Upgrade StorageTransfer Library to New Computer
I recently had to get a new laptop after my old one stopped working. A repair shop that performs data recovery was able to get my Zotero library from my old laptop. I would like to know how to transfer this library to my new laptop.
I have read the instructions from the documentation (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library and https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data). I am having trouble following the instructions as the repair shop may have changed the names of some of the files. I think they may have changed the names because the names do not match those from the documentation (for example, a file called "zotero.sqlite", or a directory called "storage").
The files from the repair shop are as follows:
The file
The last 10 lines are as follows:
The directory
These different subdirectories appear to contain the PDFs, web snapshots, etc. that were in the library on my old laptop.
The Zotero directory on my new laptop contains the following:
The version of Zotero I am using on my new laptop (macOS Mojave, version 10.14.5) is Zotero 5.0.66. I have not added anything yet to Zotero on my new laptop.
Any information/instructions concerning what files to move where and what to rename them would be greatly appreciated.
I have read the instructions from the documentation (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library and https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data). I am having trouble following the instructions as the repair shop may have changed the names of some of the files. I think they may have changed the names because the names do not match those from the documentation (for example, a file called "zotero.sqlite", or a directory called "storage").
The files from the repair shop are as follows:
$ ls -l Volumes/external-harddrive/zotero/
total 11520
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 262144 May 1 15:25 files
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 user-name staff 5592658 May 1 15:27 zotero.rdf
The file
zotero.rdf contains 112001 lines. The first 10 lines are as follows:$ head -n 10 /Volumes/external-harddrive/zotero/zotero.rdf
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:z="http://www.zotero.org/namespaces/export#"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:bib="http://purl.org/net/biblio#"
xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:link="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/link/"
xmlns:prism="http://prismstandard.org/namespaces/1.2/basic/"
xmlns:vcard="http://nwalsh.com/rdf/vCard#">
The last 10 lines are as follows:
$ tail -n 10 /Volumes/external-harddrive/zotero/zotero.rdf
<dcterms:hasPart rdf:resource="#item_2134"/>
</z:Collection>
<z:Collection rdf:about="#collection_241">
<dc:title>QRPA Calculations</dc:title>
<dcterms:hasPart rdf:resource="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/037594749090330O"/>
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.zotero.org/namespaces/export#Collection"/>
<dc:title>QRPA Calculations</dc:title>
<dcterms:hasPart rdf:resource="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/037594749090330O"/>
</z:Collection>
</rdf:RDF>
The directory
files contains 1803 subdirectories. The names of all the subdirectories are a number:$ ls -l /Volumes/external-harddrive/zotero/files/ | head -n 10
total 462080
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:17 10
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:18 100
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1000
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1001
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1004
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1005
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1008
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:20 1009
drwxrwxrwx 1 user-name staff 131072 May 1 15:18 101
These different subdirectories appear to contain the PDFs, web snapshots, etc. that were in the library on my old laptop.
The Zotero directory on my new laptop contains the following:
$ ls -l /Users/user-name/Zotero/
total 3880
drwxr-xr-x 5 user-name staff 160 Jun 8 18:29 locate
drwx------ 3 user-name staff 96 Jun 15 16:48 pipes
drwxr-xr-x 16 user-name staff 512 Jun 8 18:29 styles
drwxr-xr-x 543 user-name staff 17376 Jun 15 16:48 translators
-rw-r--r-- 1 user-name staff 933888 Jun 15 16:48 zotero.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 user-name staff 90800 Jun 15 16:48 zotero.sqlite-journal
-rw-r--r-- 1 user-name staff 929792 Jun 8 18:42 zotero.sqlite.bak
The version of Zotero I am using on my new laptop (macOS Mojave, version 10.14.5) is Zotero 5.0.66. I have not added anything yet to Zotero on my new laptop.
Any information/instructions concerning what files to move where and what to rename them would be greatly appreciated.
You can import the RDF via File → "Import…" if you need to, but it'll reset all Date Added/Modified values, you'll lose links to items from any documents you have, and there might be some other minor field changes, so you'd be better off finding the actual data directory from the old computer.
Note, too, that an export can only be made via Zotero, so that doesn't seem like something the repair shop would've created. It seems more likely that you previously made a full export from Zotero (perhaps intended as a backup?) and they found that. But if they recovered all the files, you should be able to find the old data directory too, and then you can follow the documented restore steps.