deleting synced files on secondary machines

schmunzel
I am relatively new to zotero so I probably dont know all of its features yet. However I seem to be missing a way to reset synced files on machines I use at work - that have limited storage available - that do not necessarily have to retain a copy of all attachments.

Basically I have setup my own webdav service on my home computer using apache and an svn server and am syncing all attachments to it.

Now these attachments will hold MRI pictures and other big data files which will partly be added by the work machine and I do not have unlimited hd-space available on it.

so the issue in question would be :
is there a way to (automatically) delete attachments - say for example after a set time in which they havnt been accessed or a certain amount of file size - on a machine. Perhaps with a safeguard that makes sure that the file has been properly stored at the webdav service?

other than that - zotero rocks! :)

Stephan
  • dstillman
    Technically you can delete the local versions of files—in the 'storage' directory inside your Zotero data directory—that have been uploaded, and if you try to open them Zotero will redownload them as long as you have it set to download files as needed in the Sync pane of the prefs. But there's currently no mechanism for deleting local versions of files automatically. Something like that will likely be possible eventually.
  • damiangb
    I think I have the same issue, but many years have passed, so I post it here.

    Today I started with a setup that has
    -Zotero Portable on my pendrive, with lots of items and pdfs stored locally (my "general headquarters")
    -Zotero Portable on a private folder of a network drive at work
    -an external webDAV storage service, Box

    Everything seems to be syncing fine, but the Zotero Portable on my workplace downloads the pdfs from Box "as needed". That's awesome. But then they're stored locally on the network drive.

    On the network drive storage folder there are almost two thousand subfolders named with Zotero IDs (like RZR6MB8T). Most of them only contain a ".zotero-ft-unprocessed" file. I wonder what do I have to do to avoid the storage folder to grow too much (I've limited space). Can I just erase all the subfolders? Do I have to go inside each subfolder and delete only the pdf, if there is one inside? How do I know which ones have pdfs inside? Must I use windows search, search for ".pdf" and erase them? Is there not an automatic way to delete them on a predetermined time?

    I think you will say that I must not touch the subfolders, but that I do have to delete the pdfs and other files manually. But I thought better to ask first.

    Thanks in advance.
  • dstillman
    @damiangb: Don't touch the subfolders. It's trivial to delete the PDFs if you want to — just do a search for PDFs within the 'storage' folder using your OS file manager and delete them — but an upcoming version of Zotero will make it possible to choose how many days to keep local copies of files when using "as needed" download mode, and it will also confirm before deleting that they've been uploaded. So you may want to just wait for that.
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