Set Up DEVONthink Databases

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Set Up DEVONthink Databases

Now that you know your way around DEVONthink, it’s time to create one or more databases and start collecting information. You can set up a database with just a few clicks, but you may also want to customize (and even password-protect) your database.

Create a New Database

DEVONthink Personal automatically creates its database (it supports only one) when you first launch it. DEVONthink Professional and DEVONthink Pro Office prompt you to create a database when you open them for the first time, and for many people that single database is sufficient. But if you want to create an additional database, the process is simple:

Choose File > New Database. A file dialog appears.
Enter a name for your database and choose a location (or accept the default location). If you’re tempted to choose your Dropbox, any iCloud Drive location, or a local network server as your destination, please read the sidebar just ahead, Where Not to Store Your Databases, first!
If you want to keep the information in your DEVONthink database from being indexed by Spotlight, uncheck Create Spotlight Index. Doing so doesn’t prevent you from searching within DEVONthink, but it does prevent the contents of the database from appearing in system-wide Spotlight searches. (Choose this option if your database contains sensitive data and you’re concerned that someone else with access to your Mac might stumble on it while using Spotlight.)
Click Create.

DEVONthink creates a new, empty database.

Where Not to Store Your Databases

You can save your DEVONthink database(s) anywhere you like on an internal or external disk or SSD—somewhere inside your ~/Documents folder is probably a good choice for most people. But you may be tempted to store your databases in certain locations where you probably shouldn’t: Dropbox, iCloud Drive, and network servers. I hasten to point out that this isn’t a prohibition, but I strongly recommend against these destinations. Here’s why.

Because of the way DEVONthink stores data and the way Dropbox and iCloud Drive syncing work, if you should open the same database on two Macs (or a Mac and an iOS device) at the same time (or if you open it on a second device after closing it on the first one, but before the sync has completed), you can lose data. Dropbox and iCloud Drive will blindly overwrite older data with newer data, and have no way to sync individual data elements within your database. If you’re very careful, you can avoid this—but in my opinion, the risk is too great to chance it. (But, take heart! You can still sync your data with other devices using Dropbox or iCloud Drive; you just have to set that up from within DEVONthink. See Sync Locations, especially the sidebar Syncing with Dropbox.)

So, what about a server on your local network, such as another Mac that uses the Mac’s built-in file sharing? You face a similar danger, in that two Macs accessing a single database at the same time can cause data loss. You won’t have to worry about syncing delays, but on the other hand, you may encounter slowdowns in saving your work as you use DEVONthink. A better solution, again, is to sync your local data to the server—see Sync Locations.

How Many Databases Do You Need?

DEVONthink Personal is limited to a single database, whereas DEVONthink Professional and Pro Office let you create as many databases as you want, and have any or all of them open at the same time. But how many databases do you need? There’s no single right answer—it’s up to you—but you may want to consider these factors:

Searching: When you use the search field at the top of the main DEVONthink window, it searches only the currently selected database. (You can search across multiple databases at once—see Use the Search Window—but it’s not quite as convenient.)
Sharing: When sharing your data using the built-in Web server (see Use DEVONthink’s Web Server), you can enable or disable sharing for any database, but you can’t control access on a lower (e.g., group) level. So if you want to share just a portion of your data, consider putting that portion in its own database.
Organization: You can create smart groups, replicants, and so on within a database but not across databases. So if there’s a set of data that is completely self-contained, that might go in a separate database, whereas any data you want to intermingle with other data should be collected together in a single database.

If you’re using DEVONthink as an all-purpose snippet keeper, note taker, and organizational tool, it makes sense to keep everything in a single database. On the other hand, if your work involves distinct projects that don’t interact with each other, the best course is to use a separate database for each one.

Either way, remember that you can later split a database in two, or combine two databases into one (for example, by dragging groups from one database to another) if your needs change.

Configure Database Properties

In most cases, DEVONthink’s default options for each database are adequate. However, you can tweak a few database-wide settings that may be of interest. To see these settings, select a database in the sidebar and choose File > Database Properties > Database Name.

The Database Properties floating window (Figure 24) appears. The large middle portion of this window contains statistics—the number of items of different sorts that appear in your database.

**Figure 24:** Set database properties, including password protection, in this window.

But the top of the window shows your database’s location, and the top and bottom have controls for adjusting these database characteristics:

Exclude Groups from Tagging: When this checkbox is selected (as it is by default, for new databases), groups and tags are independent from each other in that database—that is, a group name cannot also be used as a tag.
When this checkbox is deselected, all group names automatically function as tags too, unless you have explicitly excluded a particular group from being used as a tag (by selecting the group, choosing Tools > Show Info, and checking Tagging in the “Exclude from” section). Groups that can be used as tags have gold icons with tags on them, while groups that are excluded from tagging have blue icons.

If you like to use both groups and tags, leaving this checkbox selected is a good idea, as it prevents confusion that can arise from having both a group and a tag with the same name.
Create Spotlight Index: DEVONthink always indexes your database internally. But if this box is checked (as it is by default), DEVONthink makes the database contents available in your system-wide Spotlight index too.
Rebuild: To rebuild the database’s Spotlight index (not the database itself), click Rebuild. This may be necessary if searches fail to return obvious document matches.
Share Database: To share the database using the built-in Web server in DEVONthink Pro Office (see Use DEVONthink’s Web Server), check this box.
Rename: To rename your database, type a new name here. This changes the name as it appears in DEVONthink, but doesn’t rename the database file as it appears in the Finder.
Comments: Enter any descriptive notes about the database as a whole here—but note that these comments aren’t the same as the Finder’s Spotlight Comments.
Protection: To password-protect a database, click the padlock icon so it changes to the unlocked state. Then, enter a user name and password in the fields provided and click the padlock icon again to lock it. The next time you open the database, DEVONthink prompts you for the user name and password before displaying its contents. (To remove password protection, repeat the procedure but leave the Password field blank.)
However, bear in mind that this is weak protection at best. DEVONthink doesn’t encrypt your data, and it can still be accessed in the Finder, so password protection won’t stop a knowledgeable or committed intruder. (See the sidebar just ahead for more on encryption.)

Encrypting a Database

If you need to keep the contents of a database private and don’t consider password protection adequate, you can encrypt it by storing it on an encrypted disk image. (But note that this does not encrypt your global Inbox.) Follow these steps to encrypt a database:

Close your DEVONthink database.
Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
Choose File > New Image > Blank Image (in El Capitan or later) or File > New > Blank Disk Image (in Yosemite or earlier).
In the Save As field, enter a name for the disk image file, and in the Name field, enter a name for the encrypted volume.
From the Size pop-up menu, choose a size large enough to accommodate your current DEVONthink database.
Choose Sparse Bundle Disk Image from the Image Format pop-up menu, which enables the disk image to grow as needed and stores the data in a backup-friendly format.
Choose 128-bit or 256-bit AES Encryption (as you prefer) from the Encryption pop-up menu, and click Save (El Capitan or later) or Create (Yosemite or earlier).
Enter and verify a password, and click OK. Disk Utility creates and mounts your new disk image.
Copy your DEVONthink database (which normally lives in ~/Library/Application Support for DEVONthink Personal and ~/Documents for the other editions) onto the new volume, and delete the original. Double-click the DEVONthink database on the disk image to open it.

As long as the disk image is mounted, you can use DEVONthink normally. After quitting DEVONthink, eject the disk image by selecting it and choosing File > Eject (Command-E). The next time you want to access your data, double-click the disk image file and enter your password to mount the image; then open DEVONthink.

To make things even simpler, while your disk image is mounted, create an alias of your DEVONthink database on your Desktop (or in another convenient place). Double-clicking this alias mounts the disk image (prompting you for your password if you haven’t stored it in your Keychain) and opens the database in DEVONthink.

How and Where Databases Are Stored

DEVONthink stores all its data in a container it refers to as a “database.” The database isn’t a single file, however, but rather a whole bunch of files. Some of them contain settings, metadata, and other information about the arrangement and attributes of your documents. The documents themselves are also stored, each as a separate file, in a series of folders inside the database.

Ordinarily, you need never look at or even think about the database files and folders on disk, as your interaction with your data will all happen in DEVONthink itself. But it’s useful to know where the files are stored and in what format in case you need to, say, transfer them to another Mac or back them up.

DEVONthink Personal stores its single database in ~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink 2. You’ll notice, if you dig through this folder, that the raw document files are arranged in a series of folders with a mysterious organizational scheme that doesn’t correspond to the groups in your DEVONthink window; this is the arrangement DEVONthink finds efficient for its internal processes.

DEVONthink Professional and DEVONthink Pro Office databases are organized the same way, but instead of being stored in an ordinary folder, they’re stored in a package (sometimes called a bundle), which is a folder with a special setting that makes it look and act like a single file in the Finder. (Photos, Keynote, and numerous other apps use this same trick to keep the Finder uncluttered and easy to use.) This package, which has the name of your database followed by the extension .dtBase2, can be stored wherever you like; the default location is in your ~/Documents folder. (DEVONthink Professional and DEVONthink Pro Office use a separate database, stored in ~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink 2, to hold the global Inbox.)

If you forget where you’ve stored a database in the Finder, you can find it easily. First, make sure DEVONthink’s sidebar is showing; if not, choose View > Show Sidebar. Under the Open Databases collection, right-click (Control-click) your database and choose Show in Finder. A Finder window opens, showing the database package.

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Table of Contents for Set Up DEVONthink Databases

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Set Up DEVONthink Databases

Create a New Database

Configure Database Properties

Table of Contents for
Set Up DEVONthink Databases