Storage folder deletion

tina_cardona
Hi there,

Probably a dumb question, but I can't find an answer. If I needed to free up space on my hard drive, could I delete some or all of the files located in C:\Users\[myname]\Zotero\storage? The vast majority of these PDFs were ones I uploaded to group libraries, if that makes a difference. I read in Documentation I should ensure my Zotero app is closed first, but other than that, I'm not sure what happens if I delete these storage files. Will they no longer be available on Zotero?

Thanks!
Tina
  • adamsmith
    Yes -- obviously you want to be sure they're synced to the servers (e.g., accessible via the web library), but otherwise you can just delete the files (delete just the files, not the sub-folder they're in) and you don't even have to have Zotero closed.

    Make sure you have file synce set to "as needed", otherwise they may re-download on the next sync.
  • tina_cardona
    Thank you! To be clear, I would need to open each of those code-named subfolders and delete the PDF(s) inside?
  • adamsmith
    you could also search for PDFs in the storage folder and delete them from the search directly, which is presumably faster (details depend on your operating system).
  • tina_cardona
    I didn't even realize the search function could do that. Excellent, thanks!
  • adamsmith
    To avoid confusion (and disaster), that's your operating system file search. If you delete the files from within the Zotero app, they're getting deleted everywhere, including the server.
  • tina_cardona
    Yep - thanks for ensuring I knew what you meant. That would indeed be disastrous!
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