How to update all BibTex citation keys at once?

anguyen1210
I'm new to BibTex and just installed the BBT add-in to my Zotero.

When it installed, it automatically generated keys for all the entries in my libraries according to the default.

I've since changed the citation format, and all new references I've added have this new, different format.

Is there a way for me to automatically update all of the old keys to the format I have now?

Thanks for any help!
  • emilianoeheyns
    Select all, right-click, BBT->Refresh
  • anguyen1210
    Couldn't select the entire library all at once, but I def. got it to work selecting all within the different folders. Still a great help. Thanks!
  • emilianoeheyns
    Why can't you select the entire library? If you go to the root of your lib, all your items should be there.
  • anguyen1210
    ahhhh, got it. Thanks!
  • emilianoeheyns
    You're welcome.
  • thistlillo
    Hello, I have the same problem as the OP.

    Where do I find BBT -> Refresh?

    Using BBT 6.7.42 in Zotero 6.0.18 on Windows.
  • emilianoeheyns
    Select, right click, better bibtex, refresh
  • jeapordy
    When I do this to all my items zotero becomes unresponsive for such a long time I gave up because it seems completely frozen.
  • adamsmith
    meaning how long? Typically it's worth letting Zotero run for a while on large bulk operations
  • emilianoeheyns
    How many items are we talking about here? I could yield to the UI more often for bulk updates. But if you want help with BBT, I'd strongly prefer it if you could open an issue for it on github. All of my support infra is built around it.
  • cluzetb
    I ran into the same error today (~1400 bib entries). Closing Zotero, deleting better-bibtex.sqlite and better-bibtex-search.sqlite in the Zotero/ folder did the trick. On zotero reopening, the citation keys were automatically re-generated.
  • emilianoeheyns
    That will also delete any auto-exports you would have had. Support happens on github. 1400 items isn't really a large database.
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