Typical OmniFocus.oFocus file sizes?
 

Hi Folks!
After reading some posts here i've been worried that something is wrong with my oFocus db file. I read about file sizes of less than 3-5MB with hundreds of entries. My OF DB file is currently 46MB, it was 75MB before i found the option to move old entries into an archive.

What are your OF db sizes?
Cheers
Silvan

Mine is around 5.6 MB. I have recently archived off everything up until today. Mine was growing quickly for a while when with the iphone 1.0 app I recorded 7 or so voice reminders and then the three machines I use had a sync problem. It got up to 27 MB. But once I got them all back in sync ([url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=41378&postcount=17[/url]) It was back to 5.6 pretty quickly.

Whoops, i just found that OF does not link but copy PDFs into the actions. This explains a lot as i generally add items to an action in order to have anything i need when the action comes on. However i thought it would link to the files not import them...

[QUOTE=Quorcork;42048]Whoops, i just found that OF does not link but copy PDFs into the actions.[/QUOTE]

By default, OmniFocus [I]does[/I] link files dragged to the notes field of an action. Nothing gets embedded except a pointer to the actual file location. You can verify this by right-clicking on the attached file and choosing "Reveal in Finder". Then check the file's path by right-clicking on the proxy icon in the title bar of the file's window or go to View -> Show Path Bar in the Finder.

Linking files will keep your database smaller and changes to the original are immediately available from your database since the database is just linking to the original. However, linked files are [I]not[/I] available on a synced iPhone or on another Mac.

You can also embed files into the OmniFocus notes field by holding the Option key when you drag a file in, or by going to Edit -> Attach File... in the OmniFocus and selecting "Embed the file in the document" from the file selection sheet.

Embedded files will make your database larger. But the big advantage is that they will also be available on synced Macs and iPhones (assuming it's a file type the iPhone can display, like PDF).

One caveat with embedded files: editing the embedded file currently doesn't save the changes back to the database (i.e. the changes are made to a temp file that doesn't get re-embedded). So even though it looks like you might be able to modify an embedded attachment, it's really a read-only solution for now.

All things considered, I vastly prefer linking in all my attachments. If there's some bit of reference material I need on my iPhone, I either email it to myself or send it to my iPhone with [URL="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284797161&mt=8"]FileMagnet[/URL].

-Dennis

Thnx for the reply.

Seems something is very wrong here because i explicitely tested linking of a PDF yesterday and it was embedded. :-(
The PDF definitely is inside the .oFocus file. More frustrating was the fact that it is still there right now although i removed it from the actions notes field.
Is there a configuration setting for toggling the link/embedd feature?
Cheers
Silvan

**edit**
I just manually dissected my .oFocus file. All PDFs are copied into the db. About 30MB in the file are from two large PDFs i intended to link but that are now physically inside the db. I'm trying to remove these now.

I'm still looking for suggestions how to link instead of copy to OF, so feel free to send any hints. :-)
Cheers

Found the Reason
 

Ok, i found the reason for the embedded objects. There's another programm i use for storing misc files and notes, a kind of knowledge base. Very often i drag&drop from this kb to an action and i just found out that this program does not link but copy to the target. Thus items drag&dropped from the kb became embedded.

One issue solved, yay!

Glad you got it worked out, Quorcork. Now, on to the next problem. :-)