find storage space used by each element

Hello, is it possible to know, for each element, how much storage space it uses?
I have exceeded basic cluod storage space. I would like to understand if what I have stored in excess is really necessary. Many thanks, Roberto
  • Not built in. You can run a disk space analyzer (built-into all major OS) on the storage directory and look at the largest attachments. If you want to connect an attachment to an item in Zotero, search for the 8 character number/letter folder name it is in in Zotero in "All fields and tags" mode.
  • It's a pity, no one ever had to verify if one or more elements used the storage space unnecessarily?
  • It comes up, but fairly rarely (most people just don't have time to deal with the space taken up by individual docs; either you want your docs synced and pay/use webDAV or you don't, and then you just disable sync) and for those cases there's a perfectly usable workaround as per above. Not saying this wouldn't be nice, but I doubt it's at all a priority given that.
  • edited July 14, 2018
    But still, the method adamsmith mentioned is not hard. For example, on a Mac, just type this in a terminal:

    du -h -d 1 ~/Zotero/storage | sort -h -r

    you may need to change the storage folder (~/Zotero/storage) to what your storage folder is.

    and you'll get a list that starts like this:

    4.5G /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage
    77M /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage/V7HF56CX
    60M /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage/53ZJIJU6
    50M /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage/KK9CT29C
    35M /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage/G2C722VR
    32M /Users/myusername/Zotero/storage/UDI2QTJI
    ...

    and there you have the items taking up the largest space.

    Then, go to your Zotero app, change the search option to "All Fields & tags" in the search bar, and paste the eight-character string (e.g., V7HF56CX) from that list. There is your biggest offender. In my case, the 77 MB folder contains a pdf for an entire book!

    On linux, the command will be similar.
    (Not tested, but something like this,
    du -h --max-depth=1 ~/Zotero/storage | sort -h -r )

    On Windows, I have no idea since I don't use it, but you get my point.
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