Sonny Software

Hi All,
After trying to figure out what "marooned" (I wasn't familiar with this word) attachments might be, I opened the marooned attachments manager and I am quite confused. It gives me 4894 files (My library contains 6769 entries - almost all with PDFs attached). But some of these files are not in my bookends folder, they are part of my old Papers 3 library (that resides in Dropbox).

I have two questions:
1. Why do the old Papers 3 files appear in this list?
2. Is there a practical way to handle thousands of marooned files without risking to loose relevant files (PDFs)? Checking manually doesn't seem to be a good idea...

Best regards!
Martin

Marooned files are defined in the release notes and the user guide. Here are the release notes (see 13.5.3)

https://www.sonnysoftware.com/updates/u ... story.html

1. No doubt at some point a PDF was attached from that folder and added to the ad hoc attachment folder list. You can examine the list of ad hoc folders and remove the Papers 3 folder (select and press the Delete key) in Preferences -> Manage Ad Hoc Attachment Folders.

2. I don't know what you mean. By definition marooned files aren't attached to any references in the open Bookends libraries. Assuming you have opened all the libraries you might have attachments in, you can assume all such files don't have corresponding entries in Bookends. As to what you do with them, that's up to you. You can leave them alone or move them into a single folder or to the Trash, one at a time in in groups. It depends on whether these files (usually PDFs) are useful to you even if they aren't attached to references in a Bookends library.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks for your quick reply!
Concerning 2 (practical way to handle thousands of marooned files):
Some of the PDFs there are duplicates (I already have the entry and the attached PDF in my Bookends library) but some of them don't have entries in Bookends. Distinguishing these is my problem.

All Bookends knows is that the PDF in question isn't attached to a reference. Only you can determine if the file is a duplicate of another file that *is* attached to a reference. Bookends gives you the tools to identify and manipulate marooned references, what their significance is requires human judgement.

Jon
Sonny Software

Unfortunately this story is not over yet. I started the tedious work of checking marooned PDFs before deleting them. And on several occasions I discovered a problem:

A reference that should include the PDF in question shows: "Can't find file ..." where the PDF should be. If I then attach the "marooned" PDF to this reference the "old" unfindable PDF can't be deleted and I end up with a reference with one findable and one unfindable PDF.

Any idea how to solve this?
Best regards!
Martin

You remove the unfindable PDF with the Detach menu item (either the PDF popup action button or a right click).

You also identify and/or remove all such orphaned attachments -- search the user guide (Help menu) for the term "orphaned".

Jon
Sonny Software