The Files settings contains controls for a variety of things from imports to media playblack, thumbnailing to Markdown extensions, and much more.

## General

The General settings control some miscellaneous options, including filenaming, the behavior of annotation and indexed files, and versioning.

General: Control duplicate detection and filesystem naming.

- Stricter recognition of duplicates: Check to have DEVONthink use document contents, file type, file size, and the content hash of the document, when detecting duplicate files.
- More compatible naming of files: Replaces the characters `|<>%?&*"` when naming files to improve the compatibility with other filesystems and platforms, e.g., Dropbox or OneDrive. Forward slashes and colons are always replaced as these are reserved by macOS.

Annotations: Control where to save annotation files, if they follow when the referred file is moved to another database, and what file format they should be.

- Location: Choose where to save newly created annotation files: In shared group or In same group. The shared group is an Annotations group in the root of the current database.
- Move annotations automatically: Move annotation files along with their referred files when moved between databases.
- Rename annotations automatically: Changes the name of an annotation file and the backlink's text in its contents when the backlinked document's name changes.
- Format: Choose the format for newly created annotation files: Markdown, Rich Text, or select Automatic to use the same format as the referring file.

Indexed Items: Control the behavior when mixing indexed and imported items in indexed and non-indexed locations in your databases.

- Automatically move items to external folder: Force imported or created items to be moved to the Finder folder when placed into an indexed group.
- Automatically move indexed items into database: Indexed items moved to a non-indexed location in your database will be moved into the database. This removes the item from the Finder location.

Versioning: Control the number, maximum size, and retention of document versions.

- Max. Versions: Set the maximum number of versions per-document from: 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, or retain them all with Unlimited.
- Max. Size: Define how large an individual version can be, either: 1MB, 2MB, 5MB, 10MB, 20MB, 50MB, 100MB, 200MB, or set no boundary with Unlimited.
- Remove Versions: Choose when versions should be automatically purged: After one day, After one week, After two weeks, After one month, After two months, After one year, or keep them forever with Unlimited.

## Preview

Control automatic loading of online data, including indexed files stored online, as well as what types of files should have thumbnails created.

General: Control accessing online data, including indexed documents stored online..

- Automatically download cloud files: Download the content of indexed files whose contents are only stored online when previewing them.
- Automatically load bookmarks: Load bookmarks when viewing using the built-in web browsing functions. Disable this to avoid loading problematic pages, e.g., poor JavaScript, etc. When disabled, click the Load Preview button in the view/edit pane to load it.

Create Thumbnails: Choose the file types for which DEVONthink should create thumbnails or icons.

- Generate from actual image: Create thumbnails from image data, not an existing thumbnail.
- File Types: Choose the general file types that should have custom thumbnails: Images, Movies, PDF & Postscript documents, Web Archives, Formatted Notes, Bookmarks, Markdown documents, and Other file types viewable via QuickLook.
- Create preview as icon: Applicable to Other file types, the thumbnail is added as an icon visible in the Finder.

## Import

Choose the default import option for items added from external sources, e.g., drag and drop, dock icon drops, etc. Control the text encoding of certain file types and whether to use creation and modification dates from a document's contents. And lastly, decide whether to automatically transcribe text or detect barcodes from added documents.

Destination: Choose how DEVONthink decides where to file externally added items.

- Select group: Display the group selector to choose a specific destination group.
- Global inbox: Automatically store the added items in the Global Inbox.

Text Encoding: Choose the default encoding used for plain text documents. Select Automatic to let DEVONthink choose the best encoding.

Use content creation & modificate dates: Choose whether to use the filesystem dates or dates detected in the content of a document, e.g., a PDF.

Pro

Recognition: DEVONthink can use AI to detect and save the content from certain kinds of files automatically upon being added to your database. Enable the options you wish to use. For images and media files, the AI provider and default output format are chosen in the AI > Transcription settings.

- Make text in PDF documents searchable: When enabled, PDFs without a text layer are automatically processed via the Vision framework. This is not doing traditional OCR so no text layer is added to the document.
- Transcribe Text & Notes in Images: AI processes images and extracts text from it.
- Transcribe Audio/Video Files: Detect and transcribe from audio or video files.
- Scan barcodes: Detect barcodes in PDF documents and images. If a barcode is detected, the value will be added to the document's Barcode custom metadata in the Data inspector.

## Tags

Decide how Finder tags are handled and what types of automatic tagging you require.

Finder: Choose whether to import Finder tags when adding files or export to Finder tags when tagging indexed files or exporting from DEVONthink.

Import: Decide which automatic tagging options are appropriate for your situation.

- Convert Hashtags to tags: Convert document hashtags, e.g., `#DEVONtech`, to tags.
- Convert keywords to tags: Convert embedded keywords from PDF documents, RTF(D) files, and images to tags.
- Convert properties to tags: Convert embedded properties from PDF documents, RTF(D) files, and media files to tags.
- Convert geolocation to tags: Convert a document's geolocation names to tags, e.g., "Orlando", "FL", and "United States".
- Assign existing tags: Automatically tag a document based on the tags of similar documents or use the document's title and text.

Pro

- Add Chat suggestions to documents: Use AI to analyze and add tags to a document and choose whether they should be limited to existing tags.
- Add Vision suggestions to images: Add tags suggested by Apple's Vision ("Live Text") framework to a document.

Read more about tagging in the Tagging section.

Pro

## Emails

Use these options to define how email is imported and displayed inside DEVONthink.

Conversation: Decide if DEVONthink should attempt email threading, grouping, and how to handle copies of already imported emails.

- Import complete conversations: Let DEVONthink scan the Sent mailboxes and include emails belonging to the same conversation.
- Group conversation threads: Combine emails in a conversation thread into their own group. This makes identifying conversations easier and automatically adds structure to the imported messages.
- Previously imported will become replicants: Import copies of emails as replicants when they've been previously imported, otherwise skip them.

Note: Due to a lack of emails standards and decades of legacy emails, email threading is not a guaranteed process.

Fallback text encoding: Specify the text encoding to use for emails with no detectable encoding.

Message Content: Control loading remote images, decrypting emails, and whether to import attachments.

- Load remote images in messages: Load images when viewing emails in Text Alternative view. For more secure email viewing, this is disabled by default.
- Decrypt secure messages: Decrypt secure emails before importing. These emails will be stored in their decrypted state, accessible by search, potentially including Spotlight.
- Import attachments: Include attachments when importing emails.

Appearance: Set some basic controls for how emails display in DEVONthink.

- Use alternative view: Set the default view of emails to Text Alternative view. Otherwise, they will be viewed via QuickLook (Best Alternative).
- Use fixed-width font for plain text messages: Display plain text messages using a fixed-width font such as Courier in Text Alternative view. This is useful if the messages contain tables or footers formatted with spaces.
- Color quoted text: Display quoted text in color when viewed in Text Alternative view. Assign colors for each level of quoting by clicking the color wells.

Labels: Assign a color label corresponding to a flag or high priority on emails. As items can only have one color label, flags take precedence over priority.

Hotkeys: Specify hotkeys to import selected emails or mailboxes while in a compatible email application, e.g., Apple Mail. You can use the hotkeys previously used with our late Apple Mail plugin: `⌃︎``⌥︎``⌘︎`M for importing messages, `⌃︎``⌥︎``⇧︎``⌘︎`M for importing mailboxes.

Read more about archiving email…

## Markdown

Choose options for the default mode when selecting Markdown files, styling, or any extensions to be used when rendering the Markdown.

Markdown Display: Specify a default view, whether DEVONthink should display formatting and images when editing, and if new lines should be assumed.

- View: Set the default display mode when viewing a Markdown document: Edit Documents, Preview Documents, Side-by-Side, or retain the previous view with Last Used Display.
- Syntax highlighting: Toggle the display of formatting and detected elements in the source code of a Markdown document.
- WYSIWYG tables, images, links & MathJax: Displays tables, the actual images, live hyperlinks, and equations in the source code instead of raw Markdown, e.g., `![](/img/piglet.jpg)`.
- Color Theme: Choose a color scheme for the rendered view. If syntax highlighting is enabled, the theme applies to the source code too. When set to Automatic, the Markdown Font, Background, and Text colors from the Editing > Format settings are used.
- Force line breaks: Enable this to treat a return as the end of a item without having to add two spaces explicitly at the end of the line.
- Smart quotes and dashes: Automatically convert straight quotes to typographer's quotes and two or three dashes to en- and em-dashes, respectively.

Import images to group: Specify a group to contain linked images, whether they're dragged and dropped, copied and pasted from outside DEVONthink, or from web content clipped as Markdown. See the Documents > Markdown > Linking Images section for more information.

Image Reference: Specify the type of link to be used with images pasted, dropped, or downloaded for Markdown documents.

- Item Link: Always link images via an item link.
- Automatic: Images will be linked with either item links or relative links, depending on the location of the image in the database.

Style Sheet: Choose a default global stylesheet to style your Markdown documents, if desired. Supports online URLs, item links to stylesheets in your database, or click the Select button to access stylesheets stored on your machine, e.g., in `~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink/StyleSheets`.

JavaScript: Choose a default JavaScript file to be loaded with all your Markdown documents, if required. The JavaScript can be located anywhere, including an online script, if needed.

Extensions: Check the desired extensions you want to use in your Markdown documents:

- MathJax support: Supports rendering mathematical equations via the MathJax extension.
- Mermaid support: Supports rendering diagrams via the Mermaid extension.
- Prism support: Supports syntax coloring of rendered inline code and code blocks via the Prism extension.

Summaries: Use Markdown blockquotes instead of highlights when creating summary documents in Markdown via Tools > Summarize Annotations.

Read more about working with Markdown documents…

## Multimedia

Choose options for media playback, display modes and magnification for PDF documents and images, the default width of clipped PDF documents, and annotation sorting in summaries.

Play Media: Play audio and video files Automatically when viewing them, if they should play on repeat via Loop, and their Background Color.

Image Display: Set the default magnification and background color for viewed images: Actual Size, All Pixels, Zoom to Fit, and Zoom to Width.

PDF Display: Choose how PDF documents are displayed in windowed and fullscreen modes, including the Background Color. Use Automatically resize to change the magnification when you view a document. Note there is a correlation between the display mode and the zoom option.

- Single/Two Page: Display one or two pages.
- Continuous: Display the document as a long scrollable document, zoomed to width.
- Non-Continuous: Display only one or two page(s), zoomed to fit. Scrolling up or down changes the pages without displaying previous or subsequent pages.

PDF Clipping Width: Specify a width in points for captured or clipped PDF documents. The default value is Automatic. Be aware the styling on specific sites could override this setting.

Summaries: Control if PDF annotations are sorted by type, e.g., highlights or underlined, in Tools > Summarize Annotations instead of their order in the document.

Read more about working with PDF and media documents …

## Sheets

Choose the options for displaying sheets and converting them to paginated PDFs.

Sheet Display: Choose the default view when viewing a sheet: Table or Form. Form view is only available in the Pro or Server editions.

Background Color: Set the background color used in Form view.

Paginated PDF Conversion: Choose Table View or Form View for converting a sheet via the Data > Convert > to PDF (Paginated) command.

Pro

Form view is only available in the higher editions of DEVONthink.

Read more about using with sheets…