Disconnected drives¶

One of ArchiveMind's core ideas: the catalogue outlives the connection. Catalogue an external drive once, and everything ArchiveMind learned about it — names, paths, metadata, extracted text, thumbnails, duplicate relationships — stays searchable after you unplug the drive.

What you can do with a disconnected drive¶

Search it. Files on disconnected drives keep appearing in search results.
See its details. The details view still shows everything that was indexed, including thumbnails and metadata.
Answer "which drive is that on?" Every result shows its source repository, so the catalogue doubles as a map of what lives where.

What you cannot do — and why¶

You cannot open the original file while its drive is disconnected. The catalogue stores what ArchiveMind learned about the file, not the file itself — the original bytes exist only on the drive. ArchiveMind labels such results clearly and explains that the file can be opened again once the source reconnects; it never pretends the file is available.

Indexed is not backed up

Seeing a disconnected file's thumbnail and metadata can feel like the file is "in" ArchiveMind. It is not. If the drive is lost or fails, the catalogue tells you what was on it — which is genuinely useful — but it cannot restore the files. Keep real backups separately.

Connection states¶

ArchiveMind tracks each repository's state:

Online — the drive or folder is currently accessible.
Offline — it was seen before, but is not currently present (ejected, unplugged, or an unreachable network location).
Missing — it has never been seen at its recorded location since the record was created.

Reconnecting¶

Plug the drive back in and its files become openable again — Reveal in Finder / Show in Explorer work as normal. If a reconnected drive's files seem out of date in the catalogue, run a new scan of that repository to pick up changes.