How can I move Zotero to a different folder?

philip.ohnewein
Hi,

I would like to move my entire Zotero standalone installation to a different folder. I tried doing so by simply moving the Zotero folder + all subfolders to the new location. But Zotero keeps updating the .sqlite and .sqlite-journal files at the old location.

Any idea?
Thank you very much!
Jens
  • aurimas
    Change the data directory setting under Preferences -> Advanced -> Files and Folders
  • philip.ohnewein
    aurimas, thanks for your reply.

    I am sorry I forgot to mention this, but I am afraid that's exactly what I did. If I go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Files and Folders now, it points to the new location. And I can find the .sqlite and .sqlite-journal files at the new location.
    But Windows won't let me delete the old Zotero folder, so it looks like the old files are still in use.
    I have got 1 group library, shared with other people. Is that the problem?

    Thanks again.
    Jens
  • aurimas
    No, the group library shouldn't be an issue. To relocate a library, what you're supposed to do is create a new directory on your system where you want the library to end up. Then go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Files and Folders. First, click Show Data directory to open the current location of your library. Then change the setting for your data directory to the directory you just created (it's still empty at this point). Zotero will now ask you to close/restart Zotero Standalone or Firefox and then to _manually_ copy the contents of your old data directory to the new location. After that, you should start Zotero again and everything should be in order.

    At this point, it seems that you already changed the location, but you did not properly copy over your old directory. It also seems that you still have access to the old data directory? Can you post the sizes and last modified timestamps of all zotero.sqlite (including zotero.sqlite.*.bak) files both in your old and your new data directories? I would not be trying to delete anything at this point. In fact, make backups of both directories.
  • philip.ohnewein
    aurimas, thank you for your detailed guide! It worked perfectly, everything is all right now.
    Is this documented somewhere? Sorry if you had to repeat...

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