New in DEVONthink To Go 3

For DEVONthink To Go 3 we have revisited many parts of the app to add current iOS technologies and make the code base ready for future improvements. Here’s what’s new.

DEVONthink To Go 3.0 brings new features including support for multiple windows and the pointer on iPadOS, dark mode, and context menus.

OCR converts scans to searchable PDFs, Shortcuts actions let you automate everyday tasks. Version 3.0 supports Mac-style document annotations and ratings, and adds new global smart groups. Optionally show inboxes, tags, and trash groups unified like on the Mac.

A new iCloud sync based on CloudKit is much faster and more reliable than the previous iCloud approach. Other improvements include search returning first results faster and new settings to personalize DEVONthink To Go to your needs.

Product Line


App Store	Available as a new app in the App Store to make it possible to keep version 2 if you don’t want or need to upgrade.

User Interface


Application	Support for dark mode.
Application	Support for multiple windows (iPadOS).
Application	Pointer (cursor) support (iPadOS).
Application	Context menus for the database and documents & groups lists. Long-press any item to get a menu with often-used commands.
Global Items	Unified inboxes, tags, and trash groups. Optional.
Global Items	New smart groups for ratings, PDFs without text, bookmarks, web archives, and email messages.
Global Items	Favorites can now contain documents.
Item Lists	Item counts show unread/all item counts.
Settings	New settings for deactivating Spotlight indexing and preview image creation. Disable remote images in email messages.

Searching & Navigating


Search	Searching immediately returns matches in titles, searches the full text after pressing the Enter key.
Search	Searching in groups finds items in subgroups too.
Navigation	Recent destinations in context menus and the Organize popover make filing items much faster and more comfortable.
Navigation	Multiple documents can be selected by swiping.

Working with Documents


Office	OCR for PDFs and images. Select any PDF or image and choose Convert > Searchable PDF from the Organize menu. You can find the same option in the context menu.
Metadata	Ratings with one to five stars.
Metadata	Support for annotation text documents compatible to DEVONthink for Mac.
Metadata	Copying the item link for the global inbox now copies a link that is independent of the local database’s identifier.
Metadata	The unread status of groups is now determined ad-hoc and is more reliable.
Capture	Clip to DEVONthink clips more pages behind log-ins or paywalls.
Capture	Taking pictures uses the standard camera user interface for photos and videos which allows, e.g., to zoom the image.
Documents	Open documents in-place with third-party apps.
Documents	MultiMarkdown 6 support including CriticMarkup. Markdown documents support item links to content, i.e, images and videos, and item links in the metadata section for accessing CSS stylesheets.
Conversions	PDFs can be converted to plain text.
Conversions	Multiple selected items can be converted in one go. Conversions are clearer named.

Synchronizing Your Data


iCloud	iCloud sync locations based on CloudKit. Contrary to old-style iCloud sync locations, synchronizing with iCloud (CloudKit) is fully synchronous and doesn’t need the CPU and battery-intense iCloud upload monitoring. It is also much faster and more reliable.
User Interface	The Sync buttons responds faster and more reliably; long-pressing always shows the sync status popover. In the progress display sync always takes precedence.
Background	Automatic syncs happen more frequently in the background.
Performance	Faster processing of to-be-sent and received items, more efficient chunking of data.

Automating Your Work


Shortcuts	Build your own scripts in the Shortcuts app with native actions. Find, create, and manipulate documents and groups in DEVONthink To Go without using `x-callback` URLs.
URL Commands	`x-devonthink:` URLs support more DEVONthink for Mac parameters, e.g., for opening documents.

Other Improvements


Maintenance	Tasks like deleting data from the full-text index are conducted in the background when the device is sleeping and connected to external power.
Performance	Improved background processing.
Performance	Improved performance and reliability.