group library database storage size

lmccauley32
I have a group library with about 13,000 records, a lot of them with attachments. We pay for unlimited zotero storage so that users are able to access all of the attachments. However, when users are joining the group library and syncing to it, the zotero data directory is taking up greater than 30 GB of storage on their hard drives. Is there any way to prevent this from taking up so much space? Are all the attachments syncing to each user's hard drive? I would expect that it would take up space on my hard drive as the owner but not for every user. Is there any way to limit the amount of storage that is being taken up on each user's hard drive?
  • bwiernik
    In the preferences for the Zotero client, on the Sync page, change the setting for downloading Group library attachments to "As Needed". This way, attachment files will only be downloaded when the user tries to open them, which should substantially reduce the space used on local hard drives.
  • dstillman
    Unfortunately, though, Zotero doesn't currently provide a way to remove files that have already been downloaded, so after changing that setting they'd have to make sure everything they added had been uploaded and then manually delete the contents of 'storage' within the Zotero data directory. Note that that would clear local files from their personal libraries too. Probably a good idea to back up those files for a while just to make sure everything was indeed on the server.

    In the future we'll hopefully offer better ways to control the locally cached files when using download-as-needed mode.
  • lmccauley32
    Thanks guys! That worked and since the user didn't actually have anything in their "My Library" yet, I was able to tell him to just delete the entire storage folder and re-sync after that setting was changed. It synced much faster and is now taking up much less hard drive space on the computer. Now I know to tell future users to do the same things if they are limited on hard drive space.
  • tstuurman
    How many users can access one library? E.g. I will be the main users and will create a group for other users to access the library on Zotero. But i need to know if there are a limit for adding users to a group to access the library on Zotero.

    Hope to hear from you
  • adamsmith
    While it gets a bit hard to work together with too many people with edit access to groups, there is no limit on the number of group members and I know of groups with over 100 members.
  • tstuurman
    Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it.
    I doubt they will edit at the same time a document, but then again you never know.
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