Importing from Mendeley

cristyne_hebert
Hi there,
I'd like to make the switch from Mendeley to Zotero. I've been using Mendeley for over 10 years, and have tons of documents and references in folders that I'd like imported into Zotero. Zotero has imported all of the folders (great!) but most of the files and citations within them are missing. Any suggestions?
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  • dstillman
    Do you see the items in those collections in your online Mendeley library?
  • cristyne_hebert
    Yes - they all show up in my online Mendeley library.
  • dstillman
    Do you see the items in the library root in Zotero? In other words, are they not in the collections or did they not get imported at all?

    Try the import again, and in case it doesn't work generate a Debug ID for the process and submit that if you're still missing things.
  • cristyne_hebert
    I'm not sure what that means. In one folder, for example, five entries appear in my Zotero folder of the same name. In Mendeley there are hundreds.
  • dstillman
    I'm saying to click on My Library and see whether they items are in the library, whether or not they're in the collections.

    https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#the_zotero_collections_model
  • cristyne_hebert
    Gotcha. It's not there.
  • dstillman
    OK, try the import again and generate a Debug ID.

    How many total items are in your Mendeley library online?
  • dstillman
    (And you should leave "Download new items only; don't update previously imported items" enabled when repeating the import.)
  • cristyne_hebert
    Not sure - where do I find that info? And yes.
  • dstillman
    edited February 14, 2023
    The number of items, you mean? I can't help with Mendeley, but, I don't know — select all items and see if it tells you how many there are. Zotero tells you in the right-hand pane when you click on the library.
  • cristyne_hebert
    I am referring to your question about how many items are in my Mendeley library. Where do I find that information?
  • dstillman
    See above.
  • cristyne_hebert
    Ah great. 3686 in Mendeley. 2643 in Zotero.
  • jameschudspeth
    I am having the same issue. 179 imported in Zotero, out of ~1800 in Mendeley. Folders ported over fine. I tried running import again with the "download new items" checked, and it only carried over 1 additional item.
  • dstillman
    @jameschudspeth: Can you provide a Debug ID for an import attempt that doesn't download any additional items, with "Download new items only" checked?
  • dstillman
    @cristyne_hebert: We also would still need a Debug ID from you to help.
  • jameschudspeth
    Yes, here you go: Debug ID is D1454364666
    (imported 1 item)
  • tnajdek
    Thanks for the debug log, this is helpful and we're going to look into it. I'll post again once we have a fix (or if we need more details)
  • dstillman
    @jameschudspeth: Can you install the Zotero beta and see if that fixes the issue for you? After the import, you can reinstall the regular version from the download page.
  • cristyne_hebert
    Sure. ID is D1156906858. It is reporting that files copied over, which is great. But I'm still missing a ton of files. For example, in my "assessment" folder on Zotero, I have 9 items. In Mendeley I have 501.
  • tnajdek
    @cristyne_hebert thank you for the debug log, this is helpful, we're looking into it.
  • dstillman
    edited March 10, 2023
    @cristyne_hebert: Can you install the latest beta and try again with that?
  • cristyne_hebert
    Somehow, the attempt to import the library yesterday has resulted in all of my files being added to a group library. Is there somewhat to undue this action? What a mess this is...
  • cristyne_hebert
    I also am now unable to see the texts that were previously saved to this folder, including those uploaded by my colleagues...
  • dstillman
    @cristyne_hebert: Restart Zotero. That sounds like just a display issue.
  • cristyne_hebert
    I wish that were the case, but it is not. Zotero has been restarted. It appears this way on both my computers, and online.
  • dstillman
    We'll investigate, but start by immediately making a backup copy of zotero.sqlite and all the .bak files in your Zotero data directory. If someone else in the group hasn't synced yet, they should make a backup copy of their entire Zotero data directory.
  • dstillman
    edited March 10, 2023
    @cristyne_hebert: OK, we took a look, and everything is working normally here.

    The importer imports into whatever library you have selected — so in this case, you just had the group library selected when you started the importer. Generally when people use the Mendeley importer they're just starting out with Zotero and don't have any group libraries, so it imports into My Library, but being able to import into a group library is a feature, not a bug.

    And nothing was deleted in the group library. If you sort by Date Added, you can see the preexisting items in the library from February 15–17 (depending on your time zone). If you didn't mean to import your Mendeley library into the group, you can just select all of the other items and delete them, or if you have collections from Mendeley, you can right-click on them and choose "Delete Collections and Items…". Then empty the trash.

    You can then repeat the import process after selecting My Library. Again, you'll want to use the beta linked above to test the fix for the issue you were seeing with the incomplete import.

    (You can delete any backup files you made, since no data was lost here.)
  • dstillman
    edited March 12, 2023
    The couple issues above with incomplete imports should be fixed in Zotero 6.0.23, available now. No need to use the beta anymore.
  • cristyne_hebert
    Thank you for this. I don't seem to have any files from 2019 onward in my collection, however. So, any work of adding citations to Mendeley from the last four years don't show up in my Zotero collection. Can you please advise as to how to fix this?
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