Error with syncing of my account

GabrielleFerlandLAbbe · 2024-11-09T01:14:20+00:00

I just got a new computer to replace my old one, and i wanted to transfer my zotero files from old to new. However, i did not have an account synced up to zotero in my old computer. I found a username with my email address attached, and thought this was my account that i nerver synced up with my zotero on my old computer. And so i synced it up with my old library, so that i could then sync my new computer with this account.

When i did this however, i realised that this old account was a different one that i had, since it was showing on my new computer a different, very small library i had. Still, my library on my new computer did not change. I proceeded to delete this old account, so that i could reuse my email with a new one. But it seems that this had the effect of deletting my entire current library in my old computer by syncing up the new account with it. I am freaking out a bit, and even though it seems that the changes are permanent, i hope someone can help me recover something!

Right now, the situation is that the old account is still synced up on my new computer, but is not showing the right library, while my old computer has now the new account with nothing in it...

dstillman · 2024-11-09T09:10:40+00:00

I'm not totally following this, but if you're saying you switched the account set up for syncing on the old computer, Zotero would've warned you that it would delete all local data for the old account, required you to check a checkbox saying "Remove all data for “[old account]” from this computer", and said to make sure you either had uploaded any data to the old account before continuing or had a backup of your Zotero data directory.

Assuming one of those is the case, you can restore by either switching back to the old account or restoring from the backup.

dstillman · 2024-11-09T09:12:47+00:00

Though if you're saying you deleted the Zotero account completely, we can undo that if you email us at support@zotero.org. I'm not clear whether you're saying there was synced data in the old account, though. Zotero wouldn't have deleted any data when switching accounts on the old computer unless it had synced at some point, and if it had, it would've given you the very clear warning mentioned above.