Zotman

Zotman is a CLI toolset for managing Zotero PDF attachments using linked files in a structured Cloud (default: Dropbox) folder.

It supports:

• Automatically moving renamed PDFs from Zotero’s storage into a structured subject/year Cloud folder
• Extracting the published year from Zotero’s database to organize PDFs
• Cleaning up orphaned Zotero storage folders not linked to any library item

📦 Installation

pip install zotman

🚀 Usage

Move renamed Zotero PDFs

zotman move --cloud ~/Dropbox/Zotero

This will:

• Watch ~/Zotero/storage for PDFs renamed by Zotero
• Prompt you for a subject (e.g., AI, ML)
• Look up the published year from zotero.sqlite
• Move the file to:

   ~/Dropbox/Zotero/<Subject>/<Year>/Author et al. - Title.pdf
  

The --cloud option allows you to set any base folder (e.g., Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive). The default is ~/Dropbox/Zotero. Use --db if your Zotero database is not at ~/Zotero/zotero.sqlite.

Then, manually re-link the file in Zotero:

Right-click item → Attach Link to File…

Clean orphaned storage folders

zotman clean

This will:

• Read zotero.sqlite
• Identify unused subfolders in ~/Zotero/storage
• Prompt before deletion

🧠 Why use Zotman?

Zotero stores files in random folders without year structure. Zotman helps:

• Organize files by subject and year
• Keep filenames clean
• Maintain a consistent Cloud (e.g., Dropbox)-based linked file setup
• Remove clutter from old unlinked folders

🛠 Future Plans

• Automatic re-linking
• Year range filters
• GUI and batch operations

📄 License

MIT License