Renaming issue with multiple attachments in an item

wobbuuu

Hello!

I have recently migrated from Mendeley to Zotero and I'am trying now to make things work in the best scenario for me. I have faced two problems and through search did not find a solution or find that there is no solution. I would like to ask maybe the things changed and now a workaround exists.

1) I use Zotfile to manage attachments: to automatically move them to the folder of the external cloud and rename them. As far as I understand there is no option to do this automatically after creation of new item with attachment in Zotero. So I simply Ctrl+A all items and do Manage Attachments->Rename. This takes a long time, but nonetheless, it is a workaround. The problem in the following: if there is an item with two (or more) attachments which have been already previously renamed, after this operation, Zotero will lose the link to all attachments except the first. In other words, even files located where they should be, clicking onto attachment in Zotero opens the same pdf file for all attachments.

2) The second problem is that there is no physical deletion of files from folder after removing of an item in Zotero. Is there a tidy up procedure?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

bwiernik

1) Zotfile can automatically move attachments when you add items to Zotero, so you shouldn’t need to manually choose the Rename and move often. Zotfile can’t currently avoid renaming all attachments. Zotero’s native file renaming can because it only renames the attachment you click on instead of all of the attachments attached to an item. I’ve not encountered the file opening issue before.

2) No. Zotero by design never deletes linked files. There was a cleanup plugin written by @emilianoeheyns, but I am unsure if it still works with current Zotero.

Zotero isn’t really designed for a linked-Files-in-a-cloud-folder workflow, and the method available for doing so using Zotfile is a workaround. Personally, I recommend switching to using Zotero storage or WebDAV and letting the Zotero app manage the location of your files. This will resolve both of the issues you raise.

emilianoeheyns

That must be the storage scanner, but that only marks attachments in Zotero for which the file does not exist on disk -- I don't actually delete files or items, just add or remove so the user can take action. It also does not work the other way around -- files existing in the storage directory but not linked to from Zotero are not dealt with.

bwiernik

Sorry, I was actually thinking of this script by Mikko, no you Emiliano:
https://github.com/mronkko/ZoteroCleanOrphans/