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-   -   Archives, database, etc (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=15322)

Fiona 2010-02-15 03:33 AM

Archives, database, etc
 
Hello - my first post on this forum.. :)

I am new to omnifocus (a week so far and already its hard to do without it). My usage will be such that I don't forsee the need for anything more than a backup of what is really current in my Omnifocus.. i.e. I dont want to clog up my MAC or mobileme ( how I syc) with huge archives and out-dated databases. All I want is to know that I have a backup of what was on my MAC or iPhone just a minute before, should I something go wrong and I lose it all.

Do I have many choices in all of this? I am told on my iPhone version that I have something like 50 actions and 10 projects in 125 zip files, which tells me that there is surely more being stored somewhere than I need. but I am not understanding the instructions I have read about how to keep everything clean and basically just up to date. I am scared to click on re-set database on my iPhone, as I did that on day 1 ( when, luckily, there wasn't much data to lose) and everything disappeared.

I hope my question makes sense.

whpalmer4 2010-02-15 06:20 AM

If you're referring to the zip file count as the source for your concern, you can relax a bit. There's a zip file created every time you make a change to your database (sometimes you'll get multiple items changed in a single zip file). These zip files are periodically compacted by the sync process once all of the clients have digested them as past history. You can get what seems like an outlandish number of zip files if you make a lot of changes in a short time but they won't stay around if you sync regularly. If you simply launch OmniFocus on both Mac and iPhone and sync both of them once a day, you should never have more than a day's zip files hanging around.

OmniFocus will automatically suggest archiving your completed actions and projects to the Archive database, I think on a monthly basis. If you agree, they are removed from your active database. You can also make this happen on demand with the File->Move Old Data to Archive... command. You can also just pull up the Completed perspective and delete anything there you no longer want prior to (or instead of) running the archive command (for example, you might not records of grocery shopping tasks, but details of some project you did for work might come in handy at review time).

Fiona 2010-02-15 06:59 AM

Thanks for that.. So am I right in understanding that if I go to my completed perspectives and delete everything that shows there manually, one action at a time, that will mean that all that is stored on my database are my current (still to do) actions, etc? ... So the only way to not get a build up of old stuff in the database is to manually delete everything each action at a time?

whpalmer4 2010-02-15 09:12 AM

No need to delete one at a time, you can select a group and delete them all at once. The standard Mac selection techniques apply, of course, and there's an Edit->Select All command, too.

Deleting or archiving older items are the only options at the moment. The program will offer to archive periodically. There is no option that says "discard completed items automatically" but you can request one if you want with the Help->Send Feedback command.

As a practical matter, if the database size you reported is likely to be typical, you'll be able to accumulate a lot of completed items before you notice any change in performance.

Fiona 2010-02-17 02:24 AM

thanks so much for that.. that's really clear to me now.. :-)


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