Feature request (Zotero iOS): File linking with Dropbox and/or local storage

dilabbiog
First and foremost, I would like to thank the developers for the incredible work they have done with Zotero. Now with a Zotero app on my iPad, this will be a real game changer for me, my work and my colleagues/collaborators.

That being said, I prefer to link my Zotero items to local files which are synced across my devices using Dropbox. For my own usage, and I imagine for others as well, it would be great to be able to link Zotero items on the iPad to files in a folder stored locally or on Dropbox (like the desktop client).

I understand the app just came out, and that this feature may already be in the pipeline, but I wanted to at least bring this point up to be sure :)

Thank you to the Zotero team again!
  • bwiernik
    iOS doesn’t provide any sort of generic linking functionality like this—apps are sandboxed to only be able to access their own files. So, this isn’t really the technically possible without specifically support every individual file syncing service. That almost certainly isn’t going to happen. The iOS supports third party syncing platforms through WebDAV, and that’s very likely to remain the only feasible option.
  • dilabbiog
    Thank you, I didn't know apps were sandboxed like this by Apple, but I guess it makes sense in terms of security. I will try the WebDAV approach. A quick search suggests that Dropbox doesn't support it, but I will see for myself.

    Nonetheless, in the Zotero app there is a local storage. For example, for files that I uploaded to Zotero, when I open the pdf from the app, it is downloaded and stored locally in some hidden directory accessible by Zotero. Can't this local storage directory be made accessible/visible through the iPad's own file manager? This must be possible because several apps that I own do allow this. If we could have access to the local Zotero folder then we can, at the very least, duplicate our cloud files to that folder using the iPad's file manager. Then the Zotero app could link to these files and open them because they are within the sandboxed environment. I don't know much about app development for iOS, so if this is all naïve, I apologize in advance.
  • AreUGroot
    +1! It is much more convenient if PDF files downloaded and stored in Zotero iOS can be accessed via Apple's File manager and further opened using external pdf editing apps on an iPad/iPhone. Is it possible to add such a feature?
  • hgvhgv
    Thanks @bwiernik for this clarification.

    My PDF collection is quite large (unnecessarily so; approaching 50 gb) and currently resides in Dropbox. Even if I did pay for enough storage with Zotero, I couldn't use my iPad, since I don't have enough storage on disk there to sync the collection. I use Dropbox's smartsync feature, downloading files only on use (in both macos and ios, with all files accessible via finder/search). This means Zotero for iPad can only be used without the PDFs for me.

    I only write this in case there are other users in this particular situation. I'd rather pay Zotero a monthly/yearly subscription fee and keep Dropbox as my main storage because of the SmartSync feature. Perhaps there are others with the same "cloud-first" approach to PDFs. I understand that creating a link to each cloud storage service is probably not within the roadmap for the Zotero ios app (Acrobat on iOS does have such a thing)—but maybe there are enough users to support such development.

    Congrats on the major milestone and thanks for the amazing PDF annotation tools (which I have been loving in MacOS with my linked PDFs).
  • dstillman
    Even if I did pay for enough storage with Zotero, I couldn't use my iPad, since I don't have enough storage on disk there to sync the collection.
    The iOS app downloads files on-demand by default, so it wouldn't use all your storage.

    Both apps will also gain the ability soon to purge local copies of files after a certain number of days when using download-on-demand mode in order to free up disk space.
  • hgvhgv
    Thanks! That's helpful.

    By "both apps" you mean the desktop (MacOS) app in addition to the iOS one? That would be great, as I also do not have enough disk space on my computer for my collection.

    I'm still not sure if I'll jump from Dropbox, as there are other benefits to syncing there (accessibility to a number of other apps/interfaces on multiple platforms); maintaining a doubled-library seems like a bad idea. I guess I have to weigh this against the amazing annotation tool you all built.

    So I suppose you can count me as a vote for adding external storage/syncing options to the long-term roadmap as well as offering nonstorage/syncing options for financially supporting Zotero!
  • jeremyvancleve
    @hgvhgv, I too have liked using Dropbox, but am in the process of moving my PDFs to Zotero storage so I can use the iOS app for reading them.

    My solution follows this comment from @dstillman:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/298783/#Comment_298783
    (details here: https://www.zotero.org/support/sync#alternative_syncing_solutions)

    Basically, you can put the "storage" folder on Dropbox and put a symlink to that folder in your Zotero folder. The thing I don't know is how Dropbox's smartsync feature will work with desktop Zotero (I don't use smartsync), but its possible this could work just fine until the desktop app does download on demand.
  • hgvhgv
    Wow, thanks so much @jeremyvancleve! If the symlink is from Zotero to Dropbox, then smartsync should work. This might pan out! (I would have to figure out how to reattach my many hundreds of PDFs—something to search for on the forums next.)

    I also looked at your previous discussions and see that basically all of my comments (preferring linked files for third-party sync, alternate forms of financially supporting Zotero) have been discussed significantly over the past year. I'm linking them here in case other new iOS users look for them:

    Alternate funding: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/92683/alternative-ways-to-for-users-to-help-fund-zotero-project
    Linked PDFs sync'd via third parties: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/88302/feature-request-ios-zotero-beta-workflow-for-pdfs-on-cloud-storage-and-linked-via-zotfile
  • jeremyvancleve
    if you need to convert linked files to stored files in Zotero storage, select the files then go to "Tools"->"Manage attachments"->"Convert linked files to stored files".

    It takes a while. I started mine yesterday on 30GB of pdfs and still not done :-)
  • hgvhgv
    Thanks!
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