Full text search WebApp

Slamdunker23 · 2025-09-16T19:31:00+00:00

Hi Zotero Community,

I had the discussion about the search within the iPad OS. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/122875/zotero-search-ipad

Now I found that there is a full text search within the WebApp, great. I tested it today and it seems that it only works for older PDF files. Files which I recently added are not displayed as a result for the full text search. When I search within these specific files, the expressions are found.

Is there anything I need to know about the full text WebApp search? Is there any specific indication necessary?

Thank you, Daniel

Slamdunker23 · 2025-09-18T17:38:31+00:00

Hi, any Support on this issue? Thank you.

Slamdunker23 · 2025-09-18T19:54:27+00:00

Hi, I found this post @dstillman. I guess the issue is that I add these files not on a computer. How can I index them?

Dstillman April 26, 2025
Full-text indexing in the desktop app is automatic. PDFs with readable text layers are indexed when they're added, and PDFs added on another computer have their full-text content synced (if you haven't disabled "Sync full-text content") and indexed on idle.

Files added via the mobile apps or the web library are not currently indexed automatically, so those would remain unindexed on other computers unless you index them. That's obviously something we need to fix.

"Partial" indexing means that the content was longer than the max page/character settings. A manual reindex of the file would cause it to be fully indexed. The default settings were set many years ago and haven't been adjusted since — we could probably do so now given computer performance increases, but it would ideally be done as part of a larger technical overhaul of the indexing system, which isn't on the immediate horizon.

If you're experiencing some problem that you don't think is described by all that, you should report it in a new thread.

As to why that plugin exists, you'd have to ask @emilianoeheyns what problem it was trying to solve. For now, I've removed it from the plugins page to avoid confusion (and because it hasn't been updated in years and wouldn't be compatible with Zotero 7 anyway).

emilianoeheyns · 2025-09-18T21:57:58+00:00

It would automatically do a full reindex. I was dealing with a lot of large files it the time. The plugin does not work with Zotero 7 and I don't know whether I will change that - way too many plugins still to go that are more useful.

Slamdunker23 · 2025-09-19T06:42:28+00:00

Hi, the automatic full reindex does not work on mobile or the web app. Do I miss anything?

Slamdunker23 · 2025-09-22T15:34:52+00:00

Any support is appreciated. Thank you.