Import documents folder

cdc.seacave

New Feature: Zotero looks as what I need to manage my collection of papers. However I have already a collection of papers stored as PDF in folder tree, per category. In order to start using Zotero I need first to import my existing papers I organized for years. For this it would be of great help an import functionality that parses all papers, read title/authors, search the web for the full Bib, and create new items in Zotero with the same structure. Would this be doable any time soon?

bwiernik

You can already select the PDFs, then drag them into Zotero. Zotero will retrieve metadata for these items. So, your best course at the moment is to go through your folders, select the PDFs in each folder, and drag them into Zotero (hold down Shift [Windows/Linux] or Option [Mac] as you drag to remove the files from the original folder).

If you want, you can make collections in Zotero to mimic your existing file structure. Personally, I use tags instead of collections for topics/categories and reserve collections to organize items associated with specific projects.

qqbb

There is a plugin in development:
https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-folder-import

The related discussion is here:
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/81329/create-zotero-library-using-disk-directory-structure