Syncing linked attachments

srp152
Hi! I'm new to Zotero, and I'm wanting to use Zotfile to automatically sync my attachments/pdfs with Google drive. I've read the documentation and watched several youtube tutorials and am still getting a bit confused -- would anyone be able to take a look at the preferences in the desktop app that I've selected and let me know if this looks right? I *think* it's working now, but it was working before in most cases (though sometimes was still storing an attachment in Zotero itself vs. google drive, so I have been trying to figure out what I'd done wrong....).

ZOTFILE PREFERENCES
-'Source folder for attaching new files' set to my desktop downloads folder
-'Custom location' for 'location of files' set to a folder within my google drive

ZOTERO PREFERENCES
-'Data syncing' - 'sync automatically' is checked (and I am signed into my Zotero account); 'sync full-text content' is NOT checked (though I don't fully understand what that option is about!)
-'File syncing' - 'sync attachment files in my library using [Zotero]' is NOT checked'; 'Sync attachment files in group libraries using Zotero storage' is NOT checked


Any advice would be much appreciated!
  • adamsmith
    Mostly looks good.
    Two settings I'd recommend changing:

    1. Do re-enable full-text content syncing. That doesn't cost you anything and ensures that full text search works correctly on all synced machines (it syncs the index of attached files, not the files themselves)
    2. You'd typically want to enable file syncing for groups, since those don't allow linked files (and ZotFile doesn't do anything for groups), so that's the only way you're going to get group files synced.


    Three reasons you may be seeing files in Zotero's storage folder:
    1. ZotFile only moves PDFs; snapshots (html) as well the placeholders for indexing (see above) remain in the Zotero folder
    2. Group files aren't moved by ZotFile
    3. Most importantly ZotFile doesn't automatically move PDFs when the PDF is added to Zotero as a top level file (either by dragging it to Zotero or clicking the PDF icon in your browser when it's displaying a PDF) and metadata is extracted either manually or automatically. You have to use Manage Attachments --> Rename attachments to move those manually.
  • srp152
    This is super helpful -- thank you so much! #3 is exactly what was happening, so it all makes sense now. :)
  • dummifiedme
    @adamsmith sorry to bother you.
    Are these settings required for reading on iPad?
    How to sync into the iOS app without webDAV or official sync.
  • adamsmith
    No linked attachments on the iPad app -- it's either webDAV or Zotero storage and that's highly unlikely to change
  • dummifiedme
    Okay, I got it working using webDAV.
    Thanks :)
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