Sync but not store elsewhere (no storage on Servers).

I need only a small solution and hoped I've found it in Zotero.

I have a Macbook and an iPad. My Macbook should be the master, my iPad the slave.
How do I set up syncing, that the Macbook keeps all of his files, annotations, etc. and delete files on iPad don't touch anything on the Macbook. Storage in the Web should not be done, I don't use the apple-cloud for files and don't want to use other cloud. Syncing only betwenn the two, with USB-C or Wlan (only in my house, same net).

Zotero should serve as a library for my Books (pdfs, self scanned) instead of Apple Books. Books is not capable to create in a collection a further collection. Zotero does this for many levels, example:

Informatic +-- languages -+-- Perl
| +-- Python
| +-- Swift
| ..
+-- Network
|
+-- Database
...
about 2-3 GB

Romanistik-+- Spanish -+-- Language
| +-- books
| ....
|
+ Portugiese
....


travel guide -+-- Germany
+-- France -- paris
+-- Portugal
+-- Spain
+-- Peru
+-- Ecuador
+-- Bolivia
.....
seldom used, but about 15-20 GByte
It was a full 80 cm shelf with 5 or 6 compartments.
(these guides (many pictures (300 dpi) are big! books).

term paper 1

term paper 2
.....

The travel guides are cut books and scanned (page scanner, 40 p./min), because I don't want to drag dozens of books, iPad is enough. I don't want anything for studying, not enough space and no desire (often on journeys no connection, telefon and internet).

At university I don't need my travelguides, next journey perhaps again. Learning Spanish (Romanistik-+- Spanisch -+-- Language) could be used in University and on the route from Germany to Spain and further to South America.

Term pappers, Informatic and Romanistic only at university.

How would you solve my problem? (in the years before: with goodreader sync of the paths on my mac. Problem: the ebooks and ibooks, they needed Books (prg. from Apple).

Thanks for reading and most notably for answering.
Best wishes Thomas
  • There is no way you can use Zotero on iOS without using cloud sync. The app is designed as a syncing companion app to the Desktop app and there's no way to get Zotero data loaded onto it other than using Zotero sync (files can sync via Zotero or WebDAV, data has to sync via Zotero).

    If you just want to sync the files to iOS (no Zotero iOS app at all) and access them directly via iOS, that might be possible with some 3rd party syncing solution of the Zotero storage folder, but nothing easy -- all standard approaches would use a cloud service provider, but it's likely you can do something with a local NAS or so.

  • Adamsmith, thank you very much for your detailed response. I was afraid that would be the answer. Unfortunately, I can't program in Swift, but what I saw briefly on Git Zotero-ios prevents me from using Zotero as a shelf for my books. Zotero's purpose is different, and I will continue to use the program exclusively for that.
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