No, our apps never ask for money while you still have a valid license or subscription. We have not added an option to buy while there is an active subscription to prevent accidental double purchases.

On iOS and based on how the App Store works, the trial time is simply a free month at the beginning of a regular subscription. To switch, e.g., from a monthly to a yearly subscription or a different licensing model, please cancel your subscription and let it expire. As soon as the app asks for a license again, choose your desired option.

You might. As Apple alone runs the App Store and decides about cancellations and refunds, please contact the App Store support directly.

Yes, DEVONthink To Go supports family sharing for subscriptions. Make sure to enable sharing for the subscription in App Store > Account > Subscriptions.

The one-time purchase for DEVONthink To Go is valid for the app generation you have purchased it for. You might need to switch to a subscription or use your Mac license for registering the app when a new major generation arrives.

All purchases and subscriptions made in the App Store can only get refunded by Apple. We have no access to payment information or even to look up our customers. Sorry.

Visit the App Store app, navigate to your account, and then to Subscriptions. Choose the subscription you want to cancel, tap it, then cancel it.

As we don’t want to force you to upgrade to DEVONthink To Go 4 we made it a new app in the App Store. If you have a subscription or one-time purchase for version 3 we have prepared upgrade options for you.

If you bought the one-time purchase on or after January 1st, 2024, you can use DEVONthink To Go 4 for free until the end of 2026. The app will then ask you how you would like to proceed: with an App Store subscription or by using a DEVONthink Pro or Server 4 license that is eligible for updates.

No, it’s a real subscription as we no longer offer one-time purchases for DEVONthink To Go. However, alternatively to an App Store subscription you can register DEVONthink To Go with a DEVONthink Pro or Server 4 license as long as the license is eligible for updates.

No, we are afraid. DEVONthink To Go can be used, with restrictions, for free, but to use its full functionality it requires either a subscription or a mobile seat of a DEVONthink Pro or Server for Mac license. We have moved away from monolithic upgrades every few years to delivering new functionality whenever it’s ready. To do this in a sustainable way, the App Store offers the subscriptions model.

Older generations of DEVONthink To Go are no longer available in the App Store. But if you purchased them while they were still on sale, you can reinstall them at any time to your devices.

Open the App Store app and visit your account. Tap Purchased, then My Purchases. Search for “DEVONthink”. Install it from here.

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.

No, sorry. If you need more Mac seats, please visit your customer account, click your license, and scroll to Updates & Upgrades. Purchase additional Mac seats there.

No, sorry. DEVONthink To Go is included only in DEVONthink Pro or Server 4 or later as long as the license is eligible for updates.

When you decide not to extend your DEVONthink for Mac license, your app simply no longer gets updates. In the App Store this is not possible. iOS apps always receive the latest updates regardless of their licensing status. Therefore you can use your DEVONthink for Mac license for registering DEVONthink To Go but only as long as the license receives updates.

Unfortunately no. macOS and iOS are two operating systems for very different device categories. Where the Mac, e.g., has windows, a menu bar, and much more options for integrating apps, iOS is focused on simplicity and full-screen apps. Mac applications cannot run on iOS as they are built for very different hardware and a more complex user interface.

Be aware, there is no 100% bullet-proof clipping solution in any application. Dynamic variables, like network quality, reachability and responsiveness of remote servers, bandwidth throttling, etc., can effect whether content can be successfully clipped. When the clipping mechanism encounters an unresolvable issue, a bookmark is clipped so there’s at least something useful captured. Trying the capture again may produce the desired result.

To use your DEVONthink Pro or Server license for registering DEVONthink To Go, do the following:

1. Open DEVONthink To Go 4.
2. On the database list, tap the button with the three dots, then choose Settings.
3. Navigate to License.
4. Log into your DEVONtechnologies customer account.
5. In Settings > License > License choose the license you want to use and tap the checkmark button to register your copy.

Please note that your Mac license needs to be eligible for updates.

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 that can be different from your device’s passcode secures access to your data. Alternatively you can use Face ID or Touch ID. For usability reasons, individual databases do not have their own password protection, but their password is required to import them from a sync locations.

If these two levels of security do not suffice, e.g., for classified government documents, a specialized data vault, as provided by most government agencies, might be a more appropriate solution.

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).

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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).

Unfortunately, there are no granular and accessible backups in iOS or iPadOS. The backup to iCloud is meant only for setting up or restoring a complete mobile device.

At this time, while sync is not intended as a backup, it may be used as a current backup of a database. Since the data is only useful to DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go, it is not a true, product-independent backup, though.

Alternatively, you can export databases a files-in-folders to the Files app and back them up from there.

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.

Yes, you can sync your databases between DEVONthink 4 and the older generations, DEVONthink 3 and DEVONthink To Go 3. Revision-proof databases are only available in DEVONthink 4 and cannot be synced to DEVONthink 3 and DEVONthink To Go 3.

No, we’re afraid. The official Dropbox API only pairs with one account at a time.

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.

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.

There is no direct switching between sync methods, e.g., between iCloud and Dropbox sync locations. The sync data isn’t shared between locations.

In DEVONthink: Control-click the sync location in DEVONthink’s Preferences > Sync and choose Clean Location. This will remove the sync data in that location. Enable the new sync location, adjusting the options for the location as desired, then sync a database. Enable other databases as needed.

In DEVONthink To Go: Tap the Edit link in DEVONthink To Go’s Settings > Sync: Locations. Add the new sync method, adjusting the options, and saving it.

If you are using a shallow sync, i.e., Download Files: On demand, and you are not syncing to a new location already synced by your Mac, you must leave the old sync location active. Tap the new location and sync a database. DEVONthink To Go will pull the contents from the old location to upload to the new sync location. If you are syncing to a new location to which you’ve already synced your Mac, the contents of the files should be in the sync location already.

If you are using a full sync, i.e., Download Files: Always, the content of the files in fully synced databases is already local to DEVONthink To Go, so tap the new location and sync a database. Repeat as needed.

After you have synced successfully, you can left-swipe the old sync location, and choose Clean to remove the sync data from the old location.

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.

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?

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.

Click here to read our migration guide.