Scroll down to see the Zotero Forum.
Emails in Gmail--a convoluted partial capture process
I happened to notice the "Save to Zotero" option when I right-clicked on something in Gmail today and did some experimentation. It does allow you to save the view as a webpage immediately. But with a few steps, it actually captures an email into Zotero as an email. It is missing the email addresses, but captures the sender and recipient names, the date, the subject, and the Item Type of email.
Here's the odd path to get there:
In Gmail, when you are viewing an email you want to save to Zotero, you need to click to print it. It will bring up the Print screen, with print options and a preview of your email. If you look at the toolbar above it, the Zotero icon is a gray rectangle (see attached) that indicates it sees a web page and will save it that way. But we want to save it as an email. So cancel out of this view. Suddenly the icon changes to an email icon (see attached). Now you can click on it and (assuming Zotero is open in the background) it will create an email record in Zotero (see attached).
It has added an item with the Email item type, with me as the recipient and my cousin as the author (sender). It gets the subject and date of the email. It does not include our email addresses or the contents of the email.
Here's the citation:
Marie A. Leak to Donna Cox Baker, “Re: Another Question,” July 6, 2018.
So, a partial job and a convoluted path, but here's what I'll do in future. When I hit the Print button, I'll save the email out as a PDF. After Zotero creates the email record, I'll attach the PDF.
I am curious if you guys are finding Zotero options in other email clients?
Uploaded files:- You need to login to have access to uploads.
On the AOL webmail, you get the snapshot option. I also get the snapshot option after clicking the print option.
Wish there was one for Outlook!
I tried webmail and Outlook and had the same result. Another item for the wish list.
Great tip! I gave it a try and discovered that when I double clicked the item in the Zotero list it automatically opened a window with the full email and options to print or save as .pdf.
Please ignore the mess of notes and files in this Zotero window - I'm still playing and learning!
The first image is my Zotero window. The email I saved is from the NC Maritime History Council. The second is the window that popped open when I double clicked that entry. (I've noticed that double clicking anything with a link opens the file or webpage - probably old news to you all!)
Uploaded files:
- You need to login to have access to uploads.
It does. And double-clicking on a note will open it in a separate window, which is helpful.
One thing to check into, though. It seems like I once came to the conclusion that the "snapshots" Zotero is creating are images and taking up space in your Zotero storage allotment. I tend to remove the snapshot and link to an external jpg.
