Upgrade StorageYikes! Accidentally Deleted a Collection!
I accidentally deleted a whole collection instead of a single item. I now that my entries are still in the general "my library" but it will be a pain to try to identify which articles were in that particular subcollection! Yikes.
The firefox session is still open. What should I do to restore my subcollection?
The firefox session is still open. What should I do to restore my subcollection?
2) Go into your Zotero data directory, stored by default within your Firefox profile directory.
3) You should see a file named zotero.sqlite and another named zotero.sqlite.bak. Copy (don't move) both files to your desktop, and then close Firefox.
4) In the data directory, delete zotero.sqlite and then rename zotero.sqlite.bak to zotero.sqlite, and then open Firefox. You should see your deleted collection.
5) Export the collection to Zotero RDF, generate a report or bibliography from it, or in some other way create a record of the items in the collection. Exporting and reimporting isn't ideal in that it will create duplicates, and Zotero doesn't yet have duplicate detection, so just making a list/report/bibliography of the items and then manually re-adding them to the collection might be best.
6) When you're done, close Firefox and copy zotero.sqlite from the Desktop back into the data directory, and then restart Firefox and do whatever you need to do to recreate the collection.
Also, to identify which ones were recently added, I checked to have "date added" column on my main window displayed and sorted by it. The date added doesn't appear on the screen (I assume this is a known bug?) but it does sort by it. That seemed easier than making a list of the items in the collection which was not small.
It was so easy to delete the collection! I am not sure if there was a confirmation screen. If there was, can the default option be "No" for confirmation of deletions so that one has to consciously okay the deletion rather than accidentally click or press enter?
Get out of Firefox
Use Windows restore to recover yesterday's version of the Zotero data directory (you will lose anything you've changed since the last restore point)
Open the standalone version of Zotero and make any random change to the previously deleted sub-directory
Re-open Firefox
You'll get a synch error message saying that a previously deleted sub-directory had been modified in standalone and that the more 'current' version is being used.
Fumble-fingers problem neatly solved...
Oh, how I love Zotero!