Derek Jones My digital workflow...
For some time, I have been wrestling for a good, efficient, "find it when I need it" method of keeping track of all the data that I collect in both my work and my personal life. I also like to see and develop tight relationships between all these different forms of data. So many times, in both macOS Finder and Mail, I have tried searching for an item, pulling out my hair, and throwing expletives at the computer. Today, however, I use a number of applications to help me achieve my goals.
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Devonthink Pro
DEVONthink Pro has been my weapon of choice for collecting, organising, searching, and managing information. It's like a powerful, searchable digital filing cabinet for everything I read, write, and archive. It's where everything goes, for work and personal stuff.
- It can store: PDFs, Word docs, notes, emails, web clippings, images, and other files.
- It organises: folders, tags, smart groups (automatically collect items that match rules), and links between documents.
- The best search: full‑text search, Boolean queries, and AI-assisted suggestions to find things fast.
- Great extras: OCR (turn scanned pages into searchable text), automatic filing suggestions, versioning, and encryption for private data.
- Synchronise data with access: It can sync across Macs and iOS devices (with options like iCloud, Dropbox, or WebDav, which is what I use through Nextcloud).
Here is a quick example: Clip an article from the web, DEVONthink OCRs and indexes it, suggests related notes, and later you can instantly find that article by searching a phrase you remember.
It’s more powerful than a simple notes app—designed for heavy-duty personal knowledge management. You can also link items together inside and outside of Devonthink using Devonthink’s generated URIs.
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Apple Notes
Apple Notes comes with a Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It's a great and simple place to create notes, capture text, make lists, add images, sketches, links, and scanned documents.
- It can store: plain text notes, checklists, photos, attachments, sketches, and scanned documents, and is just great at capturing notes on the go.
- It can organise: folders, subfolders, and searchable tags; you can pin important notes to the top of your list and smart folders.
- It can sync: automatically syncs across your Apple devices via iCloud.
- The search is okay: full-text search (including text inside scanned images) and quick lookups by title or content. It's not great, but does a reasonable search job.
- Security: notes can be locked with a password or Face/Touch ID, but not if you have tagged them. The lock is a little precious at what it will and won't lock. You'll know or find out.
- Sharing & collaborate: share notes and collaborate in real time with others, again it can be fussy.
Here is a quick example: take a photo of a receipt, scan it into a note, and later search by a word on the receipt to find it instantly.
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Apple Mail
If you have a Mac, or an iOS device then Apple Mail is the default email app for sending, receiving, and managing your email accounts in one place. It's by no means the best, some would argue, but it does do the job. Period.
- What it does: lets you read, compose, send, and organise email.
- Supported accounts: iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange, and IMAP/POP accounts — you can use multiple accounts together.
- How it organises: mailboxes, folders, VIPs, flags, and smart mailboxes that collect messages by rules.
- Search: fast full‑text search with filters (sender, subject, attachments).
- Integration: works with other Apple apps (Contacts, Calendar, Reminders) and supports Handoff between devices.
- Security & privacy: supports encryption (S/MIME), blocking senders, and privacy protections like Mail Privacy Protection.
- Extras: threaded conversations, message previews, rich formatting, and attachment handling (including drag‑and‑drop).
Here is a quick example: add your Gmail and work Exchange account to Mail, and it shows all messages in separate or unified inboxes so you can read and reply.
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Hookmark
Hookmark (previously called Hook) is a small macOS utility that makes it easy to link and jump between those linked items of data, or we should now call hooked items — documents, notes, emails, web pages, folders, and apps — so you can quickly move between things you’re working on.
- What does it do? creates bi‑directional links (called “hooks”) between files and resources. Click a hook to open the linked item, or see all items linked to the current item.
- How it works: installs a menu bar helper and has a Finder service, web browsers, Mail, and many apps; you “hook” items together or let Hook suggest links.
- Useful because? It replaces hunting through folders or multiple apps — great for research, writing, and project work where many files and notes relate to each other.
- Extras bits: supports custom link types, quick search of linked items, and keyboard shortcuts; links are stored locally (not a cloud service). You can rename the hooks for easy finding, you can move the resources but Hookmark maintains the link.
Here is a quick example: hook a PDF, a related note in your notes app, and a web article — then from any one item you can jump straight to the others.
These four applications I either use on their own, or in isolation, or a combination of them all, but recently I have found some glue to keep my important data together and thus my digital life, which can get chaotic. Hookmark is the glue that helps me keep it all together.
How does it all stitch together and how do I use them?
I use Apple Mail, it's simple and easy. I don't need AI, or any trickery; mail comes in, mail goes out. I use folders, but I don’t use any rules or anything fancy. Why? I want to see every email and I'll decide where it goes, which folder it will go in, or just bin it!
If any mail has an important attachment that is work or personal related, then the attachment will get dropped or saved into the Devonthink Global Inbox. I'll deal with them at the end of the day, using Devonthink’s AI to put them into the correct Group folders. You can have a look at how I deal with Devonthink in my work here. Or I can use the Apple Mail Export to PDF and save the whole mail, and the conversation into Devonthink.
Everyday I use Apple Notes; it's always open on my laptop, my iPhone, and iPad. I have only a few folders in each of my work and personal stuff. These folders also have sub-folders, or topics that contain all kinds of data from pictures, documents, bills, and I just take quick notes as the day goes on. I just take a note, put it in the right folder, and leave it there for reference later, or pin it if it's of deadly importance. Apple Notes is actually quite a powerful app; you can link to items within the app, drop links from websites, etc. You can even use the links from items in Devonthink. Very handy.
Devonthink is always in the background. Devonthink is in my "Open at login" on my Mac. I'm dropping attachments into it from Apple Mail, clipping websites, archiving old documents or filing new ones into their related Group folders. Devonthink is the hub of my data, the canonical place of order, THE place where everything can be found, the true keeper of my data. It all goes into Devonthink... I have my Devonthink set up to index to Finder, you can import into a Devonthink database, but I prefer to index, some would argue otherwise.
Hookmark (formally Hook), like Devonthink, this tidy little app opens at login and is always available.
Apple Notes and Devonthink already play nicely with each other; you can create links to and from each of them, but sometimes if you move an item in Apple Notes, that link is lost, and you are back to searching. Devonthink links stay the same, even if you move the item. Hookmark works the same way, but system-wide, so you can use it almost anywhere in any app. One of the winners for me is the deep linking function. Sometimes I get large PDFs. If I open one of these in Devonthink, highlight a piece of text, I can then hook that to a website, an email, or a file in Finder. If any of the items move, Hookmark retains the link or rather the hook.
I only use Devonthink links within Devonthink, but Hookmark links everything else, from Devonthink to Apple Notes, email, and Finder. It has a very nice search and you can rename your links, sorry hooks, inside Hookmark making things even easier to find as well as using tags.
My method may not be the most polished, but it works. More importantly, it works for me. However, you may just find some of my workflow can be adapted and used for yours, or you may have another, more refined way. Let’s hear it. Hook mark is always in my desktop, front and centre, or I just use the hotkeys to get the list of hooks up in front of me. You can delete hooks; it doesn’t, of course, delete the data that are being hooked to, but sometimes it might be a good idea to go through your hooks and prune them...
Have fun...
Dj
By the way, this is my first blog using markdown... Very proud of myself.