Collections deleted

Hello,
My computer crashed and when I opened it my zotero library was completely deleted. I had backed it up on an external har drive so I re-uploaded the data, but it is all merged into the library now (my collections organizations is completely gone). Any help would be much appreciated!
  • How exactly did you back up your Zotero library? Note that an export is not a backup, and most export formats don't contain any collection information.

    Do you have an actual backup of your Zotero data directory from before your computer crashed? If so, you can restore from that (after deleting your existing Zotero data directory to start fresh) and then replace the online library with that data.

    Alternatively, what data do you have in your online library? If you were using syncing before, all you would need to do is sync to pull down your data, though you're at your file sync quota, so you won't have all your attached files.
  • Hello dstillman, thank you so much for your help. I went to start recreating my collections and they just all materialized! I have no idea why or what happened, but am very happy to be back on track. Thank you so much for your response, and I hope you have a great day. :)
  • It likely just means you synced and pulled down the data from your online library.

    Note that, if you did import an export, you likely have duplicates, and you should sort by Date Added and delete that entire span of items. And, again, you're likely missing attached files, since you were at your file sync quota and files wouldn't have all been synced from before the crash. So you're really better off restoring from a proper backup of your data (which is entirely compatible with syncing — anything previously synced will just be merged seamlessly with the old data).
  • Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to this. Have a great evening:)
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