Control which items are synced?

nikolasbasler
Hello,

I have a large collection of papers with attached PDFs. I would like to read papers on my phone from time to time, but there is no need for the entire collection in the online storage.

So I was wondering if there is a way to select single entries to have them synced and once I'm done reading them, taking them out of the syncing to make space for new ones. I've been playing around with the syncing options but couldn't find a solution. Is this somehow possible?

Thanks a lot and kind regards,
Nikolas

  • migugg
    edited February 7, 2024
    If you have zotero for android, this is exactly what zotero android does (I do not have zotero for iphone, but I would assume there is sth similar). In the items view, you will see a little blue assow pointing downward overlapping the file symbol on the bottom right. click on the arrow and the file with download to your phone. To remove the file again, click on the blue "i" in the circle, scroll down to attachments, long press the attachment title, and click "remove attachment"
  • nikolasbasler
    But this is how you manage the storage on your phone, isn't it? But you can only download files that are in the online storage.

    My problem is rather that I have so many files on my computer that they won't fit into the online storage. (They barely do right now, because I subscribed to the 2 GB plan, but this won't be enough for long and I'm not too keen on paying for 6 GB if I only ever need a few MB.)
  • migugg
    You can work with a third party webdav file storage provider, see documentation here: https://www.zotero.org/support/sync and then see the documentation on zotfile alternatives here regarding how to move files out of zotero to external storage and back: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/104858/on-zotfile-development-and-zotero-7#latest
  • tim820
    edited February 8, 2024
    You can dedicate a collection in your library specifically for items whose PDFs you want to read in Zotero on your phone (they can of course also still stay in the collections to which they originally belonged). That requires some planning. On your computer, you make sure that the collection has its attachments in local Zotero storage (if the files are originally linked files, use Tools\Manage Attachments\Convert Linked Files to Stored Files). Other items can be in linked locations or local Zotero storage, just as long as all those in local storage stay under your online storage quota. Data and file syncing are both turned on. So you can access the (stored) files from the dedicated collection on your phone as needed. Once you no longer need to access a file in that way, you can move it out of local Zotero storage on your computer (for example, back to linked storage; using Zotfile [v6] or Attanger/Zotmoov [v7]). The operations for moving files between the two types of storage can be applied to multiple files at once.
  • nikolasbasler
    Thanks for your suggestions! I will check them out.
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