Import all pdfs from a folder and subfolders

vascotenner
Currently, my papers are sorted on my hard drive in a folder structure. I want to import all my papers into zotero, and using collections with the same structure as my current tree. How can I import everything at once (importing folder by folder will take quite some time)?
  • adamsmith
    You can't, currently.
  • vascotenner
    Are there plans to add this in the near feature? Or do I have to search further to alternatives like mendeley?
  • noksagt
    I'm not sure if Mendeley can do this yet either:
    http://support.mendeley.com/customer/portal/questions/228076-can-folder-structure-be-preserved-when-importing-files-to-mendeley-desktop-

    The one-time work-around in either program of importing folders one-by-one is tedious, but seems workable for dozens (or fewer) folders.
  • adamsmith
    Mendeley has a "watch folder" function. While this won't preserve the folder structure, it will import all PDFs in those folders to Mendeley in one click (and try to import metadata automatically), so this is definitely more convenient in Mendeley, but a couple of hours on initial import is a bad reason to pick one program over the other. If you prefer Zotero otherwise, you should invest the time to import the PDF per folder.
    (Adding a watch folder isn't very hard, Dan has mentioned that Zotero will consider doing so if/when the retrieve metadata function is more reliable and less likely to lock people out of google scholar).

    That said, you can likely create a virtual folder/saved search for all PDFs in one folder and all its subfolders (how exactly depends on your OS). They would then all show up on one level and you can use "store copy of file" --> select all to get them all into Zotero at once.
  • chris.j.jacobsen
    Sure would be great to have this as a feature. I suppose I can write a little Python program to make a single directory containing symbolic links to all of the PDFs in my Papers directory...
  • aisiul
    Hello,

    It seems that nowadays there is a way to import from mendeley pdfs from folders and subfolders preserving its structure.

    This feature is a possibility for Zotero?

    Thanks!
  • dstillman
    @aisiul: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import
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