So angry to discover that Zotero now charges a fee for storage

RommiSmith · April 8, 2016

I'm angered to discover that Zotero now will charge me for using it. I looked at Mendeley and Endnote and chose Zotero because it was FREE. Now,six months into a PhD (and bibliographically invested in Zotero) with hundreds of references saved, I now receive a warning notice to say that I need to upgrade my storage and pay for it. Endnote was clear that it charged upfront - not Zotero. This is simply not on.

adamsmith · April 8, 2016

Zotero doesn't charge you for using it. Zotero charges you for storing files in the Zotero cloud (and always has). You can disable that option under Preferences --> Sync

Rintze · April 8, 2016

Have you read https://www.zotero.org/support/sync ?

Zotero's own cloud storage has been a paid solution since its introduction in 2009 (https://www.zotero.org/blog/synchronize-pdfs-and-collaborate-with-zotero/), with currently a free allotment of 300 MB. If you don't want to pay, you can either make sure you stay under the 300 MB limit, choose a free syncing solution (like WebDAV), or disable file syncing altogether.

Note that this only concerns files in your Zotero library, like PDFs ("file syncing"). Bibliographic items, which take up much less space, can always be freely synced ("data syncing").

emilianoeheyns · April 10, 2016

And Zotero even maintains a list of WebDAV providers that have been reported to work.

Not worth the hassle for me personally, so I pay Zotero. I don't mind sending $5 their way for a tool that I can't live without (and I'm an incurable packrat -- could in principle have gone with the 2GB version, but naah). Mendeley's cheapest option is also more expensive than Zotero's most expensive option short of unlimited. If you just hit 300Mb, you should be OK for a while with the 2GB option, and compared to EndNote, you'd have to be using it over 12 years before breaking even.

justinw · September 14, 2016

Also, Mendeley is completely broken at this point in terms of grabbing data from websites. I maxed out my Zotero free account a while back and wasn't able to work the same way and didn't want to pay. Mendeley promised more storage but now it provides a subpar service AND no real ability to save metadata. So I'm either going to be paying Zotero or trying to sync it to my GDrive w/ the info emilianoeheyns was so kind to post.