Number of files in storage more than double my library

J.B.T.
I added approx 6,000 PDFs to my Zotero library, then deleted many of them (and emptied trash), leaving me with 4,724 records. But when I look at my Storage folder, there are more than 10,000 files. Can anyone please explain?
  • dstillman
    edited April 26, 2021
    Zotero adds additional hidden files to the folder for internal purposes (e.g., full-text indexing).

    If you do a search for PDFs, that should be equivalent to what you have in Zotero (assuming you don't have more than one library).
  • J.B.T.
    Thanks you. No need to panic, then! But just curious, when you say 'do a search for PDFs'...where/how do I do that? As I mentioned, I have 4,724 PDFs in my Zotero library. are you suggesting I search the number of PDFs in storage? Thanks again.
  • adamsmith
    are you suggesting I search the number of PDFs in storage? Thanks again.
    Yes. In Windows e.g. you can search for
    ext: ".pdf" kind:document in the search bar of the storage folder to find all PDFs
  • J.B.T.
    Thank you!
  • fabienpe
    I have a similar problem: I find over 8000 pdf on the disk while I see only 1400 in Zotero... I wonder what I should to bring bqck everything in sync.
  • warguelles
    Are you the owner (admin) of any group(s)?
    Remember that they also count to your storage!
  • fabienpe
    I used to have a group but not anymore it was deleted online a while ago. There was still a copy locally and recently I decided to delete all the items of this group library in the Zotero app.

    Today after reading your message I tried to delete this empty group library from the Zotero app and had to got in Settings > Reset > Library. This immediately deleted the group from the App. But I still have over 10k folders in zotero/storage while less than 2k items in Zotero.

    Database reset did not help.
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