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Moving attachments to external hard drive
I have tried and tried to move my Family History Folder out of dropbox and onto an external hard drive and have Zotero find it. Every time I try, I end up with this message:
The attached file could not be found at the following path:
/Users/lindabalderson/Dropbox/My Family History/PEOPLE/ISAKSEN/Henry Isaksen 1886-1967/ISAKSEN_Henry_b1886_1915_Emigration.pdf
It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or a Linked Attachment Base Directory may be set incorrectly on one of your computers.
I am on a MacIntosh computer. I changed the base directory to Linda's Genealogy (the name of the EHD) and then moved the My Family History folder onto the EHD. I think this is probably something very simple, but I cannot figure it out. I don't want to pay for the dropbox storage. Help.
Linda,
I think but am not sure it has to do with the name of the link. I am assuming that when you linked to the item to Zotero you navigated to your Dropbox folder on your computer.
If that is the case you would need to have a series of folders on the external hard drive that matches the path in your link.
On the external hard drive you would need a
Folder called "Users"
inside of "Users" would be a folder called "lindabalderson"
inside of "lindabalderson" a folder called "Dropbox"
inside of "Dropbox" a folder called "My Family History"
Then inside the "My Family History" would be all of your files. That is if you have the folders already for "PEOPLE" & "ISAKSEN"
I really hope this makes sense.
Ann C Gilchrest
Hi, Linda. From what I understand, this is what I am thinking. The many documents I assume you linked to in Dropbox still have the path you first created them with. Links like:
/Users/lindabalderson/Dropbox/My Family History/PEOPLE/ISAKSEN/Henry Isaksen 1886-1967/ISAKSEN_Henry_b1886_1915_Emigration.pdf
It sounds like you did not designate a base directory path until after you copied your documents to the external drive--and then you set the base directory to the new place. Let me know if I understand that wrongly.
Here's what I think is needed. I assume a copy of your documents still sits on Dropbox? Set your base directory to /Users/lindabalderson/Dropbox/. You might have a drive letter in front of that, like "c:". (I don't know what it looks like on the Mac.) Zotero should then tell you how many links you have with that path and ask if you want to attach them to the base directory or keep them with full path names. Choose to attach them to the base directory.
Then, when all of your documents have the new path, change the base directory in Zotero to the path for your external drive.
If something has messed up along the way, there is an add-on program called Zutilo that can heal a world of woe by making blanket changes to paths in Zotero. So if the above doesn't work, let me know what you're seeing, and we'll figure it out. If needed, you and I can Zoom, and you can share your screen.
Don't worry. We'll get it working. Thanks!
Donna
