Don’t do software reviews as a rule but I’ve been finding so many uses for Yojimbo (the software package, not the Kurosawa film) that I thought I’d mention it here.
Conceptually, Yojimbo is a free-form “filing cabinet†for storing the digital flotsam of your electronic life (documents, emails, PDFs, web pages, etc.). Thus far, I’ve tended to think of it as the place I put things “I know I’ll need someday” and with full Spotlight integration, locating them is simple. Yojimbo doesn’t store a link, it ingests the item (which means you can put something in Yojimbo and then delete all other traces–useful for ephemeral things like receipts from online orders, reservation confirmations, and the like.
It handles most file formats and features a number of easy data entry options. For example, if you’re printing a document and want to include it in your Yojimbo database (called the Library) select PDF as output and click “Save PDF to Yojimboâ€. Have something on your clipboard? Press F8 and a dialog that enables adding to Yojimbo appears. Finally, there’s the option of having a small Tab appear on the edge of your screen…drag an item to it and it ends up in your Yojimbo library.
Yojimbo offers the option to encrypt any item in your database which makes it an ideal place to store passwords, account numbers and the like. According to Bare Bones the encryption is done with a 256bit AES key. A nice bonus: If you have a .mac account (and more than one computer), Yojimbo supports database syncing.
Prior to springing for the registration, I tried both DEVONthink (a more powerful information manager but one that presents a much steeper learning curve) and StickyBrain (great program but one that’s showing signs of feature-creep) but I wasn’t looking for a program to really change my life (or one I had to change my life to use), so Yojimbo won out–simple to use and immediately useful. It’s a niche product, to be sure, but one that I think you’ll find meets a host of small but recurring needs.
So what’s not to like? Well, you can’t just drag a Microsoft Word document into Yojimbo and have it look precisely right. Yojimbo gets the text and does a pretty decent .doc -> rtf approximation of what’s on the original page but it’s not 100%. If you want to include Word documents, either accept the limitations or use the Print->PDF->Yojimba ingest routine. While Yojimbo accepts images, it doesn’t deal with video (but then why would you want to include video in this sort of application?).
Where could it improve? It offers “smart folders” to group items but you’re unable to create your own rules. I’d also like to see basic WebDav support so the syncing wouldn’t be tied to .mac accounts. With Apple including a boatload of code in OS X to support .mac syncing, I can understand why BareBones started with .mac support but I’m hoping the future brings a more flexible (and robust) approach.
Because it uses several Tiger-specific technologies (primarily Core Data), you must be running OS X 10.4.3 or later. The program sells for $39 for a single user license ($29 for Educational users). A fully-functional 30 day demo is available.