Migrating to Zotero from Mendeley 1.13 on an older Mac

DrCamTurner

I'm transitioning myself and my organization from Mendeley to Zotero. The kb article (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import) is very helpful and I've also searched the forums.

Unfortunately, I'm dealing with one library (2.2k items, 3GB of files) that's on a Mac OS X 10.6.8 computer running Mendeley v1.13. Upgrading to 1.18 made Mendeley inoperable (won't even open), which will presumably interfere with the import to Zotero. I was able to restore Mendeley operation by re-installing v1.13 but am unsure how to proceed. None of the files (e.g., PDFs) were organized or annotated via Mendeley, but we're hoping to avoid losing all of the tags and having to manually re-link all the files to their library items.

This library and associated files are ultimately destined for a new computer and Zotero Storage, but I first need to get everything into Zotero. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

dstillman

This library and associated files are ultimately destined for a new computer and Zotero Storage, but I first need to get everything into Zotero.

You can't do it in that order. Current versions of Zotero that include the Mendeley importer won't run on 10.6.8 (and, from the sounds of it, Mendeley 1.18 won't run on 10.6.8 either — most current software doesn't). So you'll need to move the files to a new computer and then do the import there.

dstillman

(Or, if you're using syncing in Mendeley, you may be able to just install Mendeley 1.18 on the new computer and pull down the data, and then do the import into Zotero, since that's the process anyway for people who have upgraded past 1.18 and had their Mendeley databases encrypted. That would require you to upload all files to Mendeley servers, though, and it's not clear if you're doing that or want to. If not, you should be able to just move the Mendeley data directory and PDFs to the same locations on the new computer and run the Zotero importer. You may not even need to install Mendeley 1.18, though we haven't tested an import with a 1.13 database.)

DrCamTurner

Thanks for the quick response @dstillman, very helpful!

If not, you should be able to just move the Mendeley data directory and PDFs to the same locations on the new computer and run the Zotero importer.

I'd prefer to avoid up/downloading all the PDFs via Mendeley's servers, but I'm not sure what you mean by "same locations on the new computer." Apologies for my noobery, bu do you mean the new computer doesn't need to have Mendeley installed at all? I.e., just copy the old computer's Mendeley data directory and PDFs into the locations on the new computer where they would have been if Mendeley were installed? That sounds clever and worth trying.

In the past, I used Mendeley to sync this library between two Macs and Box to sync the PDFs (avoiding Mendeley's buggy PDF sync). It's been a while since I set that up, but I believe it required the same username on both Macs so the full path of the PDF folder would be identical on both. Now I'm moving everything to a new PC, so the identical full path approach won't work. One more reason I'm looking forward to simplifying everything via Zotero Storage.

bwiernik

Yes, that is what dstillman means.

dstillman

@DrCamTurner: If the PDF paths will be different, you will have to install Mendeley 1.18 on the PC and point it to the new PDF location to update those paths in the DB before importing into Zotero.

DrCamTurner

Thanks @dstillman. After exploring that strategy I reached the same conclusion. More Mendeley wrangling ahead - 1.18 has library settings control disabled and frequently crashes. But I've got a few angles still to try. Looking forward to getting out of Mendeley!