Purging attachments from a Group Library

safamote

There is a button under the storage settings that allows purging all attachments and files from "My Library". However, I cannot figure out how to do this for Group Libraries. I want to delete all the (associated and attached) files on the Zotero server, as well as my local drive, but I want to keep the citations. I am the group owner.

Thanks in advance for your help!

adamsmith

The purge storage button doesn't delete attachments in local versions of the library for personal libraries, either. If that's what you want there is no alternative to just deleting the attachments locally and syncing.
If you really want to delete your items, you can do that pretty easily by right clicking on the group --> Create new Saved search

Match _any_ of the following

Attachment File type is PDF
Attachment File type is Web Page

(and any other attachments you have - those two are by far the most common)
Select the created left search in the left panel, go to the center panel and select all using ctrl+a (cmd+a on a mac) (note that only the attachments are selected) --> right click --> Move Items to Trash

Then you'll probably want to disable file storage for the group under "Library Settings" for the group on this webpage.

safamote

adamsmith:

Thanks for your quick response. I had read about the process you have described above in the forum under older posts. However, it didn't work for me. (Maybe I was doing something wrong.)

Anyways, I finally did what I wanted through the following steps:

1. Standalone Application: I copied the Group Library (included just one folder) to My Library, for which File Storage was disabled, so attachments couldn't find their way into My Library.

2. Web: I deleted all the items in the Group Library (and emptied trash).

3. Standalone: I copied the folder from My Library to the Group Library, and then synced.

4. I disabled the file storage under Group Settings, so hopefully, attachments don't automatically find their way into my Zotero storage when people add items to the group library.

I hope the developers add this feature (at least for the Group Admin), so the attachments can be taken off by push of a button on the Web version.

Keep up the great work on this amazing project. It is a huge service to the academic and professional communities (and all who include citations in their writing), and works so much better than its commercial rivals. (I especially enjoy its compatibility with LaTeX.)

Regards,

Safa M

adamsmith

sounds like that doesn't matter for you, but your method would wreak havoc on Word documents created with the group. It also forces a full delete and download of the group library on every group member, which depending on the size of the group can take some time. So while I'm glad that worked for you, it's very much not recommended.

Also - some things you seem to misunderstand: disabling file storage for "My Library" doesn't prevent local attachments from being stored.
There was also no need to delete items on the web. You could have just done that in Standalone and synced.

safamote

Responses to your three points:

1. This particular group was small and my method didn't cause any complications.

2. How to prevent attachment storage both on the Web and locally? I have disabled automatic attachments on the Standalone preferences.

3. I tried doing my 4 steps described above all in the Standalone. However, when I copied the folder from My Lib back to G Lib, attachments reappeared.

adamsmith

2. You can't entirely prevent local attachments, but with the snapshot and PDF attachment preferences set to off you'll get relatively few.

3. I'd much rather help you work through why the recommended method of deleting attachments doesn't work than trying to figure out why your workaround didn't work. So what's the problem with the solution I initially proposed?

aurimas

2. You can't entirely prevent local attachments, but with the snapshot and PDF attachment preferences set to off you'll get relatively few.

AFAICT, if the group settings (at zotero.org) are set to not allow file attachments, there is no (reasonable) way to add file attachments (unless they are already attached when the setting is changed). For personal library, the settings described above are the only way to go though.

(Edit: I am referring to local file attachments above)

adamsmith

AFAICT, if the group settings (at zotero.org) are set to not allow file attachments, there is no (reasonable) way to add file attachments (unless they are already attached when the setting is changed).

that's correct, I tried that out to make sure - you can't add attachments and when you drag an item from "My Library" it is copied without attachments. When I said you "can't prevent local attachments" I meant in "My Library."