Hey @bphillips79 it is a real bummer. I wish they were able to implement an undelete of a collection. I too end up using the unfiled items, but what a nightmare. Hope they can figure out a way to do it.
I followed the directions @rickus suggested, which are also in zotero documentation. The "save me" collection contained all the references in the main folder, but did not contain any of the subfolders and references within. So, unfortunately, I am still missing the bulk of the accidentally deleted references, which represent years of work pertaining to critical research and teaching projects.
I'm now concerned that I have irretrievably altered my backup file, and these reference collections are permanently lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
@rein0050: It's the exact same process to restore any collection. If you deleted the original collection and all its subcollections, you have to duplicate the entire hierarchy after restoring from the backup to preserve that after a sync.
I'm now concerned that I have irretrievably altered my backup file
Our instructions say to make a copy of the backup files. Did you do that? You should be able to tell from file timestamps when the backup files are from in order to try again. Make a backup of all the zotero.sqlite* files you see before doing anything else, and don't sync until you've actually duplicated the entire collection hierarchy you want to keep.
I want to strongly support the proposal for an undo delete collection function. Was attempting to delete a single item in the collection, but somehow the collection was deleted instead. It's really easy to mistake a selected collection for a selected file, apparently, with devastating results. This is hours before my deadline and I have to recreate the collection without missing anything?
I second this request. I had some trouble getting my collection back using backups, luckily I was able to reconstruct it more or less from memory. In general, it would be very neat if the Undo button could be relied on in more circumstances.
I'm bumping this issue again. It's so easy to accidentally delete collections. I've been using tags with the collection name to make sure I can still retrieve the structure I'm creating, but it's tedious to add items to collections and add collection names as tags as well.
Same as everyone else. We're humans and it happens. It would be great if this was addressed and Undo was functional on the desktop. If Zotero does not plan to add this feature to the desktop, kindly just state it will only ever be available on the web version. Undoubtedly, the issue is that people use their desktop Zotero because there is no storage limit, as well as it is more convenient.
Of course the functionality, once added, will be added for the Desktop -- no idea why you'd think otherwise. There's literally no Zotero functionality that's only available in the web library.
@rickus method has saved me from tipping over the edge with this after inadvertently deleting a collection this morning. There was no dialogue box asking me if I was sure... please sort this out Zotero!
@RosemaryGrady: There was absolutely a dialog box — there's literally no way for the delete code to run without going through a modal dialog box. You likely just pressed Return by accident.
Note that the official instructions to follow are here, which is what that comment was paraphrasing.
Zotero 7 will make it possible to restore a deleted collection from the trash.
Upgrade Storage
Zotero folks - Is this really so hard to implement? It's only been 5 1/2 years since this issue was raised....
I'm now concerned that I have irretrievably altered my backup file, and these reference collections are permanently lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The ability to restore collections from the trash is still planned.
Note that the official instructions to follow are here, which is what that comment was paraphrasing.
Zotero 7 will make it possible to restore a deleted collection from the trash.