Sync reading position

foss-
edited June 10, 2025
Zotero seems to remember reading position, but that seems to happen per device.

Would it make sense to sync reading position cross devices? I'd love to be able to continuously read a paper / book on different devices.

An old discussion requested this back in 2022 and answer was: this is in place already:
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/95861/sync-reading-position/p1

But for me this does not seem to work reliably. I keep opening a pdf book on different devices and the last reading position is not what I see on all devices.
  • tnajdek Zotero Team
    Reading position is synced and generally works well, but syncing might sometimes not happen automatically in time for it to be available on another device before you open the paper there. Also, if the document is already open on another device, it will not move to the newer position (you'd need to close and reopen the document). Finally, if reading in the browser (in the web library), there is currently a bug where closing a tab shortly after changing a page might not be synced correctly. We have a fix for this ready and will deploy an update soon.

    If it only works "sometimes," it might be worth forcing a sync on a device where you've finished reading and then again on the device where you intend to pick up reading.
  • foss-
    edited June 12, 2025
    Thanks for elaborating. Closing and re-opening the document indeed does sync the position.

    While iPad / macOS / Android do show the document on the same page, a second Android device refuses to show that same location and stays on a previous page. I closed and re-opened the file but it stays on that earlier page.

    Edit: This generally seems to work and be glitching in some edge-cases. Continuing reading on iPad finally synced current state over to the android device which was previously refusing to pick up reading state.
  • foss-
    Again stuck on an android device refusing to update to latest reading position.

    I enabled debugging, opened file on android (outdated reading position). Closed file. Opened file on iPad, swiped forth and pack on current reading position. Pulled to refresh to ensure position is synced.

    Re-opened zotero on android. Still the outdated reading position is not updated. Pulled to refresh to ensure sync is fetched. Outdated position remaining when opening the file in question.

    Debug ID D1297305282
  • foss-
    Retested ePub sync reading position with

    iPadOS Zoteri 2.0.4 (Build 417)
    macOS Zotero 9.0-beta.3+f21e1b2d3

    In a test iPad reading position was updated as expected. But reading on iPad then closing document and triggering a sync, then (with macOS document closed) triggering sync on macOS that new position is not reflected.

    And after closing and re-opening document on iPad the ePub opens at the position seen on macOS.

    So it seems as if macOS reading position always overwrites position and iPad position never is reflected or updated to on macOS.

    Is that a known issue?
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