App to Manage Documents DB
Back in 2000s, when I got my hands on Intel Mac for the first time, there were two things that immediately caught my attention: Spotlight, the functioning search tool on OS, and DevonThink, the highly regarded documents management software beloved by many Mac users. Some even called DevonThink to be the savior of Macintosh lineage — otherwise there would be no space left for OS X.
My experience with DevonThink largely remained the same since. I don’t think new features particularly changed my workflow. What did change, however, is DevonThink’s pricing model. For a license for 2 Macs, with one year of update, the software starts at $99. It’s a great software, only that I can’t quite bite the bullet when the it hasn’t seen significant changes for nearly two decades, and I am paying the increased price for effectively two licenses bundle.
Paperless-ngx is an open-source freely available documents manager. I would recommend installing it on NAS or Pi, any system that will be a home server. I’ve had mine installed via Docker container, and so far I am getting the features I want. I can search through PDFs; I can drop in random documents without worrying about losing it; I can tag them for future references, and so on. The only thing possibly missing I could think of is the Markdown editor, though I’ve always had my own preferences when it comes to editors.
Paperless-ngx is not the only project out there, specialized in personal document management. It’s just so happened that it came highly recommended. I’ve seen some people causing more havoc digitizing their paper trails — it’s a rabbit hole of its own. That being said, there are options out there if you are willing to find one. This one, in particular, happens to focus on what many would consider cold storage. As I understand it, these projects are often light enough to run on most single-board computers, such as Raspberry Pi. It never hurts to check out other options, but for my purpose of storing old projects, references, bills, and etc., it fits.