comparing items between libaries

merleschene
While in and excluding my search, i lost 4 items. I have a back up folder with all my articles and i have a folder with all in- and excluded articles. These folders differ in number (the first 4 more than the second), but I cannot seem to find a way to figure out whitch articles are missing in the second folder. I already tried a lot, but i'm running out of ideas. Can someone please help me??
  • adamsmith
    sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "lost" -- Zotero doesn't just lose items -- and when that happens. Could you try to explain a bit more?
    The concept of "in and excluded" articles would seem to be a way you think about your literature, not a Zotero functionality, so you'd have to say what you mean by that.
    Best suggestion I can give for comparing would be to sort by author, then date, in the middle column.

    Note that the number of items displayed may also depend on whether you have items expanded or not.
  • merleschene
    I'm sorry i realize i was not clear. What i meant was that i now have two different folders. With exactly the same articles in it, except for four, that are missing in one. So the articles are not lost, im just not sure which four articles are missing in one of the folders. The difference is 1224 to 1220. So it is difficult to see right away. How I came to these two folders is not really important. It is important to me to find out which articles are missing, without having to compare all 1220 articles in the two folders, because that would take a very long time.
    1 It does not work to try to get them into one folder, and then just figure out the four articles that are not duplicate, because zotero doesnot copy duplicates from folder to folder.
    2 It also did not work to put the two folders together, and then fiquere out the 4 that were added, because Zotero doesnot seem to be able sort the articles based on 'most recently added to the folder'.

    Do you maybe have any idea how to find out which articles are missing from teh second folder?
  • merleschene
    it does not depend on expansion of items
  • adamsmith
    The way Zotero's collection (not folder!) model works, these are likely the same items, just in multiple collections. To find the items that are in Collection A but not in collection B, do an advanced search (magnifying glass) for

    Match all

    Collection -- is -- Collection A
    Collection -- is not -- Collection B

    You may want to read up on the way Zotero collections are designed to avoid confusion as you organize your items:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#the_zotero_collections_model
  • merleschene
    It worked! Thank you so much! I will
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