adamsmith, thank you for your first response, and also your first comment. In my fear of losing the collection I had forgotten that I would not have lost the materials in them, that they would still be in my library. Thanks for the idea of option 1, despite the tediousness of it computer A has the most updated information, all computer B has is the lost collection and sub-collections. Usually I am good about keeping the two computers synced, but this was a busy semester and I fell behind (a good reminder to keep it up!).

I will let you know if I have any questions about generating reports, etc.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

A simple undo function would be a lot more convenient, though. I've lost hour trying to recover accidentally deleted collections...

I've just had this problem too. I geniunely cannot believe how silly this is. You have the ability for a recycle bin but if you accidently delete your collection EVERYTHING is gone. I've tried restoring i've tried getting the data back but it's no use. Everything is gone... I'm not happy.

I agree that an "undo" option would prevent a lot of frustration...

Agreed that an undo/restore option for collections needs to be added. I just had a glitch where a heap of my collections and subcollections appeared to have duplicated. I deleted a bunch of the duplicates, and it was playing up weirdly so I reopened the program. Upon reopening it I discovered that heaps of collections and subcollections are gone (so presumably they never duplicated in the first place but just showed up as if they were). If there was a redo button it wouldn't matter, but since there isn't I have to hope I can restore some of the collections from another computer.

Hi there, I've been using Zotero heavily for the past 4-years and it is just in the last 12-months that I've had the problem of missing collections. This has happened numerous times in the last year. But never before. It seems that something has changed that has made it way too easy to delete collections automatically. And like the above comments there is no easy way to get it back. I have thousands of entries and hundreds of sub-folders across my collections. The advice to rebuild manually is outrageous coming from Zotero staff. It's impossible to stay on top of every entry in every folder and sub-folder. Rebuilding is impossible. Thankfully I've been able to catch the fact that a folder is missing early enough to find it on my laptop. What I do is simply rename the master folder and for good measure I move it to another location in my tree and then sync my laptop and it then gets back up onto to the server.

But honestly, must users have to endure constant heart attacks on behalf of a vital piece of software?

We absolutely need a double-verify on the delete collection process. I agree a simple checkbox to go with the delete button would save many. This is a real serious problem.

It's become such a problem I dread every time I go into Zotero to snap entries or even to access my file articles.

Please help protect collections from accidental deletion.

Thanks

b...

Hey dstillman, thanks for the reply. I believe you had helped me 9-10 months ago when the problem first cropped up. The automatic backups didn't do the trick. But as mentioned above, so far I've been lucky to find the missing collections on my laptop before it synched. I wish I could say what the problem is. I am an expert computer user and file management nut case ;) Plus I'm very attentive to troubleshooting. as mentioned it's now happened 10 or 12 times. I believe it started with Zotero 5.0.

The only thing I can think of is that the problem may lie somewhere in the create a new collection/subcollection process. I will right click to create a new sub-collection.

I will start to type the name in and hit enter (without looking as I am looking at the keyboard) and then look back at Zotero and realize the new folder box is still there with "untitled" highlighted and the new name was not entered into the new folder dialogue box.

So, this may mean that while the keyboard should be entering into the highlighted new collection/sub-collection name field the keyboard strokes are somehow deleting the last collection I had been working on. Maybe when I hit enter thinking it is "naming" and then "creating" the new collection, it is deleting the collection I was last on when I hit enter to create the new collection name.

I can report that this collection/sub-collection naming issue has happened during every occurrence of collections going missing, since Zotero 5. It always happens when I am in deep organizing with Zotero which always necessitates creating new folders. I'd take a look into that. The bug might be in there.

Ensuring that when a new collection/sub-collection is being created and the "untitled" is highlighted that indeed when the keyboard is used at that moment that it is entering into the naming filed of the new sub-collection field.

I think that's where the problem is happening to me. It's not every time. It's intermittent the creating of a new sub-collection problem. What I can also report is in this process when I think I am typing in the new name into the folder and then hit enter, maybe that enter is triggering the delete. But there is no standard prompt that you regularly get with delete. So this could be why the collection seems to disappear with no conscious action on my part to approve the deleting.

Hope that helps. Otherwise, I can report no other bugs, or weird action of the client.

P.S. I am using desktop, mac, 5.0.59

@shakyegg: The keyboard input issue when creating a new collection should be fixed in the latest Zotero beta.

Hi dstillman, excellent to hear that "there can be keyboard input before the collection-name prompt appears is certainly a bug" wound its way to view and is slated for a fix. That's awesome you found that.

I think the keyboard input issue is certainly part of it. But like you I am stymied on this troubleshoot.

I believe I am confident that I've tracked down one issue problem of why at times I can call up the new-collection prompt and not have the keyboard input go in. It's a function of mac OS with the second monitor.

I have Zotero on my second monitor. So if I have an app active on my main monitor i.e. Outlook and I take my mouse pointer over to the second monitor, hover over a collection and right-click on a collection to create a new collection the new collection prompt will pop up.

However, if I had NOT clicked first on the Zotero app to activate it, then the keyboard input does not go into the field. So you can hover over Zotero and interact with it on right-click, but the focus of input is not yet on the Zotero app.

So this obviously has no impact on the delete issue because keyboard strokes are not being recognized by Zotero.

This leaves me to believe that the problem could be going the other way. Since inevitably, the missing collections are always one of the ones that I had been interacting with in the most recent session, perhaps when I go back to my main monitor at some point, the Zotero app is still accepting keyboard input and I activate a delete while thinking I am working in Outlook. Could be as I usually am going back to Outlook to delete whatever email I had sent myself with the link I needed to snap into Zotero. Still though, I would be sure to have noticed that input I was entering on the main monitor app was not happening.

I would also notice if a delete prompt was popping up on Zotero on my second monitor (while working on the main). There's no way I could miss that.

Like I said I'm stymied on this troubleshoot.

Undo collection delete would be amazing

Just as good or in conjunction would be perhaps making "cancel" the default on the delete collection prompt as opposed to "delete" being the default. Or not allowing the enter-key to execute a delete and make it a mouse click on the delete button.

If this last suggestion was implemented it would allow a proper troubleshoot to happen. Since, if collections still get deleted mysteriously after removing the default enter-key to execute a delete, then we'd know that there is another pernicious bug somewhere.

Thanks for working on this. I simply love Zotero and you folks for making it happen.

Cheers

b....

Dear Zotero, please, please fix the problem that a collection can be easily deleted. Our important work is saved in these collections and I can't believe I just accidentially deleted a collection. Please, please change this.

I have just experienced this issue. I attempted to delete a single item, and did not notice the collection itself was actually selected, since the dialogue boxes are practically identical and I'm frequently deleting items.

Now zotero is advising the only solution is to chase down sqlite files and "hack" them back in?

How is there not just a simple Undo function for such an easy mistake?

A thread that goes back some years and it is still relevant today (2020-March 19). I pressed the DEL button, and accidently deleted a collection rather than a single entry. As others have noted there is nothing in trash, CTRL Z does not work etc.

For the first time, there was NO dialog, "do you want to etc." it just suddenly deleted. Up to now this had worked flawlessly, so I cannot really repeat this. Nor was Zotero busy, it seems to me, doing much. All I can say is the that little dialog box on deleting a collection simply never appeared......

Maybe thanks for the reply, as you say I must have accidentally pressed return, it is beside delete on my keyboard. I think I'll stick to the mouse in future.

I always make a daily local back up of Zotero and had just done so, so nothing was lost, just a little heart attack :-) The instructions to restore a Zotero library from a local backup are pretty clear...https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data

We're working on undo functionality for collection deletions, which should be available soon.

@dstillman, any progress with undo delete collection? Or somehow deleted collections appearing in the trash?

Here it is May 2021, and we still can't restore accidentally deleted collection labels. I did the method @rickus suggested, which worked. Unfortunately, I had saved sources that weren't in the backup (too new I suppose). Fortunately, they were in the "unfiled items" and I just added them back to the "new" collection.