Has anyone done the move from #Mendeley to #Zotero recently? I need to move a quite big library of papers from one to the other. Any idea or if highlights and comments on papers can be moved? @AcademicChatter
May I please add that this is not a war between softwares? If you are using either of them, don't feel attacked if someone else prefers or has arguments towards using the other! They are both very useful for different reasons, you just need to find the one that works for you!
Ok, I am doing the change now, I will share with you what I am doing in case any of you want to go through the pain. I am following this website now. forums.zotero.org/discussion/com…
As Mendeley is encrypted from 1.19 version, I need to downgrade to Mendeley 1.18 to make this work. First I ensure that my library is synced with the Mendeley online service and then I uninstall Mendeley 1.19 and reinstall Mendeley 1.18.
I am keeping Mendeley 1.19 for now in my work computer and doing the tests in my personal laptop. I know, privileged and also a chicken.
This rebuilding the Mendeley library but this time unencrypted is gonna take a while... (File 49/737...) Also, no, Mendeley, I don't want to update, that would pretty much defy the point. 
OMG can this be slower?
In the meantime, opening a Zotero account and adding it to the software to synchronize was really easy. Added the Zotero plugin to Chrome too. Tested it with my first article and almost wanted to cry of how easy it was, this is gonna save me so much time...
Finally done. Expect around 2 h for around 700 papers - at least with my shitty internet (I know, it's Tokyo, it should be fast right? well, not in my building). Next step: go to Zotero and ask it politely to import the library from Mendeley.
Very gladly surprised that my dates of addition are kept, so can quickly check the most recent papers. Comments are imported as notes, my highlights are lost - but I am gonna live with that. @zotero any way to save the highlights as well? Not necessary but would be an extra.
Zotero took another hour or so to import all the articles from the Mendeley database (it only needed to copy within my system and was not limited by my slow network). Overall, I think the process was quite easy to do, will see if I like how Zotero works for me :)
First problem noticed: Mendeley failed to download a number of the papers, and so Zotero had the citations but not the pdfs. As soon as I double click them, Mendeley downloads them. @Mendeley, that is very annoying for you to do. This happened to around 30% of the papers.
Second problem noticed: @Zotero cannot import only new elements, would simply import everything over again. Meaning if I fix the problems introduced by Mendeley of not downloading some of the papers, I would need to import the whole library again, waiting another hour +.
I had to click in 250+ files individually to force Mendeley to download them from the cloud. Then did another import to Zotero. If you guys are doing this, make sure all the files in Mendeley show the correct icon (first, not second) before you go for the Zotero import step.
To finish, Mendeley can link to the Zotero library. This means you can get it to add the Zotero entries in case you want to go back to Mendeley - e.g. I have a draft that I have been creating with Mendeley and will create new ones with Zotero.
There is also a way to keep the highlights, although it sounds like a little bit of extra work.
Next step? Sync my Zotero library between my personal and professional computers. However, turns out my library size is around 10x the Zotero quota, so need an alternative. Thankfully, helpful twitter fellows already gave a solution for this.
Unrolled full thread here: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1253927…
No, turns out I was just being a moron. Previous tweet will show in the comments the Zotero team saving my ass with lots of patience before I ruin my whole library. Ok, ignore that last tweet, I think I got it this time.
This time I followed the "manage and sync PDF files with Zotfile" instructions: guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=4472&p…
So don't touch the Zotero data directory, but let ZotFile copy all the files to your cloud storage and keep them linked with your Zotero data. Will take some time.
So don't touch the Zotero data directory, but let ZotFile copy all the files to your cloud storage and keep them linked with your Zotero data. Will take some time.
