Brand new user: files or virtual files?

Hello, Excuse my ignorance. My first few hours using EF.

(1) When EF imports files into a database, the original files (seem to) remain where they are. Does this mean that the EF file is a replicant, or does the import mean a second file? I’m already struggling with hard drive space, so understanding this is important to the way I use EF.
(2) Assuming that the ‘original’ file and that in EF are replicants, are they indelibly linked? In other words, if I moved or deleted the ‘original’ would this result in the erosion of the file in EF?
(3) I notice from the Forum and your Manual that you don’t advise people to use Smart Sync with Dropbox (or presumably similar options via iCloud, OneDrive, etc.). I suggest a simple workaround that may be useful for some: just add a Rich Text record with the name of the Dropbox (cloud) file and paste the shareable link inside that document. I realise that is a manual operation, but in the absence of hard drive space it may be a solution (even if it would involve considerable time).

Thx in advance, Daryl

You can choose whether to move or copy files when importing. Copies on macOS 10.13 and later don’t use extra storage because EagleFiler makes an APFS clone so that the copies share the same blocks on disk. Also, if you create a file from within EagleFiler there will only be one copy. I generally recommend only keeping the copy of the file that’s in EagleFiler, not for space reasons, but just because it’s simpler to manage.

They are two completely separate files that happen to share the same physical storage on disk to save space. If you modify one, the other will not change, and (some) of the storage will no longer be shared.

Yes, you could do that. For iCloud, it’s best to start with everything fully downloaded so the EagleFiler can index the files for searching, but after that you can let iCloud evict some of the files to save space, and EagleFiler will auto-download them if needed for viewing/editing.

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