Missing files after switching to WebDAV (AKA: The fool who Purged too soon)

ej_cambridge
I just switched from Zotero storage to pCloud after running out of my paid space in Zotero. I followed a couple tutorials and everything seemed to have worked properly, at first glace. However, upon closer inspection I've discovered that some of my PDF files are now missing both in Zotero and pCloud.

My first instinct is to assume I'm not going to be getting those back. After I (seemingly) successfully synced my whole library to WebDAV, I purged my Zotero account. I’m assuming that was the fatal mistake, and that the files are not recoverable, but just in case I wanted to ask if anyone knows some other way to restore them before I completely give up. Any ideas?

Some of them are available on a local backup of my library that I made before the process started because I had the “download as needed” option selected, not all of the PDFs were stored locally — didn’t realize that until it was too late. So, even if it’s not possible to restore all of them, is there an easy way to restore files from more than one local backup (because the downloaded files on my laptop and desktop might not match up completely)?

Thanks in advance for any advice! And for those reading this who are switching to WebDAV or planning to purge their Zotero storage — make sure your local backup has ALL the files downloaded before you do anything crazy :)
  • dstillman
    If you have folders in 'storage' in another copy of your Zotero data directory, you can copy those in to this data directory and they'll become available. You'd want to make sure you used a tool that merged the folders rather than simply replacing any existing folders, since the ones from the backup might be empty. rsync would do that on the command line, but various GUI tools also work that way.

    But since this just happened, we can relink the purged files if you'd like us to. It looks like that would restore the vast majority of your files.
  • ej_cambridge
    If it is possible to relink the purged files, that would be great! Otherwise I will try merging them via the command line, as you suggested.
  • dstillman
    Done.
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