Upgrade Storageclean storage folder
Hi :)
I am trying to clean up/reduce the size of my Zotero "Storage" folder in the data directory on my Mac, so I did the following:
1) I deleted some of the heaviest folders that contained only unuseful infos automatically retrieved from websites (and also empty folders, which did not even contain .zotero-ft-info/cache files), and then I pressed the sync button on the Zotero app.
2) To check if it worked, I installed Zotero on another Mac, logged in and synced. However, I found that the heavy folders I had deleted on the first computer did appear in the Storage folder on this second computer, while the empty folders did not..
Since I had forgotten, in step 1), to close the Zotero app before deleting the folders (which, if I have understood correctly from other discussions, may cause problems, and thus could have been the reason for my issue), I tried the whole process again by deleting a folder after having quit Zotero (on the first computer). However, that folder appeared in the Storage folder on the second computer when I reinstalled Zotero there..
Could you please help me understanding how I can get completely rid of those folders I want to delete?
In addition: deleting the folders mentioned above should cause no harm, right? I mean the respective parent items (together with notes, tags..) in my Zotero library shouldn't be corrupted after deleting, right?
Btw, Zotero is amazing!!! It really improved my learning/research experience. Thanks a lot for developing it as free and open-source!
I am trying to clean up/reduce the size of my Zotero "Storage" folder in the data directory on my Mac, so I did the following:
1) I deleted some of the heaviest folders that contained only unuseful infos automatically retrieved from websites (and also empty folders, which did not even contain .zotero-ft-info/cache files), and then I pressed the sync button on the Zotero app.
2) To check if it worked, I installed Zotero on another Mac, logged in and synced. However, I found that the heavy folders I had deleted on the first computer did appear in the Storage folder on this second computer, while the empty folders did not..
Since I had forgotten, in step 1), to close the Zotero app before deleting the folders (which, if I have understood correctly from other discussions, may cause problems, and thus could have been the reason for my issue), I tried the whole process again by deleting a folder after having quit Zotero (on the first computer). However, that folder appeared in the Storage folder on the second computer when I reinstalled Zotero there..
Could you please help me understanding how I can get completely rid of those folders I want to delete?
In addition: deleting the folders mentioned above should cause no harm, right? I mean the respective parent items (together with notes, tags..) in my Zotero library shouldn't be corrupted after deleting, right?
Btw, Zotero is amazing!!! It really improved my learning/research experience. Thanks a lot for developing it as free and open-source!
The one exception is if you're trying to free up local disk space and keep downloaded files in your online library that you can download later. In that case, you can do Show File on an attachment in Zotero and delete the attachment files — not the folders, and don't touch anything starting with ".zotero-" — or you can search for large PDFs in within the folder and delete those directly. But that's solely for managing local disk space usage and wouldn't affect any other computers. An upcoming version of Zotero will let you choose how many days to keep downloaded files before deleting the local versions automatically to free up disk space.
I'm interested in cleaning up local storage of files that I have in the cloud (webdav). Has this feature been released yet? Otherwise, is it safe to remove the Zotero/storage directory?
Removing Zotero/storage will also clean out information used for full-text search, so it's not recommended, no. You can do a file type search in your OS (e.g. for PDF or html) and delete all results. Make sure, of course, that you have the files stored elsewhere and that you have "Download as needed" set up for file sync.