Collection deleted by mistake

julia.moutiez

Hi,
I just deleted one of my main collections by mystake. I don't have a manual back up.

I tried the method previously quoted on that issue (changing the name of the zotero folder to zotero-old, creating a new one named zotero and copy the files inside).

It didn't work, the last back up had already synched this mistake made one second before I closed zotero and disconnected myself from internet.

The mistake was on the 05/12/2025, most of the "sqlite" files date back to it already.
BUT I see that "zotero.sqlite.old" predates it (02/12/2025) and the "zotero.sqlite.1.bak" is from july. Maybe there's something to be done here ? I tryed renaming the "old" file into just "zotero.sqlite" but it didn't work so I renamed it back.

julia.moutiez

If you have ideas on how to... go to the automatic previous back up, not the most recent one but the one just before, it would be amazing.

Thanks.

tim820

The ability to restore a collection from the trash/bin was added in version 7.0. See "Collections and Searches in the Trash" ...
https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-7/

julia.moutiez

would it work even though I had not this version on my computer ? I finally got how to apply this one : https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#restoring_from_the_last_automatic_backup

I'll let my notes in french here in case it's useful to someone else :
1) Renommer dossier zot en zot-old, créer nouveau dossier zot au mm endroit (ds user) Copier tt int dossier zot-old dedans
2) renommer fichier nommé "zotero.sqlite.1.bak" en "zotero.sqlite" (en supprimant avt l'autre version)
3) Dupliquer la partie perdue (pas trouvé comment faire en dehors de créer dossiers manuellement)
4) Cliquer en haut à droite sur le logo vert pr synchroniser (nvlles collections restent, les anciennes disparaissent)

julia.moutiez

tutoriel : comment restaurer l'avant dernière synchronisation de zotero quand on a supprimé par erreur une collection / des dossiers