I’m struggling with my Obsidian setup—I think it’s too complicated.
In addition to Markdown documents, I work with a lot of Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and Web URLs. Until now, I’ve stored all of those in Obsidian — even the Word docs.
Now, I think maybe I’d be better off keeping Obsidian for just Markdown documents and embedded images. Which is how most people seem to use it.
I’m a Mac user, and I know many Mac Obsidian users use DevonThink in conjunction with Obsidian for just the use case I describe. Markdown goes in Obsidian, everything else in DevonThink.
My question is: Why?
The main benefit, as I see it, is that DevonThink gives each document a unique URL, which can then be integrated into Obsidian. But there are other ways to do that, and these ways might be more lightweight than DevonThink:
Create a separate Obsidian vault solely for storing non-Markdown reference documents.
Just use the Mac filesystem and use path links. In this case, you could never move your reference documents from their existing folders, or else you’d break the link.
Another app like Keep it or EagleFiler, which also serve as document libraries with links to documents, but are lighter weight than DevonThink.
Why do you use DevonThink with Obsidian?
(Perfectly valid answer, but uninteresting for this discussion: “Because I’ve used DevonThink for many years, it works for me, and I see no reason to change.” However, this answer can be made very interesting indeed if you tell us why it works for you.)
I’ve used DEVONthink almost continually since about 2009. Different people will obviously use it for different reasons – there are certain features I’ve never really used, while I am sure those features will be used regularly by other people. But I will try to answer your bullet points.
Hookmark links only work on Mac (at present, I believe) while DEVONthink item links also work on iOS. That means that an item link in an Obsidian note on my phone will take me to the document on my phone.
a separate Obsidian vault would mean a lot of swapping between vaults, which I would not like.
using the Mac filesystem, as you say, can lead to broken links and worse, lost files.
EagleFiler doesn’t work on my phone (or it didn’t last time I looked). I’ve never tried Keep it.
Things you don’t mention:
I can index my Obsidian vault with DT, which means I can see, and edit, all the files I have in Obsidian in DT. Ryan J A Murphy produced an Obsidian plugin called DEVONlink which permits some integration between the two programs (look for it in the plugins or in the forum).
DT has some quite sophisticated search functions which I won’t try to describe here – and search is blindingly fast. Below you will see a screenshot of the properties of my database. You will see it has over 31 million words. I just did a search for the word “Freud” and it found 397 occurrences in 0.028 seconds.
You can view most types of file directly in DT and you can also edit many of them. It will also allow you to open a document in its default application so you can edit it there. Personally, I find the ability to see previews of a whole folder full of files inside DT very useful.
There are lots of things I’ve left out (including the fact that their forums are very helpful and there is masses of documentation). The program is well worth trying.
Pertinent question. I’ve used Devonthink since 2003, but I prefer Obsidian for two purposes:
work management. I keep all my projects and text notes relating to those projects in Obsidian (other refs in Devonthink) because its plugin ecosystem makes working with this material much more practical. I’m quite visually-driven, and having the ability to make kanbans has become important to me as a way of sorting material.
thinking. I wouldn’t glorify my Obsidian thinking vault as a zettelkasten, but it has thousands of markdown notes I’ve collected and made over the years, and it’s where I go to find connections, flesh things out, etc. It’s one of my favourite places.
Devonthink holds all non-text reference material, which is linked where necessary in Obsidian.
On a checklist, Devonthink has all the same functionality as Obsidian when it comes to managing notes, plus more (minus the urge to tinker), but Devonthink’s interface doesn’t work as well for me. My Obsidian setup is cleaner in ways that make it more functional and more aesthetically pleasing. After wrestling with my superficiality for a while, I’ve decided to spend most of my doing time in Obsidian simply because I like working in the app more. Devonthink is decidedly more powerful in many respects, but it’s built for function and I’ve set up Obsidian to give me function and be visually pleasing at the same time.
This is pretty close to my scenario. Working in Obsidian is so much more fluent and smooth than working in DEVONthink. The latter is a great library or repository of information, but I don’t enjoy it as a place to write or work with material. Obsidian is so much more capable with tools like Excalidraw, Excalibrain, Dataview, DB Folder, Kanban boards, the Canvas view and the like.
