Pre-purchase Q re importing from DEVONthink

I downloaded a trial version of EF and tried importing one of my DT Pro databases and the import failed. Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t have expected it to be so easy.

I have several databases, one with several dozen pdfs, and a few archived ones with hundreds of RTF files (see attachment). What are best practices for a migration - is there an easy way to import the DT database contents so that the folder/file structure remains intact, or do I need to handle the messy export from DT into individual files?

persdevo.png

I’m not sure why exporting is messy, but the even easier way is to select the top-level folders in DEVONthink and then to press the capture key.

I’ll look into it. Thanks Michael.

Hi, a follow-up

I exported my DEVONthink files (which I’d never done before, not hard), then created folders in EF and drag-and-dropped the files into EF from the Finder. So far so good… I think.

Here’s the thing: one of the Finder folders has 186 files in it, but inside EF I don’t see a way to get folder info to make sure that it has the same number of files imported successfully. I was able to right-click on the EF folder then ‘Reveal In Finder’ and see that it indeed was the same # of files, but that’s a kludge. Is there a way to see the number (and perhaps even type) of files inside a given folder or record? Thanks.

Also, two other questions/oddities.

(1)

When I did my drag-and-drops I did it right into the empty space where the list of documents would be for a folder - no problem. But after I finished I noticed the Drop Pad. Out of curiosity I dropped a url/webloc onto it… and it disappeared into EF, not appearing in the sidebar or in any of the folders I’d created!!! I searched on the file name and it appeared in search results, but with no info as to where it was. I Right-clicked, found in finder, and discovered it was in the EF folder, at the same level as the folders I’d created. But again, it does not appear inside EagleFiler, only showing up after I search!

(2)

The Drop Pad has a pop up where the choices are 'New Library," “Open Library” and the current setting “Untitled.” Does Untitled simply throw everything into the Records area, is it supposed to not show things dropped there (as above in [1]), and is there a way to rename it from Untitled to something else?

If you tell DEVONthink to export the folder, you don’t have to first create the folder in EagleFiler. You could just drag in the exported folder to import it and the files all at once.

If you click on a folder in EagleFiler’s source list, it will show in the window’s title bar how many files it contains. If you then Select All to select the contents in the records list, the record viewer will show how many of each type of file there are.

The sidebar (a.k.a. source list) only shows containers (folders and mailboxes). Regular files will show up in the top pane (the records list) when either Records or the containing folder is selected in the sidebar.

The Drop Pad shows a list of your libraries. Right now you have one library, which I guess you called Untitled. When you import without specifying a folder, the files go to the top level, so that they show up in Records and Unfiled. To rename a library, please see this page.

Thanks very much Michael. I subsequently figured out some of that. Still trying to figure it all out…

With EagleFiler there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to just look at files that aren’t already filed away, and that’s a little problematic for me. Lots of times in DEVONthink I save things in the course of doing stuff in other apps, and when I save it all goes automatically into a temp inbox folder that I can then easily examine and perform triage on - reading, deleting or moving into a new or preexisting folder.

With EF if all files are in that top pane, it seems I’d have to add ‘Container’ to the Top pane columns, then search for things that don’t have containers… but even then I’d be rummaging around looking at unfiled docs amidst all the top-level folders, which seems a bit clunky. (See attachment.)

zv_165.png

That’s what the Unfiled smart folder is for. It shows all the top-level non-folders.

AH!!! Thank you!

And now I just purchased EagleFiler. :slight_smile: