Questions and Answers
App Store
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. a European or US American 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 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. 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 do 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?