Creating an account on the Zotero website allows you to keep a copy of your library on the Zotero server, which is very handy if you do not always use the same computer or if you want to work collaboratively.
After creating your account, enter your username and password in your Zotero Preferences: Preferences menu, then Sync., enter your username and password. You will need to repeat this process on each of your computers. Any change made to your database will be automatically synchronised.
You can synchronise an unlimited number of references, notes, and collections. PDFs and other attachments take up storage space, which is limited to 300 MB for free. You can purchase additional storage space if necessary.
If you want to save money you can:
- store your files on an external server: create an account with a WebDav service. Go to the Sync tab of the Zotero Preferences menu, and in the File syncing section, select WebDav from the drop-down menu after "Sync attachment files in My Library using". Enter the address of the WebDav server you chose, your username and your password, and click on Verify Server.
- store your PDFs on DropBox or Google Drive (Geneva Graduate Institute community members have unlimited storage on Google Drive) using Zotfile. After installing Zotfile, go to the Zotero Preferences menu, Advanced, Files and Folders, Base Directory, and enter the name of the Google Drive or Dropbox folder where you want to store your PDFs. Then go to the Zotfile Preferences, General Settings, Source Folder for Attaching New Files, and select the Google Drive or Dropbox folder. Here the detailed procedure with visuals for Google Drive. You can use the Drive File Stream to keep your files synchronised.
