Zotero on new computer

Yukusoona
Dear forum,

I use Zotero on my home computer and on my computer at work. Both computers are connected to my Zotero account and use the sync option. I have not had any issues with the sync option yet. Now I have bought a new computer at home. So I have exported my complete data base from Zotero at my home computer to a rdf file system. I have installed Zotero on my new computer and imported the rdf file system to it. It looks perfect. But here is the problem: when I ask Zotero to log into my account and I push the sync button, Zotero would download the whole library from the Zotero cloud to my new home computer doubling every file and every folder...

What have I done wrong? Why is that so? Should not Zotero realize that my local data base is identical to the synced data base up in the Zotero cloud? After all, it is identical...

Thanks for your help!
Best regards
  • dstillman
    edited December 7, 2022
    By exporting and importing, you created an entirely separate copy of your library, which then resulted in duplicates when your existing library was pulled down. All you needed to do was set up syncing on the new computer.

    See Transferring a Library, which includes a specific warning not to use export/import for this.

    To recover from this, you can sort your library by Date Added and delete all the new items, and then delete the empty collections. (Or if you imported them all into a single top-level collection, you can right-click on that and use "Delete Collection and Items…" to delete all the imported collections and items.)
  • Yukusoona
    OK, thank you for sorting this out for me. This information was very helpful indeed. Actually, I made another big big mistake: Before I had even read your posting, I have deleted my complete library, re-imported the rdf-backup and used it to sync Zotero, thus forcing the defective "rdf-version" into the cloud...

    But owing to you posting here, I corrected my mistake: I opened my old computer (with the last correct Zotero state), deactived WIFI, opened Zotero, deactivated Auto-sync, activated WIFI and forced Zotero to upload my last local "correct" library version into the cloud.

    As far as I can see, I am back to my old Zotero state...
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