Transferring/Duplicating libraries to a new account

witchdoc64

I own an account with a private and several group libraries. I would like to transfer (the rights) of one of (one of) the group libraries (a rather large one 4GB) to my successor. Therefore I started a (this) new account, copied the whole database to the respective folder and now wonder if syncing would succeed, i.e. would restore all my libraries to the new account without interfering with the old/first account. Syncing produces a warning and I am afraid that data in my old account gets corrupted. I was thinking that after syncing all the data with my new account, I would delete all the libraries that are not meant for my successor and then transfer the rights?

Will this work?

dstillman

You realize you can just transfer ownership of a group to another member on the group settings page?

witchdoc64

Yes, but I would like to have a copy of the database as it is, because I will leave the group after the transfer… So my question remains – start syncing the whole (original) library to my new account?

adamsmith

I'm still not quite sure what you're after that couldn't be achieved more simply, but you can't corrupt anything in your old account via sync unless you put in the username and password for that account, which presumably you wouldn't do.

Note, though, that any group that the new account isn't already a member of, will, I believe, disappear from that account during sync. In other words, group membership doesn't transfer with the database. It's a feature of the account.

witchdoc64

Dear Adam, thank you so far - it seems that I have not made myself clear - I try. I would simply like to duplicate my databas(es), private and group, i.e. have everything in new account. Right now I am the administrator of all groups. So I can transfer the rights of the databases I will still share to my new account but I will leave one group - how can I keep this (group) data...

adamsmith

Two options:

a) Drag the contents of that group into your personal (or any other) library before leaving it

b) export the contents of that group as Zotero RDF.

Your original plan wouldn't actually work for your purpose, I believe, since it wouldn't actually preserve the group you're leaving in a format you can easily access in the future (you can't restore individual groups, let alone items, from a Zotero database).

witchdoc64

Hi Adam, thank you so much. I am starting to understand :-) I once tried to export the database but failed several times. May be it is simply to large. However, as far as I understand, option a) will not only ensure that the content is saved but will also "save" the (folder) structure of the database.