Folder suddenly missing

mathiaspoulsen

Hi :-)

I just noticed that one of my major folders in Zotero was suddenly missing ("Methodology"). I haven't intentionally renamed, moved or deleted it, and it doesn't appear in the trash.

When I search for some of the items in the folder, they appear, but using the "option" key to show which folder they belong to doesn't highlight any folder.

Any suggestions as to how I might find / retrieve the folder?

Thanks!

dstillman

You either moved or deleted the collection by mistake. If Option doesn't show it under another collection and this happened within the last day or so, you should be able to restore a deleted collection from one of the automatic backups. Note the specific instructions for restoring collections.

An upcoming version of Zotero will make it possible to restore a deleted collection from the trash.

mathiaspoulsen

Thanks!

Yeah, that was my thought, but I also thought it would be in the trash if it had been deleted? There's nothing, though.

If the folder has been moved or renamed, shouldn't pressing the option key still highlight the folder any specific item belongs to?

I'll try the backup, thanks.

dstillman

As I say, a future version of Zotero will make it possible to restore deleted collections from the trash. They don't appear there currently.

mathiaspoulsen

Just to follow up: I followed the instructions to recover from a backup and the collection + sub-collections were back. I then used "Replace Online Library" to sync my online library from the local backup, and everything seems to be working again.

dstillman

OK, but note that that wasn't the instructions for restoring deleted collections, which simply required duplicating the restored collections and syncing normally. It's OK to use Replace Online Library if you don't care about wiping out any more recent changes, but it wasn't necessary.

mathiaspoulsen

Ah, ok, I see. Thank you, I'll try to remember that if it happens again (but I hadn't tried this before, so it probably won't).