Remove duplicate pdf files

cmartinache
Hello,

I've added a bunch of pdfs from various locations to Zotero. There were a lot of duplicates, so I merged them all but I realized since the access dates are different Zotero kept all the pdfs as attachments. The access date is the only difference in the files. Is there anyway to automatically delete all these unneeded attachments ?

Thanks.
  • dstillman
    Currently attachments are never merged, regardless of access date, so you'll need to clean those up manually. (We'd like to automate this, though in a lot of cases it wouldn't help, since non-OA PDFs are often watermarked each time you download them, so they wouldn't match.)
  • cmartinache
    OK thanks for the answer, I'll manage them manually then.

    It would be nice to at least have the possibility for Zotero to ask which pdf(s) we want to keep - I don't know, maybe a two-panel window where the two pdfs are shown so you can see which one you want to keep.
  • FREEZhao
    +1
  • calebvogt
    +1! Given the premium on cloud storage, accumulating tons of duplicate PDFs is not great.
  • ghiozzo
    I'm suffering from the same problem. After erroneus re-imports and merging, I'm left with tons of duplicate pdfs.
    Couldn't zotero identify such duplicate pdfs by comparing hash-values?
    I am considering writing a python script to make this job and eliminate duplicate pdfs locally on my disk, but I'm afraid that won't sync to the group library but instead re-import the missing files from there.
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