Feature request – safer way to delete item or file & reformed backup feature to protect against this

rollermania2000

It is really good news that Zotero has added a Trash bin so if you accidentally delete an item or file you can 'undo'. This will help a lot. However, one can only delete using the delete key and it is still easy to delete a whole collection instead. I for one am pretty nervous about the chance of doing it again and just relying on an undo feature.

Can you please add a right click function 'delete item'? This would be safer as you'll only be deleting the thing that you know you have clicked on and not the subdirectory. Also there should be a clearer warning and maybe a double warning if you are deleting your entire collection. Scouring the forums, I'm not the only one to experience the panic of accidentally deleting all my work. It seems to be a common experience.

The backup feature should also provide protection against this. Currently, it doesn't. If you delete your collection, it syncs to the cloud and deletes it there as well.

dstillman

Can you please add a right click function 'delete item'?

Like the trash itself, this has always existed, as long as Zotero has existed. It's "Move Item to Trash…".

An upcoming version of Zotero will allow you to restore deleted collections from the trash.

The backup feature should also provide protection against this. Currently, it doesn't.

Yes, it does. Nearly every single thread in the forums about this makes clear that you can restore from your last automatic backup. The page include specific instructions for restoring a deleted collection and overwriting synced changes:

If you're trying to restore deleted collections, you can create duplicate collections and drag items from the old collections to the new ones. When you sync, the old collections will be deleted but the new ones will remain.

rollermania2000

Thanks dstillman. Now I understand. Hopefully, others who have the same problem will see this. I just found myself trolling through forum after forum of people saying there was no way to recover deleted collections in the circumstances until you helped me.

dstillman

You should always feel free to just post here if you're ever spending more than a couple minutes looking for something, but we've shared this same link nearly every single time anyone has ever asked this question.