Upgrade StorageQuestion about Synching
I am posing this question on behalf of one of our conservators who has Zotero PaperShip on her iPad and may or may not have downloaded the Standalone at some point on a laptop. She has now installed Zotero on her work PC and has signed in with her Zotero account. She has paid for additional file storage on the Zotero cloud.
I recommended moving the Zotero data directory to our networked individual drive so that it would be backed up every night by our IT dept. We did, but then became unsure what to do when we got the message asking us about synching to an empty directory and losing existing files, etc. We hit cancel and stopped the synching at that point. So her Zotero standalone library on her workstation is currently empty like a new installation would be.
We are worried that if we synch, because we may have not changed the directory properly, an empty Zotero directory will override the conservator's Zotero library (data and files) on the cloud. Please advise.
I recommended moving the Zotero data directory to our networked individual drive so that it would be backed up every night by our IT dept. We did, but then became unsure what to do when we got the message asking us about synching to an empty directory and losing existing files, etc. We hit cancel and stopped the synching at that point. So her Zotero standalone library on her workstation is currently empty like a new installation would be.
We are worried that if we synch, because we may have not changed the directory properly, an empty Zotero directory will override the conservator's Zotero library (data and files) on the cloud. Please advise.
Does it matter if she has Zotero files saved locally on other machines, e.g. home laptop?
It doesn't matter either way, but for what it's worth, I believe you'd only get this message if you 1) set up a syncing in one data directory and then 2) either moved the original data directory or pointed Zotero elsewhere without properly moving the database (even if it was ostensibly empty). When you just set up syncing in a new data directory, you don't get this message.
(Sorry I'm having this conversation with you on two separate threads.)
For my own instructional purposes as a librarian, after staff install the client, I've been telling them to 1) set-up syncing (Edit>Preferences>Sync) and then 2) change their Zotero Data Directory via Advanced → Files and Folders >Data Directory Location>Choose button. This is for staff who have don't already have local Zotero files; for those that do we have another method.
Given your above instructions about the message we've been getting should I reverse steps 2 and 1 - i.e. change the Zotero Data Directory first and then synch?
When you choose a data directory in the preferences, Zotero closes down and gives you the chance to move the old files to the new location. But for a new computer where it's just an empty data directory anyway, it's probably easier to tell them to choose the new location, delete the old data directory (to avoid later confusion), and then set up syncing once they're using the new data directory.
(In a future version we might be able to have Zotero try to move the data directory for you when you change the location in the prefs, which would avoid this sort of issue.)
The conservator confirmed she does also have the client installed on her home laptop. She will not need to move/change the data directory at home. Since she's paid for file storage on the Zotero cloud I gather she can set-up her sync settings at home in the Preferences tab to include both file and data syncing without fear of losing any local data? And presumably, she should be able to see all her attached files on any client?