Deleted collections but still over quota

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: You have reached your Zotero File Storage quota. Some files were not synced..
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Yes, you need to delete the items too ("Delete Collection and Items…"), not just the collections. The items still exist in your library root.
  • jlaurenf
    Is there a way to figure out which collection items in the root library had belonged to? Right now the items seem all items under "Library" are just alphabetized.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    You can restore from the last automatic backup and repeat the deletion.
  • jlaurenf
    Will that work even if the place I had been deleting from was through my browser? As in, I had gone to the "my library" tab on the browser, and had selected the collection I wanted to delete, then I clicked on the folder symbol with the red bar that when you hover over it says "Delete Collection." When I was doing this, my standalone version of Zotero on my computer was automatically synced.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Yes.
  • jlaurenf
    I think I understand. For Step 5 in the link that you sent, do I want to do the second option of "If many items were affected or collections were deleted, you can use Restore to Online Library to force Zotero to upload the local version of the library, overwriting previously synced changes." ?
    In other words, if I do this step, does that mean that the library shown on by browser window will then reflect what my backup library used to be? (ie, what is shown on my standalone version on my computer)?
    Thanks very much for all your help!
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    No, you don't need to worry about that part. Just restore from the backup, do "Delete Collection and Items…" as necessary, and sync. And I would sync before emptying your trash.
  • jlaurenf
    I am not sure I understand. I think I have 2 main questions:

    1) Do you mean after I restore from backup, I do "Delete Collection and Items" from the standalone zotero on my computer?
    2) And if so, whenever I had done that previously and synced, the online zotero library accessed on my browser hadn't reflected those changes. Meaning, that if I had deleted something from my standalone library on my computer (and was using automatic syncing), when I went to my browser and looked at the zotero library, those things weren't shown as being deleted there online. This led me to believe that this process of deleting from my computer standalone version was not having any impact on my storage space, and to actually have an impact on my storage space, I would have to delete items from my browser in my online library - is this assumption correct?

    Thanks very much
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    You're going to have to trust me on this — just try what I'm suggesting. If something doesn't work after that, we can debug it further from there.
  • jlaurenf
    I am trying to understand more clearly what you're suggesting so that I can try it. Do you mean after I restore from backup, I do "Delete Collection and Items" from the standalone zotero on my computer?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Yes. That's the reason you're restoring from the backup — so that you can do the deletion properly. (And that option doesn't exist in the web library.)
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    (You can pretty much always assume that discussions/instructions here pertain to the Zotero application, unless they're very clearly referring to the web library. The application is the primary way of working in Zotero.)
  • jlaurenf
    Oh ok thank you very much for this information. I tried what you suggested, and when I checked the web, it seemed like the online version had the items I had clicked "Delete Collections and Items" for in the trash. So then I deleted them from the trash online, and my amount of storage space went up.

    Question - Whenever you press "sync" on the application, does it basically sync to whatever the latest change was (application vs online)? For example, if the latest change I'd made was online, and I pressed "sync" on the application, the application would sync to the version online, and reflect what changes were made in the online version? But if the latest change I made was in the application and I pressed "sync" in the application, the online version would instead be updated with whatever change I'd made in the application?

    Thanks very much for your help
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    "Delete Collections and Items" only moves items to the trash. So emptying the trash in the Zotero application would've been equivalent.
    Whenever you press "sync" on the application, does it basically sync to whatever the latest change was (application vs online)?
    No, not at all. It applies any unsynced changes in both directions. Unless something goes wrong, you don't really need to think about it — if you make a change somewhere, that change will be synced everywhere.

    The one exception is if you make a conflicting change on both sides between syncs — say, if auto-sync is turned off, or you were offline, and you edit the same field of the same item on both sides before syncing — it will ask you which version to keep.
  • jlaurenf
    Thanks very much for this information. This is all very helpful to understanding Zotero better.

    A couple other questions: For the "zotero.sqlite.bak" files that were on my computer, how far back does it keep those? There were 3 on my computer when I looked earlier (one timestamped in January, and two from tonight). Will there always be 3 of these files from 3 previous time periods? (meaning it automatically deletes or replaces ones from before so that there's just 3 of the latest?) And if so, for those copies of the "zotero.sqlite.bak" files that the instructions had me create (in the link you sent), will it do anything to those copies? (or will they always be there)?

    Thanks again very much!
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    It keeps 2 backups by default (zotero.sqlite.bak and zotero.sqlite.1.bak), going back a couple days. There might also be a backup with a much higher number from the last time Zotero performed a major upgrade to the database.

    You can delete any other copies that you made.

    And it's of course still a good idea to make your own regular, automated backups of your entire Zotero data directory or, ideally, your entire computer (e.g., using the built-in Time Machine on a Mac).
  • jlaurenf
    Got it, makes sense. Thanks very much for all of this information!

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