Inconsistent annotation search in Zotero 8 (macos)

labrurdu · 2026-01-24T17:50:45+00:00

When I add a tag to annotations in some PDFs, those PDFs can only be found using Zotero’s Advanced Search, while other PDFs with the same tag only appear when I use the Zotero search bar with Everything selected. I can never retrieve all tagged annotations with a single search, so I believe this is a bug.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u19454741/45282ei7vn81v40kd9w9.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u19454741/1chrxhwwgsgb9g832yf1.png

labrurdu · 2026-01-26T13:54:24+00:00

any update on this?

poettli · 2026-01-26T13:57:04+00:00

https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#be_patient

labrurdu · 2026-01-27T18:48:45+00:00

Today I noticed that if I add a tag to highlighted text using Zotero pdf viewer, the tagged annotation can be retrieved only using Zotero’s Advanced Search. If I use Zotero's Everything Search for this the annotation doesn't show up.
If I import in Zotero annotations made with Preview, which contain a tag associated to highlighted text, these annotations can only be retrieved using Everything Search, they don't show up in Zotero's Advanced Search.