can I move my linked attachments folder?

Rich Potter

I have over 1,000 PDFs linked to Zotero items. Those PDFs are stored in a single folder (ZOTERO PDFs) on my laptop.

I would like to move the ZOTERO PDFs folder into my Dropbox folder so that it is automatically backed up. How can I move the folder so that the links within Zotero don't break?

I'm really hoping I don't have to manually 'locate' every linked file from within Zotero...

UPDATE: The solution is to use the Zutilo plugin to modify the attachment paths (i.e., relink the attachments) as a batch. I followed the instructions here: https://darencard.net/blog/2019-09-19-zotero-file-relink/

dstillman

Note that there's no need to use Zutilo for this. You just need to have the Linked Attachment Base Directory configured correctly. You can then just move the directory and change that setting to point to the new location, and Zotero will keep using relative paths to the files.

Rich Potter

Thanks. Would that work even if I had not had the LAB Directory configured until after I had linked all the files in the folder?

In other words: After using Zutilo, I have configured the LAB Directory to point to the Zotero PDFs folder location. If I move that folder again and reset the LAB Directory to point to the new location, the files will remain linked?

dstillman

You can set the base directory at any time, and it will simply change all attachments within the directory to use relative paths instead of absolute paths. If you later point it at a different folder, it will simply look for the files at the same relative path.