Mac saving all script files and photos from webpage

saki1512
We are using Zotero in a project with our students for the fifth year in a row. For the first time our students using Mac are having issues with numerous script files and photos (it looks like it's all files connected to the web page they have saved) being stored under "all files" every time they save a source. It's about 20 files per source, which means that their Macbooks are being filled with an enormous amount of files they don't need.
Does anyone have an idea of why this happens and how we can avoid it? It may look like it's connected to the browser extension button. Is there a setting in the new version (they all have the latest version) where we can turn this off?
  • bwiernik
    These are the files normally saved when a webpage snapshot is saved when importing an item. This has always been the case when the option to save snapshots is enabled. What has changed in Zotero 5 is that the location for the Zotero profile directory on the computer has been moved to ~/Zotero by default, which (among other things) makes Zotero attachment files indexed by Spotlight (and lets them show up in All My Files).

    You can disable snapshot saving in the General pane of Zotero preferences. If you want to save snapshots, but don't want any Zotero files to show up in All My Files or to be indexed by Spotlight, you can add ~/Zotero to Spotlight's Privacy list in System Preferences.
  • saki1512
    Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thank you!
  • RintzeRintze
    I'd like to lobby again for disabling snapshot-saving by default.

    Whenever I start using a fresh installation of Zotero, disabling snapshots is the first thing I do. I understand snapshots can be a handy feature, but I find it rather useless in the case of scientific literature, where I always greatly prefer to just have the PDF.
  • dstillman
    I think the solution here will be 1) saving simplified snapshots by default and 2) greatly reducing the number of translators that save snapshots. So you'd get the benefits of snapshots (better searching, a copy of the content as you saw it) where important, but not for pages that didn't provide much value, and "All My Files" would then show a single nicely named HTML file for each newly added file.
  • bwiernik
    My husband tells me that it's rather common for some biochemistry and biophysics journals to have different information in the HTML version of an article than in the PDF version, so he prefers having both the snapshot and PDF saved. So hopefully any solution that reduces the number of translators saving snapshots has some flexibility regarding manually enabling snapshot saving.
  • dstillman
    Right, I mean, I assume we have reasons for most of the snapshots we're saving now, but we should just make sure we're not saving some out of habit. In any case, 1 may reduce the need for 2.
  • RintzeRintze
    My husband tells me that it's rather common for some biochemistry and biophysics journals to have different information in the HTML version of an article than in the PDF version, so he prefers having both the snapshot and PDF saved.
    Can you give an example? In my field of biology, if I can get the PDF, I've never found a use for the snapshot. And the main reason I wouldn't get the PDF is that the article is paywalled, in which case a snapshot would be useless as well.
  • bwiernik
    I’ll ask him.
  • adamsmith
    But to Dan's point, there are definitely too many translators that are saving snapshots and we should look at that behavior more purposefully rather than default to it.
  • dstillman
    "All My Files" was removed in High Sierra. More details: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/304978/#Comment_304978
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