Unread, read, to read, ... status flags

b0c5 · December 17, 2023

I usually tag items in my library as "read", "to read", ... But I wonder if tags are the best way to do this.

How do people handle these kinds of flags in your libraries? Does Zotero (maybe Zotero 7?) have a native feature for this that I'm missing?

Another tag I use is "favorite", but again I wonder if there is a more organic way to mark items as favorite in Zotero rather than tags.

adamsmith · December 17, 2023

I think tags are great fort this, but I do recall someone created an add-on for read/unread that you should be able to find on the forums (or maybe someone else remembers)

tim820 · December 17, 2023

Another simple way is to keep a collection named TO READ into which you put all new items (or just the ones that you *must* read). Once an item has been read, remove it from the collection. Of course you can also put each item into the collection(s) that fits their subject area too, either when first added or after reading.

This plugin comes with an example action to automatically assign a tag 'unread' to new items, and remove it once the item has been read.
https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-actions-tags#-quick-start