Folder Disappeared

wahtzee
In my library, I have multiple folders with a series of subfolders that organize documents. Recently, a main folder completely disappeared. I have no idea what happened. A few days ago I uploaded roughly 30 documents into a subfolder. Today, the main folder is gone. I have unlimited storage, so it's not an issue with whether there was sufficient space to upload and maintain the documents. Also, I didn't delete the folder or move the folder. It's just gone - and with it, hundreds of documents.

Is there a way to retrieve items that have been removed by the system? Or anything else I can do?
  • adamsmith
    are you sure the items that were in that collection aren't still in your Zotero library? I'd guess you did (accidentally) either delete the collection or move it inside a different collection. Both would preserver the items that were in that collection.
    If you actually did delete collection and item, the items would be in the Zotero trash.
  • wahtzee
    Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, however, I tried them and a few more before posting:

    - I searched for several of the documents that I had recently uploaded into the folder. None of them surfaced. So, the documents are not in the Zotero Library anymore.

    - I searched other folders to see if I had, indeed, accidentally moved the main folder into another main/subfolder. But that does not appear to have occurred.

    - It's next to impossible for me to have accidentally deleted the folder. But I did check the Trash Folder just to make sure. There was nothing in that folder either.

    - I went on-line to see if the website have the main folder and documents. But it did not.

    - I checked my other computer to see if it had the main folder and documents. But it did not. I also checked my iPad, but it did not have the folder or documents either.

    The last actions of mine were uploading about 30 documents. Requesting the App search for the metadata for the documents, which it did and loaded. I then closed my computer in sleep mode as I always do. All of that was 2 days ago. When I tried to access the folder today, there was nothing.
  • adamsmith
    and this is all on the same computer where you added the items? What's your setup there? (What browser/Zotero version)
  • ayeshamysore
    Was there a solution to this? The same thing happened to me and I had been collecting literature for my thesis for a long time.
  • adamsmith
    You'd want to start a new thread and provide as much detail as possible -- the causes (and solutions) will depend very much on the specifics.
  • LauraJames
    This has also just happened to me, my references are in utter chaos, most of them seem to be in the trash luckily, but it's going to take an age to sift through them all.
  • dstillman
    @lbrammeld: The only way for items to end up in the trash is if you deleted them. This can happen if you ran "Delete Collections and Items…" or if you deleted items from the library root thinking that those items were separate from items in collections (they're not).

    If you did this very recently, you can try restoring from the last automatic backup.
  • LauraJames
    Well, here's the weird thing-I shut Zotero, then opened it a bit later to do some more, and the folders were there-as if by magic! And, no, I'm not hallucinating from over work, they were gone. Now they're back. Odd.
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