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I'm using my storage rapidly—why???
I think I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I seem to be using my 300 mb of storage space rapidly, and I don't know why. Or maybe my expectations weren't reasonable. I have 162 items in my library, which doesn't seem excessive to me, but I've already used 42% of my storage space.
At the beginning, I had 'automatically take snapshots....' and 'automatically attach associated PDFs' clicked on without realizing it, but I've since turned them off and deleted most of the snapshots and PDFs. I do make a note with a transcription of a document when I link to a vital record, but I only link to the image and do not import it. Could this be causing me to use my space so rapidly?
At this rate, I will be out of space by the end of summer and will have to purchase space. That isn't a big issue at $20 per year, but if I don't figure out why this is happening, I'm afraid I may use all of the purchased space, too!
Hi illinimom,
I have 722 items in Zotero. My storage usage is 4% which is 11.9 MB. I have lots of notes and just about every item is linked to an image, document, Scrivener or pdf on my computer.
My first thought is: Have you emptied the trash can? Everything you move to the trash can stays in Zotero for I think 30 days unless you manually empty the trash can.
My second thought is: When you "deleted" the snapshot, pdf & or image did you move it to the trashcan or just remove it from the collection?
Ann
Illinimom, I had the same scenario when I first started using Zotero many years ago. Ann's advice is spot on. I have used 61.6% with close to 6,000 records. But when I first started, it was being eaten up by the things you mentioned. After you've tried emptying the trash, look at one more thing. Find a folder on your hard drive that is probably at this location:
C:\Users\[yourname]\Zotero\storage
There will be a lot of folders inside that with coded names. Search the whole folder for files with PDF in the extension. It's possible that you removed some from Zotero, but they're still in these folders somewhere. If you find some, check your Zotero records to make sure you've created an attachment link that works. If you have, you can delete the PDF from the storage folder.
If your storage continues to grow now that you are not embedding any PDFs or making snapshots of web pages, let us know. There might be something else going on that requires knowledge above my head.
Let us know how it goes!
Donna
Thanks! I'll try these suggestions and hope it frees up some storage space!
I think I've found the problem—or at least part of the problem. I had deleted my snapshots and emptied the trash, so that wasn't the issue. But your tip about searching the storage folders in my Zotero folder was very helpful, Donna! I actually only had one PDF file, but on a whim I checked for .jpg files and found 76 MB of them! It appears that when the snapshot was saved, the image file was saved separately, so even though I deleted the snapshot, the jpg was still buried in my Zotero storage folders.
It's going to take me a few days to go through them and delete them, but I'll report back when I've done it. I'm not sure it will entirely solve the issue, as even when I've removed them all, I will have used 50 MB of storage. But maybe there are files besides the jpg files I need to look for. In any event, now that I am no longer saving snapshots, my rate of usage should slow down!
One more question about settings. I think I've turned off everything that was causing the problem, but do these settings look right? Should 'retrieving metadata for PDFs be checked?
Uploaded files:
- You need to login to have access to uploads.
Thanks so much for bringing this subject up. In a future edition of the book, I'll add it. I don't think the metadata should take up too much space. I think it will be pure text. But let's all keep an eye on it, to see if it adds more data than we're comfortable with.
Just thought I'd check in. It's been a month and I've added another 30-40 references WITHOUT adding snapshots and PDFs. My storage has stayed right at 41% used. I haven't had time to go in and delete all the embedded jpegs. I will do those one at a time as I process the file into my database. I'm confident that when I do this, my storage usage will drop. Thanks for your help in solving my problem!
So glad to hear it! And I've recently heard that Zotero only counts attachments against your storage--not notes, your reference text, or snapshots. I haven't tested it, but your experience lends it support. Another tidbit to include in the next edition. Thanks!
Donna, Are you saying that if I save a webpage with a snapshot that doesn't add to your storage use?
Thanks,
Ann
Hi, Ann. I'm not sure yet. I read that they don't take snapshots into account, but I haven't tested it. I've got several deadlines pressing, but I'll get to it as soon as I can and report back. Or if any of the rest of you come to a conclusion, please let us know. Thanks!
