Changing existing symlink for zotero/storage

iainC
About 18 months ago I started using Zotero and decided to set up a symlink so that the PDF attachments can reside on Dropbox (I have about 2.5 GB of files now). I set up the symlink by creating a link using the command line in Terminal as follows:

ln -s /Users/[myname]/Dropbox/[customname]/storage /Users/[myname]/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/[randomstring].default/zotero/storage

This has worked without any problems so far. Please note I first set up Zotero with Firefox, but I actually use Zotero Standalone - I just retained the original default storage destination in my Firefox profile because I didn't see the point in changing it.

However, since the attachments are now really eating into my Dropbox storage allocation I am considering moving the ‘storage’ folder to my Box account, which has more space and is currently unused.

It's been a while since I first set up the symlink, and I don't want to mess up the transition from Dropbox to Box! What steps should I do and in what order?

Here's what I think I should do:

  1. Delete the target symlink in ‘~Firefox/Profiles/[randomstring].default/zotero/storage’ (target folder in bold) by dragging to the Trash.

  2. Then copy across the existing Dropbox contents to a new custom folder in my Box Sync folder.

  3. Then create a new symlink:

    ln -s /Users/[myname]/Box\ Sync/[customname]/storage /Users/[myname]/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/[randomstring].default/zotero/storage

The above makes sense to me, but I am worried that in my ignorance I will mess up how Zotero writes new attachments and accesses the existing ones. Is this the correct way to go about this?
  • aurimas
    The above looks right to me (though I would copy first, then delete the symlink, in case whatever is deleting the symlink decides to recurse into the symlinked directory. Of course this shouldn't happen). Obviously you will be doing this with Zotero/Firefox closed and you will make backups of your Zotero data directory.
  • aurimas
    edited October 22, 2014
    I should add that with Box you can use WebDAV syncing, which should be a lot more convenient (e.g. you can access files via ZotPad or PaperShip). I can't think of anything you would be missing if you went that route.

    Edit: I guess if you were accessing PDFs directly via Dropbox, that wouldn't be an option any more, since attachments get zipped up before sending, but it must have been quite inconvenient anyway because of the obscure folder names. On the plus side, zipped up PDFs take up less space (might not be that much less though)

    Edit 2: If you do decide to switch to WebDAV, I can give you some guidance, since the steps might not be very obvious.
  • iainC
    Thank you, I appreciate you taking time to give me some advice. I will go ahead and work through the steps I outlined (having backed up everything first!) and let you know if it works.

    ~ Iain

    ---Side note ---
    I am still not entirely sure if WebDAV will benefit me since I don't have an iPad or iPhone. I think Papership looks like a great app for academics, but I am just a freelance copywriter and editor who happens to deal with a lot of peer-reviewed literature. I simply open PDFs from Zotero and annotate them in Acrobat Pro – if I need to share the PDFs with clients they will almost certainly have Acrobat Reader, but I very much doubt any of them use Zotero or something like Papership. I find Zotero incredibly useful for organising papers, inserting citations and linking related papers together, plus the search options are good too. Really, having my PDFs in Dropbox is just a backup so I don't lose them should anything happen to my laptop.

    You're right that I don't routinely access the PDFs directly from the Dropbox directory, I always go through Zotero. That said, I save PDFs with file names that give some indication of the paper, just in case I ever have to find them the old-fashioned way. I can search for files using author name, year and title keywords and Finder's native search facility is pretty good at finding things. The only time I had to navigate using the obscure folder names was when my laptop broke and I was using Zotero online to find the ‘Attachment Details’ URL so I knew which folder to open in Dropbox. It was a little clunky, but not too bad. Being able to access my research library online is the real value-add that Zotero provides for me, especially as the database indexes your files too.
  • iainC
    Hi aurimas – thought I'd post back here to say I moved over the files to my Box Sync folder, deleted the existing symlink from the parent Zotero profile directory, and then created a new symlink to the Box folder.

    I've added some more PDF attachments since then and opened up a few old ones. Everything appears to be working the same, so I think this is a fairly safe operation to carry out. I did make sure to make copies of everything first though – you never know!

    Thanks.
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