download collection then delete attachments

KaiNLee

My Zotero syncs between the Zotero cloud and my Mac. I am retiring and wish to download Zotero files that I have not used for some time. But I want to continue to use Zotero.

What I need is a way:

to create a collection based upon most recent retrieval of its attached document;
to download the attachments (while preserving the Zotero item information); and
to delete those attachments from the Zotero cloud file.

I can't find such a protocol in this forum though I imagine I'm not the first to ask. Advice appreciated.

adamsmith

Why do you need to delete the attachments from the cloud?
If you have Zotero set to download attachments at sync time (Sync preferences), they're all already on your local drive. You can then simply let your paid storage (if any) expire and turn off file sync (again in the Zotero Sync preferences).

KaiNLee

Yes, thanks. That's helpful. I was hoping to be selective in what I maintain with the sync: the full Zotero database of items, some with attachments (active) and many without (archived). Then I could bring down my Zotero storage charges while also maintaining Zotero with near-full functionality.

Does that make sense and is there a way to do this? (I was thinking of creating a collection called Archive but don't know how to delete the attachments selectively for that collection alone.)

dstillman

You can selectively not download libraries or files to some devices, but the point of syncing is to make everything available on all devices, so you can't selectively not sync some files to the online library, no.