Cloud storage syncing

luuloat
Anyone know whether there will be support for various cloud storage like google drive, skydrive or dropbox?
  • mronkko2
    I doubt that there will be any, there are good technical reasons for that. Zotero offers already its own clod storage system, and you can use webdav if your cloud service provider supports that.

    Some kind of syncing with dropbox is possible by synchronizing the Zotero storage folder, or using ZotFile. You can find more info by searching the forum (particularly search for dropbox)
  • cgraf
    CloudMe (http://www.cloudme.com/en) perfectly works for me with a 1500+ item collection of 2,7GB. They have not got the unpleasant file limit of 1000 items per directory like most other (free) WebDAV storage services. Only drawback: no secured connection to the server.
  • cgraf
    edited May 29, 2012
    Just to be fair: the provider DriveOnWeb (http://www.driveonweb.de) provides a Zotero compatible WebDAV service with 3GB free storage AND secured connection. The server are located in the EU, in Germany if this is of any interest.
  • kalilus
    edited December 15, 2012
    For google drive it is simple. Forget webdav, install google drive. And put all your files or set your pdf files/setting/anything on your google drive folder. Google drive will do the job.

    Update: okay, google drive sucked really bad. It hangs once in a while, the reason? No idea, but lots of posts suggest that google drive hangs often when the folder size goes more than a few gigabytes. Switched to skydrive. It seems more stable than google drive. I will update when I get more experience with skydrive.
  • adamsmith
    no, don't do that.
    Do _not_ put your Zotero folder into google drive, dropbox, sugarsync, etc. It's a near certain way to corrupt your database, potentially in an irreparable way.
    You can do what mronkko says and search the forum for solutions that do involve dropbox, but they're a bit more involved.
  • thharter
    To adamsmith's comment: I mostly use Google Drive as a backup. The syncing therefore only goes to the cloud and not from the cloud (at least not by my laypersons's reckoning). Under those conditions,is putting the Zotero directory into Google Drive still a bad idea?
  • adamsmith
    as a back-up solution it should be fine, if you _also_ want to use Zotero's own sync across multiple computers, you should watch for odd behavior.
  • thharter
    edited May 8, 2013
    How about this approach, at least for backup:

    http://robert.orzanna.de/2013/02/sync-your-zotero-library-with-google.html

    Or would this create the Zotero directory twice on my PC's harddrive - once in the C:\users\....\Zotero location and once in the C:\....GoogleDrive\Zotero location? If so, can I tell standalone Zotero to just live in C:\.....GoogleDrive\Zotero?
    [Note: am totally new to this WebDAV stuff]
  • adamsmith
    Zotero is intended to be used with WebDAV, so there is zero risk of any data corruption.
    We can't guarantee how smoothly the actual file syncing will go, since obviously Zotero doesn't have any control over 3rd party servers and I haven't seen enough reports - positive or negative - to say anything about the reliability of this, but it can't hurt to try.
  • apfitzg2
    edited July 10, 2014
    I attempted to use the Google Drive method, but it imported all of the PDFs into zip files. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks for any help!

    This is what I followed to sync with Google Drive: http://orschiro.blogspot.com/2013/02/sync-your-zotero-library-with-google.html

    EDIT: I feel stupid. All I had to do was change the data directory location and the base directory to the Google Drive folder on my computer. Duh! :P
  • aurimas
    Using Google drive as webdav provider is ok and it will create a bunch of zip files (that is normal behavior).

    You should _never_ place your Zotero data directory inside a third party sync folder (base directory is probably unrelated to what you want to do) and, in fact, until you undo this change we cannot provide you with any technical support. Syncing your data directory via Dropbox or Google drive is known to corrupt the Zotero database. Though, again, using these services as WebDAV providers (as described in the linked article) is ok.
  • apfitzg2
    Hmm. I was just following this guide: http://libguides.princeton.edu/content.php?pid=3536&sid=3799004. I have reverted back, though.

    If I just use WebDAV, though, will I still be able to view the PDFs using PaperShip on my iPad even though the PDFs are in zip files? That's all I really care about.
  • dstillman
    That guide doesn't tell you to set the data directory to Dropbox (or similar), and you absolutely shouldn't. It refers only to the base directory, which is something different. And if you're setting a base directory, that only applies to linked files, which don't sync via WebDAV, so using both doesn't really make sense.
  • apfitzg2
    Well, I've reverted back. I'm also using WebDAV now with Box.com. Since this creates zip files with the PDFs in them, will this still allow for the viewing of the PDFs in apps like PaperShip or ZotPad?
  • aurimas
    I know papership works with WebDAV, I'm not sure about zotpad
  • adamsmith
    zotpad works with webDAV, too. PaperShip actually _doesn't_ work with relative links synced via dropbox, so following the guide at Princeton would mean that you wouldn't be able to use that. I believe ZotPad does allow that.

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