I support @DavidShepherdson’s recommendation of EagleFiler.
I was using DevonThink for many years before I ditched it. (For similar reasons as you did, and more.) After that I went with the Finder as my only document managing system. Thanks to the introduction of Finder tags this is doable.
A year or so ago I gave EagleFiler a serious try (again) and found out that it’s the ideal thing for me:
- It’s open, that is, it works with the Finder’s filing system – not against it, like Devon.
- EagleFiler maintains a database, too, but the files are not locked-in, they are 100% accessible from the Finder or other apps. Very important for me.
- Indexing is better than Spotlight, but maybe not as good as Devon’s semantic thingies.
- Tagging is easier and better than in the Finder.
- You can isolate the tags of each library or make them global (shared with other libraries and the Finder).
- This is a very important thing if you have some “specialized” libraries and don’t want to pollute your global tags.
- Duplicate detection via checksum.
- Good quick-import functionality for files, web pages, web page clips, etc.
- Very good mail import and archiving. It can store mails in mbox format (as opposed to eml); very important if you’re archiving 10 or 100 thousands of mails.
- Encrypted libraries, based on encrypted DMGs.
- Good AppleScript API
- The interface is “lighter” and more Mac-like than Devon’s.
- Very competent and responsive developer.
When you check out EagleFiler, make absolutely sure to read about the so-called Esoteric Preferences ( x-eaglefiler://default?k=…). Many very important things are hidden there, for example the format of web imports, Javascript yes/no for web imports, clipboard import format, and many more.
Even if you decide to not use EagleFiler as generic document/information manager, the mail archiving functionality alone is worth the $40.
FWIW, I have posted two EagleFiler-related macros on this forum: