Restoring Zotero to new PC - cloud vs local restore

tomstevens1

I have had to move over to a new PC after my old one died. Luckily I was able to restore all my data to the new one using Windows File History, and this included my Zotero files. I have not yet installed the Zotero app on the new PC though.
Ordinarily, I imagine the simplest thing on a new PC would be just to redownload/sync everything from Zotero.org cloud to a clean slate and start over. But what happens when the data is already there from a local backup? Will Zotero get confused and create duplicates of everything? Or can it do what Google Drive can do and recognize the files as the same, even though file paths are slightly different, given that it's a new PC name?
I'm particularly keen to avoid duplicates, and to avoid, if possible, having to go through and reattaching pdfs in my library (I didn't include pdfs in zotero itself but attached links to them in my library instead).
Any thoughts most welcome! Install Zotero and start sync and see what happens? Or delete all zotero data on the PC to give a clean slate, and allow everything to sync from the cloud, even if that means having to painstakingly reattach pdfs because it doesn't recognize the very slightly different file paths?
Many thanks!

adamsmith

But what happens when the data is already there from a local backup? Will Zotero get confused and create duplicates of everything?

Assuming that "local backup" was done following option A here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library , i.e. by moving the data directory rather than using export/import, then you're fine -- Zotero understands there are referring to the same items. So in that case, just install Zotero and sync, don't do any cleaning etc.

For filepaths -- if you stored your files with Zotero, that'll just work. If you have linked files, you may need to fix filepaths but that can be done in batch.

tomstevens1

Awesome - thank you for such a speedy response! One quick follow up: I noticed Windows restored only the "storage" folder. That is, the "Zotero" folder on my new PC only contains "storage" and no other folder, nor any zotero.sqlite or any bak file. Not sure why. But I'm assuming for this to work I need to dig those files and folders out from my old hard drive and add them to the current system's "Zotero" folder, before installing the application? Thanks.

adamsmith

I would recommend doing that, yes. I think sync will work either way, but it'll be easier if you restore the other files, most importantly zotero.sqlite (I think everything else Zotero will restore automatically as it needs it)

tomstevens1

Thank you so much! That's worked a charm. I'm now moving on to fixing file paths for my attachments, which I'm assuming requires the Zutilo add-in. (And I'll be sure to set a base directory for relative file names once I'm done, which would make this process easier in future I guess). Let me know if I'm wrong. Otherwise, thanks again for your help. Best support of any program I've used!

adamsmith

Just to be clear, though, you shouldn't need to fix links for files in the Zotero/storage folder, only for links. Everything else is exactly as you say.