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 Application Icon The Tools Menu
 

The Tools menu contains the more sophisticated tools, such as the advanced search function, the concordance, the history panel, and the log, as well as commands for keeping your database healthy and for showing the Info and the Groups panel.


Search Tools

Search: Opens the Search window. Using the search function you can search your database in a variety of ways, from searching for a document by name to a full content search. Using its built-in AI, DEVONthink Personal also assists you in formulating the right query.

DEVONagent: Opens DEVONagent, DEVONtechnologies' smart Internet research tool. If the current document has a URL attached, this URL is opened in DEVONagent's built-in web-browser.


Panels

Show Info: Opens the Info panel which shows basic information about selected items. As it is a panel, selecting a new item updates the Info panel accordingly.

Show Properties: Opens the document properties panel. View or edit the front-most document's properties such as author, subject, or keywords.

Show Groups: Opens the Groups panel. You can use this panel to always have your group list handy, for example for dragging text clippings or documents from DEVONthink Personal or other applications to a group.


Research Tools

History: Opens the History panel for a selected database (if only one database is open no sub-menu is shown) that lists all documents in the selected database sorted by modification date. You can use this panel for quickly finding newly added documents or by their age.


Database Tools

Like any database, DEVONthink Personal needs a bit of maintenance from time to time. All commands you'll need for database maintenance are to be found here.

Verify & Repair: Verify all database structures and repair them if necessary. Use this whenever you feel it is necessary. By default, DEVONthink Personal automatically verifies the database structure every time you open a database, and advises you to run this command when it finds significant errors. Orphaned files found during repair are placed in a group 'Orphaned files' in the top level of the database.

Backup & Optimize: Create an internal backup of the database and then optimize the database structure. Optimizing removes unnecessary internal elements from the database and rebuilds the internal structure to optimize the performance. DEVONthink Personal also creates internal backups on a regular basis depending on the settings in the Preferences, Backup tab. Internal backups only back up the index structures in case the index gets corrupted. Please use an external backup software to create backups of your complete database including all documents.

Restore Backup: Restore an internal backup. Choose the backup you want to restore from the dialog window and click Open. You can identify backups by their creation date.

Note: Restoring a backup simply swaps the current database and the backup. The backup becomes the active database, the former database a backup. You'll never lose any data by using this command.

Rebuild Database: Completely rebuild the database by automatically exporting all items to a temporary folder in the file system, creating an empty database, and reimporting all items. This removes any structural problems. Depending on the size of your database, this can take from a few seconds to several hours. You may lose some meta data such as manual sorting.


Take Note

Opens the Take Note panel that lets you quickly enter a plain text note and add it to the default destination.

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