Upgrade StorageSharing a workflow to rename and move attachments from Zotero into a synced folder
I struggled for months to figure out a way to be able to search for all my pdfs that were stored in the default location without having to search from Zotero. Each pdf had its own idiosyncratic name in its own folder in a location that is not readily searchable on Mac. I finally found a solution that worked for me and thought I would share it.
1. Leave the data directory in its default location
2. Create a folder to store your pdfs that syncs with Dropbox or your sync service (I call mine "Zotero pdfs")
3. Go to Zotero>>Advanced>>Files and Folders and make the new folder the Base File
4. Go Zotero>>Advanced>>FIles and Folders and click "Show data directory"
5. Create a search that finds all pdfs in the folder.
6. Copy them all and paste to the new folder (you could move them if you are brave, but copying is safer until you are sure that all is working.
7. In Zotero create a new folder called "moved pdfs" and select it
8. Go to the little green circle with the + click "Link to Copy of File", then select as many pdfs as you want to in the Zotero pdfs folder and click Open at the lower RH corner.
9. The pdfs you selected will each be renamed with author year and title (making them easy to find and identify) and they will be linked to a new reference in zotero.
I moved thousands of pdfs this way without incident. You may need to use the duplicate finder feature to clean things up. Zotero is so wonderfully robust!
My routine workflow for adding new pdfs is now
1. Download the pdf to my synced Zotero files folder
2. Open Zotero and click "Link to copy of file". That creates the reference and adds the renamed pdf to the reference.
I hope this helps some people. I may have missed details in the above workflow so additions would be welcome.
1. Leave the data directory in its default location
2. Create a folder to store your pdfs that syncs with Dropbox or your sync service (I call mine "Zotero pdfs")
3. Go to Zotero>>Advanced>>Files and Folders and make the new folder the Base File
4. Go Zotero>>Advanced>>FIles and Folders and click "Show data directory"
5. Create a search that finds all pdfs in the folder.
6. Copy them all and paste to the new folder (you could move them if you are brave, but copying is safer until you are sure that all is working.
7. In Zotero create a new folder called "moved pdfs" and select it
8. Go to the little green circle with the + click "Link to Copy of File", then select as many pdfs as you want to in the Zotero pdfs folder and click Open at the lower RH corner.
9. The pdfs you selected will each be renamed with author year and title (making them easy to find and identify) and they will be linked to a new reference in zotero.
I moved thousands of pdfs this way without incident. You may need to use the duplicate finder feature to clean things up. Zotero is so wonderfully robust!
My routine workflow for adding new pdfs is now
1. Download the pdf to my synced Zotero files folder
2. Open Zotero and click "Link to copy of file". That creates the reference and adds the renamed pdf to the reference.
I hope this helps some people. I may have missed details in the above workflow so additions would be welcome.
1.) It will break Zotero links to all existing Word documents
2.) It will there's no clear way to get any notes you may have attached to the same item again.
3.) Zotero may not be able to find metadata for all PDFs you have, leaving you to have to do this manually.
There may be more.
There are better and much easier ways to do this.
Most easily, ZotFile http://www.zotfile.com let's you simply convert all attachments to linked files in a specified location one step.
But also, if this is just about searching, the standard file location of Zotero's storage should be searchable by Mac Finder etc. If you do want all files to show in a single location, you can create a virtual folder from a search for PDFs in Zotero's storage folder.