How do I reduce the amount of memory used on my Mac?

lmacleod

Dear Zotero Community,

I have Zotero synched on my office and home computers. My home mac is a few years old and I've received warnings that the machine is running out of memory. I think that part of the problem is that I didn't know that until a day or two ago that I could use the synch features to reduce the number of files downloaded locally. Right now all my notes, zot annotations, pdfs, etc. are stored both locally and in the online version of Zotero.

The memory issue pops up only when I need to update my mac operating system. I am using macOS Cataline (10.15.7) on a MacBook Air 26.37 GB available of 121.12 GB. I have been unable to upgrade the operating system due to not enough available memory.

I assume my zotero related files are taking up the bulk of the 49.17 GB of "other" in memory - this is the largest category on my memory by far taking up close to 5x more memory than any other category. Documents compose 5.51 GB of memory thanks to boxdrive. Apps and music are about 10 gb each.

How do I eliminate the local copies of files that are not being used for current research projects but retain them for future reference in my Zotero storage account? Also, it would be fine to not have pdfs and notes saved locally so long as I can access them as needed with relative ease (i.e., a setup similar to boxdrive).

Thank you,
LM

emilianoeheyns

Is "out of memory" the literal message you see? In the context of computers, memory usually means RAM, not storage.

lmacleod

The exact message is "Installation failed." "An error occurred when installing the selected updates." I was trying to run the software update to macOS Big Sur from macOS Catalina.

I tried downloading a second time just to be sure that I didn't miss anything. This time I got further in the process. At the screen where I accept the licensing agreement and select where to install. I select my computer's hard drive and get the message "There is not enough free space on the selected volume to upgrade OS. An additional 19.34 GB is required. After downloading the update to prepare for installation, my available memory is 16.04 GB."

LM

dstillman

OK, so you're talking about storage (i.e., disk space), not memory. Memory is something else. (This is a common mistake.)

You can check how much disk space Zotero is taking up by going to the Zotero data directory in Finder and doing a File → Get Info on the folder itself and the 'storage' folder within it. Let us know what the numbers are. Based on your online storage usage, this is likely to only be a few gigabytes.

To clear space, you can 1) go to the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences and change it to download files "as needed" and 2) do a search for PDFs within the Zotero data directory and delete them. (Don't delete attachments in Zotero or the 'storage' subfolders themselves, just the PDF files on disk.)

For good measure, before deleting anything I would make sure you have file syncing enabled in the Sync preferences, go to the Sync → Reset pane and do Reset File Sync History (not any other options!) for all your libraries, and then sync once to make sure any local files have been uploaded.

An upcoming version of Zotero will let you control how long Zotero should keep local copies of files that have been uploaded to the online library in order to save disk space, but for now deleting downloaded files manually (on disk, not in Zotero!) would be the only option.

But again, it's very unlikely that you're going to free anywhere close to 19 GB this way. It may be a start, though.

lmacleod

Thank you for the detailed instructions and patience.

The storage folder within the Zotero folder size is 3,141,479,193 bytes (3.26 GB on disk) for 23,733 items.

I adjusted the sync settings yesterday.

My current sync settings (on Zotero desktop - home computer) are: Data Synching --> Sync Automatically and Sync full-text Content; and File Synching --> Sync attachments files in my library using Zotero; Download files as needed; and Syncattachment files in group libraries using Zotero storage and Download files as needed.

I followed your instructions for reset and it made no difference to the size of the storage folder.

I have not deleted anything.

I'm going to check how Outlook and Endnote are using space on the hard drive as a next step.

Thank you again,

LM

dstillman

Yeah, so it's just a few GB — and some of that is your database (zotero.sqlite), which you can't delete. So you can clear up some space, but not a lot.

(I didn't say Reset File Sync History would make any difference in the size of the folder. It wouldn't.)

lmacleod

Thank you. Yes - I understood that the rest file sync history would not make a difference on folder size.

I've been in touch with Evernote and they have received complaints that their app is taking up large chunks of space on mac and windows environments. They apologize and hope to remedy the problem with a future update. I tell you this as I suspect many Zotero users might also use this app. I began using them at about the same time so it was hard to attribute changes to one or the other. I hope this info is helpful.

Thank you again for your quick and detailed responses to my questions.

LM