I tried Capacities, a note-taking and knowledge-management app, for about two weeks, but then gave it up. The user interface is confusing, I accidentally deleted a few notes, the subscription is a bit pricy ($15/mo.) and I’m wondering whether I’ll lose access to my information if and when the subscription ends.

I also encountered bugs. Sync was unreliable, and the app got the date wrong when linking the daily notes and notes supposedly created that day.

Capacities has built-in AI features. I never used them.

I’m now once again using DevonThink for document management, writing, and note-taking. DevonThink has a very busy, brutalist interface that takes a while to learn. But I’m familiar with DevonThink from using it heavily in the 2010s.

And DevonThink works. I’m tired of this round-robin game where I try different document management and note-taking apps and then give up and switch to something else or switch back to something I tried before.

A couple of advantages that DevonThink has over other apps I’ve tried, including Capacities, Obsidian (which I used for about three years), logseq and Roam Research: DevonThink supports folders as first-class citizens (DT calls ‘em “groups” but they are very folder-like.) Those other apps start from the premise that folders are obsolete and users should use tags and links between documents to organize documents. But my brain thinks in folders. DT supports tags and links, too, but its group system is first-rate.

DevonThink also supports Microsoft Word, PowerPoint — pretty much any document format that your Mac, iPad or iPhone can work with. Those other apps are built around Markdown documents, and anything else is an afterthought.