How to restore a folder deleted by mistake?

dualer

Hi guys,
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/74216/how-to-restore-a-deleted-folder-by-group-member/p1
https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data

I have try above methods["Restoring your Zotero library from a backup and overwriting synced changes" & "Restoring from the last automatic backup"], but I can only restore half of the data, how to restore the data completely? The data is so important for me, I need to restore it completely.

dstillman

Those instructions will restore your data, but they'll of course only restore what was in your database at the time of the backup. (Also make sure you've temporarily disabled sync, as explained there, so that Zotero doesn't just reapply the deletions.)

If you do see the deleted collection in the restored backup but are missing other recently created data that exists online, you duplicate the collection, as explained in the restore steps, and then sync to pull down the more recent changes.

dualer

I have tried following step, but only half of new ones can remain. I don't know what's wrong.

"If you're trying to restore deleted collections, you can create duplicate collections and drag items from the old collections to the new ones. When you sync, the old collections will be deleted but the new ones will remain."

dstillman

I have tried following step, but only half of new ones can remain.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Remain when? Before or after syncing?

The line you're quoting isn't relevant until after you've restored from the backup and can see the data you're looking for. If you don't see the data immediately after restoring, then the backup doesn't include the data, possibly because you created it since the backup was taken. If that data still exists online, it will be restored when you sync, but if it's in the data that you deleted, the only way to get it back would be to find a backup where it existed.

dualer

I mean that half of new ones can remain after syncing. I can find the backup from another computer( it has been offline since I made that mistake) or file 'zotero.sqlite.bak'. But I don't know how to restore the data completely. That data don't exist online, because it have been synced after I deleting the folder.

dstillman

I mean that half of new ones can remain after syncing.

But they're there before syncing? Have you checked the trash? If you moved them to the trash before syncing previously, they'd be moved there again now.

dualer

Yes, they are. I am sure that I didn't move them to the trash before syncing.

dstillman

You had to have moved them there somehow. If you used "Delete Collection and Items" accidentally, they'd have been moved there. In any case, you can select them in the trash and restore them.

dstillman

(To be clear, this would've been something you did previously, not since restoring from the backup. You're pulling down recent changes from your online library.)

dualer

I used keyboard "shift+delete" to delete them, so I think it have been deleted permanently. But I was wrong, you're right, they have been moved there. But I use the file 'zotero.sqlite.bak', which just have been update yesterday before I deleted that folder. So I think it shouldn't been affected.

dstillman

The point is that those move-to-trash operations synced to your online library previously, so when you restored from the backup and synced, those changes just synced down. So you have to undo them after syncing.

If you had a full backup that you were happy with and followed the official restore steps, which include using Restore to Online Library, that wouldn't be necessary, because you would just keep your data exactly as it was in the backup. But whether that makes sense to use depends on whether there were changes since the backup (and synced to the online library) that you want to keep.

dualer

I tried to restore the data from trash, but I forget to create the new folder. I still implemented it, so the data was missing. Where did the data go to?

dualer

I have a full backup (from another computer), but how to use Restore to Online Library? I don't find any specific tutorials about it.

bwiernik

Follow the steps labeled “Restoring your Zotero library from a backup and overwriting synced changes” on the page you linked to.

dualer

I have tried it, but it doesn't work. Finally, I solve it through .bibtex format file. Thank your earnest answer.

dstillman

Those steps definitely work if the data is in your backup and you follow them correctly.

Note that exporting and reimporting via BibTeX may end up duplicating items (depending on how exactly you do it), may lose data, and will break any citation links in existing documents.

dualer

I have restored the data via BibTex. There are many duplicating items (about 600), are there any simple methods to merge them in one time? I don't want to merge them one by one. I also find that some items will vanish in some folders after merging, instead of remaining there as I wish, and I just want to make the diplicating items in the same folder become one item.

dstillman

The restore process we support is the one we documented. It works if followed properly.

After you've started exporting/importing items, merging, etc., your database is going to be a complete mess, and I'm afraid that's not something I can help with.

You can, at any point, restore to a backup with auto-sync temporarily disabled and perform a Restore to Online Library, as explained in the restore instructions.