Zotfile, Google Drive, files on desktop

harleenkaur · February 10, 2021

Hi all,

Apologies for asking what feels like a very basic question, but when I use Zotfile to sync my PDFs in google drive rather than in Zotero itself, does this mean that I still need to have a copy of the PDF on my desktop permanently? All the guides that I've followed appear to have this set up, but is there a way to have my Zotero linked with a Google drive for PDF storage AND also not have those PDFs stored on my desktop at all? Trying to save storage space across the board here...

dstillman · February 10, 2021

You only need the copy that Zotero is actually linked to. You can right-click on an item and click Show File to see where a linked file is located.

harleenkaur · February 11, 2021

Thank you - I'm assuming there is no way to have Zotero set up so that it doesn't need a local file though, right? There needs to be a local file on the computer to copy to google drive? I was hoping that I could delete the files from my computer to save computer space too...

dstillman · February 11, 2021

If you want automatic downloading when opening files from Zotero, you need to use stored files and Zotero file sync's "download as needed" mode. An upcoming version of Zotero will let you control how many days' worth of files to keep locally to save space and automatically remove older files.

For linked files, Zotero will try to trigger downloading of evicted files in iCloud Drive on macOS, but for other cloud storage services the file needs to exist or Zotero won't be able to open it.