Data management app DEVONthink's big update adds syntax highlighting and more

DEVONthink logo (Image credit: DEVONtechnologies)

What you need to know

DEVONthink is a tool for saving anything and then organizing and searching it.
The app received a big update today.
Users can now enjoy syntax highlighting and more.

DEVONthink is arguably the "everything bucket" Mac app that started it all. Long before Evernote arrived, people were using DEVONthink to store just about anything and then search for it later. The app's come a long way in recent years and today it took another jump forward with version 3.5.

The update, free to existing users, adds a ton of new features with syntax highlighting likely one that will grab a lot of attention. DEVONthink 3.5 also gains improved OCR technology to make everything nice and searchable, too.

Markdown documents containing computer code receive syntax coloring for AppleScript, Objective-C, Swift, C, C++, Java, and JavaScript. Documents can be converted to a non-paginated PDF, and the OCR adds the recognized text optionally to the document's Finder comments or as a linked annotation document. The updated OCR engine processes large PDFs faster, comes with better support for CJK languages, and produces smaller files.

Annotations made on PDF documents can now be searched, with other improvements coming alongside the requisite bug fixes and performance improvements.

Version 3.5 also makes annotations of PDF documents or Skim PDF packages searchable and improves the support for Scrivener, Postbox, and other third-party apps. The clutter-free web capture has been updated, too, for better compatibility to many websites. Databases are now automatically verified when they were not closed properly before. DEVONthink presents informative messages, warnings, or errors in a log that users can now quickly summon via a new toolbar button. A visual indicator notifies about new messages.

You can get a full rundown of all of the DEVONthink 3.5 changes over in the announcement blog post. There's plenty to get your teeth into!

Existing DEVONthink users can get the update from the in-app update mechanism, while those looking to take it for a spin can download it from the website. There's a handy trial available if you want to take it for a spin, too.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.