Unifying Elements in DEVONthink

If you have ever wondered where your tags are or didn’t know each of your DEVONthink databases has its own Inbox, or maybe felt like you’re getting lost scrolling to find groups, you should know about unified elements. Unified items gather some items of the same type in the Navigate sidebar, the leftmost pane on a main window. This is similar to how Apple Mail, for instance, has Inboxes in its Favorites sections. Toggle unified elements in DEVONthink’s Settings > General > Interface > Sidebar.

Unify Inboxes and Tags

Every database has its own Inbox and Tags group. If they aren’t unified, these appear alongside the other groups in the database. Enable Unify inboxes and all inboxes, including the Global Inbox, are collected in the Globals > Inboxes section. Enable Unify tags and all Tags groups appear in Globals > Tags.

When Inboxes and/or Tags are unified, clicking on those top-level items in the Globals section displays a union of the contents of every Inbox or Tags group it contains. Click the disclosure triangle to only access items of individual, open databases.

Unify Databases

When databases are unified, they are listed in the Open Databases section and can all be expanded there — the databases and their groups are all unified in one sidebar section.

Disabling this option does two things: (1) Open databases’ names are shown in Open Databases giving you quick access to the root of each database, and (2) a section for the selected database appears in the sidebar, listing only the groups in that database, isolating its groups.

Unify Elements in DEVONthink To Go

For mobile users, in DEVONthink To Go you can unify Inboxes or Tags via the View Options button (with three descending lines) on the databases screen or in Settings > Interface & Chat.

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