Guidance on restoring data to Zotero 6.0.37 on Mac

ESinger67

Somehow, all of the 1200+ items in my Zotero database disappeared from my application. I may have accidentally deleted something when trying to free up space on my hard drive. The data is still (thankfully!) in my online library.
When I open the application on my Mac, there is an error message: "You are about to sync to an empty Zotero database. This could happen if you accidentally deleted the zotero.sqlite file in your Zotero data directory or the location of your data directory changed.
If you continue, data in the ‘______’ account will be downloaded to this computer. Your online library won’t be affected.
If your Zotero data exists elsewhere on this computer, you should move it to the current data directory or change the data directory location to point to your existing data.
Data Directory: /Users/_____/Zotero

If I sync, will it restore the records from the cloud to the app? Is it safer to download them first? I am just fearful of losing this database as it is for a book project!

dstillman

You should sync. That message exactly describes your situation: you deleted the zotero.sqlite database in your data directory by mistake, and so if you sync now, it will download the data from your online library to your computer.

Whether the online library is fully up to date is a separate question.

If it's not up to date, you can check the zotero.sqlite.bak and zotero.sqlite.1.bak files in your data directory to see if you somehow didn't delete those recent automatic backups as well. If they're larger than 5 MB, those might have your data. If they're 1 MB or 5 MB or don't exist, they don't. Locating Missing Zotero Data covers this more.

But if you sync, you'll end up with what's in your online library.

ESinger67

Thank you -- it worked. I was worried that it would somehow erase the online library data, but it looks good. Thankfully, it does seem up to date! Phew!