Questions and Answers
App Store
Can I use family sharing?
Yes, DEVONthink To Go supports family sharing for subscriptions and one-time purchases. Make sure to enable sharing for the subscription in App Store > Account > Subscriptions. For one-time purchases install the app on your family member’s device not directly from the App Store but from App Store > Account > Purchases > (Purchaser).
Does my one-time purchase expire?
The one-time purchase for DEVONthink To Go is valid for the app generation you have purchased it for. You might need to buy an upgrade when a new major generation arrives.
How do I upgrade to DEVONthink To Go 3?
As we don’t want to force you to upgrade to DEVONthink To Go 3 we made it a new app in the App Store. If you purchased version 2 you can upgrade to version 3 for a reduced price.
For this to work make sure DEVONthink To Go 2.7.8 or 2.7.9 is installed on your device and opened at least once. Then install version 3 and buy the price-reduced one-time purchase. You can now safely delete the old version at your convenience.
Why is an app not available in my country?
For varying reasons we do not offer our software in certain countries. If you are living in a country where our software is not available in the App Store you might be able to buy it with e.g. an EU or US credit card.
iOS
Do I need DEVONthink on the Mac too?
DEVONthink To Go can be used as a standalone application and we have many people using it on its own. However, due to iOS and mobile devices’ limitations, it doesn’t have all the same features and capabilities as DEVONthink on a Mac. It’s a functional application on its own, but it’s even more powerful when used together with our desktop application.
How safe is my data on my iOS device?
Data stored on your device is encrypted using iOS’ own encryption. So your databases are always encrypted and can only be read by DEVONthink To Go after you unlocked your device after a restart.
An additional app-wide passcode secures access to your data. Alternatively you can use Face ID or Touch ID.
What data is available in Spotlight?
Spotlight receives the name, the first 16 KB of text content, the comment, and the tags for each item as well as metadata like the item’s type, its icon, and the creation and modification dates.
16 KB seems to be the internal limit of Spotlight (as of today).
What do the shown storage sizes mean?
The sizes shown for individual databases, for DEVONthink To Go as a whole, and in iOS’ Settings can differ. Here’s how they relate to each other:
- The Info popover for a database shows the sum of the sizes of all documents in the database, regardless if they are downloaded to the device or not.
- The Help popover shows the total of the data store folder on the device, comprising of the downloaded document files, the metadata database, the full-text index database, previews, thumbnails, all the files needed by sync, and some temporary files.
- The iOS Settings combine the storage size used for all files in the folder shared by the application and all its extensions (the ‘shared container’), the files used to provide documents to the Files app, and the Spotlight index.
If you have just moved from DEVONthink To Go version 2 to version 3, the storage size shown in the iOS Settings also add the size of the old data store left behind by version 2. It will be cleaned up four weeks after launching DEVONthink To Go 3 for the first time.
Note that iOS is using the APFS file system. Copies of files and folders (‘clones’) are counted with their size but don’t take up any space unless one of the copies is modified. File and folder sizes on APFS therefore don’t necessarily represent the real number of bytes used.
What if Spotlight shows no results?
Check DEVONthink To Go’s settings in the Settings app and make sure that Search & Siri Suggestions is switched on. Check also DEVONthink To Go’s own settings and switch on Spotlight if necessary. Then try to search for terms that you know that occur in the document, e.g. in its title. If still no results show up rebuild the Spotlight index (see the build-in documentation, chapter Appendix).
Why can't I sync via USB?
For a long time the USB port in iOS devices wasn’t available to third-party apps. We believe that synchronizing via the local network provides a fast and reliable method even for larger data sets.
Sync
Can I use multiple Dropbox accounts?
No, we’re afraid. The official Dropbox API only pairs with one account at a time.
Can I use OneDrive, Google Drive, …?
Not yet. If you would like to use DEVONthink or DEVONthink To Go with a service that is not yet supported, feel free to let us know. We might add support for it in the future.
Do I have to sync whole databases?
DEVONthink for Mac always uploads complete databases. You can exclude indexed items, though.
DEVONthink To Go always syncs the metadata for whole databases but you can select for the location, the database, or individual groups if you want to sync their content files too. If you sync only the metadata you can download the actual content later on demand.
How safe is my data during a sync?
If you set an encryption key for a sync store all data is AES 256 bit encrypted before leaving the device and is stored in encrypted form on the server. It can only be retrieved using the correct key. The same is true for direct connections where all data is encrypted using the key set in the Bonjour options.
In addition, the username and password you set for newly created databases is used as soon as you sync the database to another device. The database cannot be retrieved from a sync store or via direct connection without entering the right credentials.
I have lost my encryption key. Can you recover it?
Unfortunately no. The encryption key is never shared with us. If we could recover your encryption key anyone else could do this too. We’re using strong encryption to ensure that your privacy (at the time of this writing) can’t be cracked without substantial computing power, if at all. Are you sure that you don’t have noted it down on some piece of paper somewhere?
What is CloudKit and should I switch to it?
iCloud comprises several components. One of them is the file service with iCloud Drive being its user-facing part. Another component is CloudKit, a database service that works behind the curtain and can only be used by applications directly.
DEVONthink’s old iCloud sync was based on the file service which did not let it live up to the maximum possible performance. Contrary to that, the CloudKit sync uses the backend database’s capabilities for a fast, single-pass sync.