Backing up while Zotero is open

AjaiKN

Hi!

I was reading the documentation about Zotero backups:

Warning: Before you copy, delete, or move any of these files, be sure that Zotero is closed. Failure to do so before moving these files can damage your data.

...

If you really want to back up your Zotero data specifically, locate your Zotero data, close Zotero, and copy your data directory (the entire folder, including zotero.sqlite and storage and the other subfolders) to a backup location, preferably on another storage device. As with all important data, it's a good idea to back up your Zotero data frequently, which is why we recommend an automated full-system backup instead. [emphasis added]

On the one hand, it emphasizes that you should make sure Zotero is closed even when just copying files. My impression from this is that if you try to back up the Zotero data while the app is open, the data in your backup might be corrupted somehow. (Maybe because the app is in the middle of making a change or something?)

But after reading the last sentence, I'm confused. If Zotero is open while the automated full-system backup is occurring, wouldn't that just cause the same problem that the docs warn against? Or is the warning at the top just overly cautious?

Thanks!

dstillman

It's no different from any other program. If you're doing a manual backup of a program's files, you should close the program first to be safe, but if you're using an automated backup system, you don't worry about it. It runs all the time, the odds that any given backup is going to copy a file that's in some inconsistent state are very low, even if that did happen it's hopefully no different than a crash or power failure where some automatic crash recovery process would then take place (which should be the case for Zotero or other SQLite-based programs), and absolute worst, extremely unlucky case, one of many incremental backups are corrupted and the rest are fine. Don't worry about it.

AjaiKN

Makes sense, thanks!