emptying trash - not responding

I'm running into 2 problems here: 1) my zotero is very slow. when I open the app, the color circle spins for 30-90 seconds before I get into a file. I read some discussions and saw that maybe I should delete my trash.

So, I went into my trash and have some 20,000 files in there ( like an idiot, didn't check it and delete often I guess). So, problem 2) I right click and try to "empty trash" and ...nothing. Each time I do it, the entire program stops responding and I need to force quit it. I again read some discussions and saw that I would need to delete in batches since there is too many files in the trash.

But.. batch deleting is also making zotero freeze up. I can only delete one file at a time by pressing delete tab on the keyboard. BUT, this goes to problem 1) again where my zotero is super slow so each delete takes 30-90 seconds and to do that for 20K files would take days? weeks?

What can I do? Should I save my actual library collections on an external and delete zotero and try again? I don't actually know how to do that. And syncing doesn't seem to be matching up from what's online and what's on my mac so I'm scared I'll lose everything if I do that.

Please help!
  • this is the report ID from the failure to sync: 428493451
  • edited March 30, 2015
    OK, first, you're running Zotero 4.0.22, which is over six months old. Upgrade to the latest version.

    Next, you don't normally need to deal with the trash manually — Zotero automatically deletes items more than 30 days old by default. But deleting is a bit slow right now, so we have it limited to deleting items in small batches when your computer is idle, and if you have a huge number of items in the trash or you don't leave your computer running and idle often, they might pile up. When we speed up trash emptying, it should be able to handle this better automatically.

    In the meantime, you can definitely delete in batches. Zotero will freeze up, but you should just let it go and not force-quit it. (If you do, the deletes will never go through.) So select 1,000 or so items when you're going to be away from your computer for a long time (e.g., overnight) and try that.
  • Dear Dan,
    Thank you! will try this. in the meantime, not sure what is going on with my syncing right now. will try re-setting that as well. I depend on zotero for all my research so I gotta figure this out!
  • not sure what is going on with my syncing right now. will try re-setting that as well.
    Not sure what you mean here, but if you mean the reset options in the Sync -> Reset pane of the Zotero preferences, don't use those. They're not meant for troubleshooting and often cause more trouble than they solve.
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