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There are a few settings in DEVONthink not available through the application Settings. Most of them are intended to facilitate customer support but they might be interesting for you as well.
Note: Due to changes made by Apple in macOS Monterey and later, URL schemes in the Help Viewer aren't considered valid hyperlinks. Control-click the On or Off link for the desired preference and choose Copy Link. Open Safari, paste the link into the address bar, and click OK to open DEVONthink.
How to access the hidden preferences All hidden preferences are simple on/off switches. You set and unset them using the "defaults" command in the Terminal or using the special ON and OFF links provided below. To set preferences via the Terminal DEVONthink must not be running or it will overwrite your changes when you close it. To set a preference using the Terminal, noting the commands are case-senstive, they are written like this:
Terminal: `$ defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3 ShouldScaleAttachedImages -bool TRUE`
The above command activates the preference with the key "ShouldScaleAttachedImages". Change TRUE to FALSE to deactivate it. Use any of the preferences keys below to activate or deactivate them. Some hidden preferences allow specifying a numeric value, e.g., CounterDigits. These types of preferences also need to be set via a Terminal command. Use the `-int` argument before specifying the number, like so:
Terminal: `$ defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3 CounterDigits -int 3`
There is a special preference to allow DEVONthink to detect other plain text formats as plain text: "AdditionalPlainTextExtensions". As it replaces the list of additional plain text extensions we recommend that you read the current list first (empty by default) before adding your own to the end of the list.
Terminal: `$ defaults read com.devon-technologies.think3 AdditionalPlainTextExtensions` `2014-07-31 08:25:27.101 defaults[21950:3312262] The domain/default pair of (/Users/eb/Library/Preferences/com.devon-technologies.think3 AdditionalPlainTextExtensions) does not exist` `# This "error" shows there are no additional formats specified.` `$ defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3 AdditionalPlainTextExtensions -string .otl.todotxt` `$ defaults read com.devon-technologies.think3 AdditionalPlainTextExtensions` `.otl.todotxt`
Available hidden preferences keys AdditionalPlainTextExtensions: Adds additional plain text extensions, separated by dots. AVSkippingInterval: Specify the numbers of seconds to skip forward or backward when using the right and left arrow keys with Shift held in audio/video files. Seconds are specified as an `-int`, e.g., `-int 5`. The default is 15 seconds. AdditionalXMLExtensions: Adds additional XML file name extensions, separated by dots. BatesNumberDigits: Specifies the number of digits used for the placeholder. CounterDigits: Specifies the number of digits used for the placeholder. DatePlaceholdersWithoutLeadingZeros: Disables date and time placeholders from using prefixing zeros.On | Off DisableActivityWindow: Disables automatically showing/hiding of the Activity window. On | Off DisableAutomaticDeconsolidation: Inhibits items added to indexed groups in DEVONthink from automatically moving out to the indexed Finder folder. On | Off DisableAutomaticUpdatingOfIndexedItems: Disables automatic updating of indexed items. On | Off DisableBadgeLabel: Disable the badge label on DEVONthink's Dock icon. On | Off DisableFileSystemEvents: DEVONthink no longer listens to file system events. On | Off DisableFileCoordination: DEVONthink no longer uses file coordination, registering its interest in certain files and waiting for replies. This can cause very long delays if the coordinating process isn't responding quickly. On | Off DisableFinderTags: DEVONthink no longer imports or exports Finder tags. On | Off DisplayGroupsInPreviewPane: DEVONthink will display the contents of selected groups, smart groups, and feeds in the view/edit pane of main windows. The preview only displays files, not groups. On | Off DisableHighlightColorMapping: Uses the same colors when highlighting documents in dark and light mode. On | Off DisablePDFValidation: Disables validating PDFs created by merging, converting, or clipping. On | Off DisablePreprocessedClipping: Disable additional processing of a web page's content before sending the clipped file to DEVONthink. On | Off DisableRelativeDates: Disable displaying relative dates, e.g., "Today" in the item list. This will instead always show absolute dates, e.g., "2023.02.14". On | Off DisableTagAutocompletion: Disable displaying the popup of tag suggestions when entering tags, e.g., in the Tags bar. On | Off DontAutomaticallyEnableOperatorsOptions: After a toolbar search, disables automatically enabling the Operators & Wildcards option in the Search inspector. On | Off DontSetFindPboard: Disable using macOS' shared pasteboard, avoiding search terms from being automatically used in other applications.On | Off EnableApplicationFiles: Applications can be imported/indexed. On | Off EnableAutomaticConsolidation: Indexed items moved to a non-indexed location in the database will be moved from their Finder location as an imported item. On | Off EnableFSEventLogging: Enables logging of filesystem events when requested by our support team. It should not be needed for general use. On | Off EnableEvernoteRTFDImport: Enable this to import notes from Evernote notebooks as rich text files. On | Off EnableSearchFieldAutocompletion: Enable this to have DEVONthink attempt to complete search strings as you type them in the toolbar search field. Note this option only works when the search options Live while typing and Partial matches while typing are disabled. (Read more...)On | Off ForceEditablePDFs: Some PDFs contain objects that are problematic for Apple's PDFKit. DEVONthink opens these files in a read-only state. Enable this option to disable this behavior and open all PDFs as editable. Note: This does not eliminate the potential for problems with certain PDFs. On | Off IndexRawMarkdownSource: Index the source code of Markdown files instead of the rendered content only. On | Off MaximumNumberOfRecentDestinations: Specify the number of recent destinations shown in the Recent Destinations section of the context and popup menus, e.g., in the Move To popover. The default value is `10`. MaximumNumberOfRecentSearches: Specify the number of recent searches available in the toolbar search field or the Search inspector. The default value is `10`. MonospacedSidebarFont: Use a monospaced system font in the sidebars of main windows. On | Off MonospacedViewFont: Use a monospaced system font in the item list of main windows. On | Off OpenLinksInForeground: Clicked links always open in the foreground, including when opening documents externally. In Terminal: `-bool FALSE` or choose: On | Off PersistentSortingOfSearchResults: Retains the last sort method used in database search results. On | Off PlainTextIsMarkdown: Treat all plain text files as markdown. On | Off RawMarkdownPasting: When pasting rich content into a Markdown file, the formatting is converted to Markdown. Enable this to ignore formatting and paste as raw plain text. On | Off RawOPMLImport: Imports `.opml` files as native files instead of parsing and creating groups, feeds, etc. from them.On | Off RichNotesWithoutAttachments: Services create RTF instead of RTFD. On | Off ShowAdditionalInfoInPathBar: Shows some details about the selected item in the Information Bar. On | Off SyncDebugLog: Enable additional sync logging for debugging. On | Off UsePDFDocumentDates: Use the PDF's internal metadata dates instead of the filesystem dates when importing and setting creation and modification dates.On | Off WindowToolbarStyleExpanded: Enable the expanded toolbar style on macOS Big Sur. This shows the title bar above the toolbar instead of the new unified default style. On | Off SERVER ServerDebugLog: Enable additional logging for debugging DEVONthink's webserver. On | Off WebServerSession: Specify the duration of idle time before logout in DEVONthink's websharing interface. The duration is specified in seconds as an `-int`, e.g., `-int 600`. The default duration is 1800 (30 minutes).On | Off
Note: These hidden preferences could be changed or removed with any update.