Syncing attachments via third party and still being able to delete them from Zotero

Hi, I have recently switched from Mendeley to Zotero and really like it! There is one issue that I just would want to straigthen out, please advise if this is correct and if there is a better way to go about syncing attachments in zotero:

1. As far as I understand it, if I would like to access more than 300mbs worth of pdfs across different computers, I need to sync these in a separate folder outside zotero, using a third party sync program like dropbox.

2. The most practical way of storing files in a folder outside zotero is to have them automatically moved and renamed with Zotfile. This means that each entry in my Zotero library will have links to the attachments, but not the attachments themself (chain icon instead of adopbe pdf icon)

3. Since attachments are linked, they will not be deleted when deleting an entry from the library. The only way to delete attachments is to find them in the file browser and delete them after deleting the entry in zotero.

Is this correct? Is there no way to have Zotero sync files and still being able to delete attachemnts automatically when deleting the entry in zotero?

(I read a couple of threads about not being able to delete linked attachemtns and saw this ticket https://github.com/jlegewie/zotfile/issues/96, but I wonder if there is another way of going about this that I have missed)
  • All of that is correct, except for (1)

    Your other (better) alternative is to use WebDAV sync for your personal library https://www.zotero.org/support/sync#webdav (for a group library, you don't have that many options). This works exactly the same as zotero.org sync when syncing between computers. It also works well with ZotPad and PaperShip apps for iOS. One of the downsides is that you cannot access PDFs via zotero.org.
  • ahh, cool. Sounds like I can use my Box account to put all my files in one folder but still have the attachments show up in my zotero client and thus be able to delete them together with deleting the entry from zotero. I will test this out soon and see how it works for me. Thanks!
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