contain both word1 and word2? Here’s a dictionary! Here’s your document index! Hope that helped!” (I’m looking at you, Notion.) - The agent supports that on search engines that don’t natively support that grammar. If it must, it’ll search for all documents that have both “word1” and “word2”, then filter out all the ones that don’t meet the more specific criteria. - You can automate searches, and get notifications when it finds new results. Not super handy, but still nifty. - Want to search 23 search engines simultaneously? Fine. I wouldn’t buy it alone for $50. I’m glad I have it, though, for the rare times that I need it.

oefrha 4y ago

It’s an everything bucket. By this point the concept is very well established and has many implementations. Most people don’t care about it, but some do. Snake oil it is not.

blihp 4y ago

It's not snake oil, it basically provides customized client-side meta search. For people (especially non-programmers) who have search-heavy workflows, I could see it as being a useful tool.