Disable warning of missing files

rohrkemper
I have many PDFs that I loaded about 10 years ago. Those PDFs have since been lost. I would like to keep the items in Zotero but disable the warning below. Is there an easy way to do this? Essentially, I would like to remove the attachments (which are anyways missing) and keep the items. Then the small blue circle which indicates an attachment should also disappear.

Error upon double-click:

The attached file could not be found.

It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or, if the file was added on another computer, it may not yet have been synced to zotero.org.
  • adamsmith
    You can individually delete the files by selecting them and pressing delete or right-click --> move item to trash.

    To select many, you could set up a Saved Search via Advanced search with something like "Attachment Content Type --- is --- PDF" and Date Added -- is -- before
  • rohrkemper
    Thanks but could I still keep the items and just delete the attachments? How would I do this?
  • adamsmith
    right, that's what I'm referring to. The attachments are listed in Zotero (you can click on the triangle to the left of the item in Zotero to see them and the advanced search will automatically expand them). You can then just delete the attachment as described above.

    If that doesn't help, I may not be understanding what you're trying to do.
  • dstillman
    (And to clarify, Select All in a search will select only the items that match — in this case the child items.)
  • rohrkemper
    I guess I just need to expand the items and delete the PDFs inside?

    Sometimes I have only the PDF but the name of the PDF is enough to help me figure out the exact reference. Can I keep this somehow also and eliminate the broken links?
  • bwiernik
    Yes, just delete the PDFs inside. The Advanced Search that adamsmith mentions lets you do this all at once. For standalone PDFs, I'd recommend using the Create Parent Item function in the right-click menu to make a proper Zotero item with the title, then delete the missing PDF attachment inside.
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