Why I moved to Zotero as my reference manager

I've just spent the last few years telling anyone that needed a reference manager that they should use Mendeley, as that's what I was using and it was free and good. I've now completely changed my mind and have moved all of my 464 sources over to Zotero, another free reference manager, believing this to now be the obvious choice for your reference managing needs. Here is what happened.

Mendeley changes

A few months ago, Mendeley announced that the version I was using would be discontinued (Mendeley Desktop), and replaced with something new (Mendeley Reference Manager). Users were reassured they could still use the old one for now, but the real plan is to eventually "begin the process of stopping all sign-ins to Mendeley Desktop". Right, so I had to use the new one or eventually lose access altogether. Then this happened:

• Instead of a "plug-in" for Microsoft Word, which you can install without needing the Microsoft Store, the new Mendeley changed to using an "add-in", which needs the Microsoft Store to be enabled.
• Fun fact: Add-ins are disabled in my version of Office (the most likely culprit is signing in with my university email address).

Before I updated Office, I was able to use Mendeley Reference Manager for a few weeks though, and was thoroughly unimpressed. Instead of the small citation window that opened temporarily with the old Mendeley, the new version rudely took up an entire column of screen real estate just to add a citation. I tend to have my reference manager with the source I'm reading on one side of my screen and my research notes on the other, so wasting a big block of space in the middle was extremely annoying. Opening and closing the add-in for each citation was not an option either, as it took an unacceptably long time to open on my computer.

One time I opened (new) Mendeley and it was completely empty, all my sources were gone! A wave of emotion hit me, a combination of shock and utter panic. Surely this must be a mistake, but also, what would I do if I actually lost everything? I can't remember what I did to fix it, but it was probably related to reestablishing the connection with the online source library. This was a major warning sign for me, a realisation that I was entirely dependent on Mendeley to hold up their side of the bargain, as my painstakingly acquired list of references only existed in their online library. Then I updated Office and lost access to add-ins, and with it, the new Mendeley. It was time for a change.

Enter Zotero

Free, open source, full access to your own data which is stored on your own computer (with the option to sync to the cloud). This is different in a few important ways from Mendeley's approach, where the new version requires everything to be uploaded to their servers, and the old version started encrypting the local database a few years ago, despite "having long touted the openness of their database format as a guarantee against lock-in". Having access to my data suddenly became the main issue, as I need to make sure I don't lose my referencing info whatever happens. A local system is all I need as well, and I happily sync this to the Zotero cloud to back it all up. Oh and there's no add-in needed.

The import took a long time but that was to be expected. There was also some minor set-up required, where I needed to manually add columns of information to display in my source library. It came with the title as standard, after which I added creator, year, publication, date added and whether it had an attachment or not. I still slightly prefer the look of the old Mendeley, but this is probably due to being so used to it, having spent many hundreds of hours looking at it over the last few years.

In the end, I have come to the conclusion that Zotero is superior to Mendeley in every way, and in addition to the big things already listed, there are a few smaller advantages over Mendeley that I've been happy to discover too:

• The reference manager doesn't open and close each time you add a citation.
• Closing the reference manager keeps your tabs open for next time.

The one thing I don't yet know is if Zotero will slow down to a crawl with papers around 15,000 words long that are full of citations, like Mendeley used to, often crashing Word in the process. Only time will tell, but if this does happen then I have my workaround ready - separate chapters in separate documents.

If I've previously convinced you to start using Mendeley, this is how you import your library to Zotero. If not, just go here and get what I think is probably the best reference manager around.

If you want to get in touch, you can reach me at hello@markhubee.com. Thanks for reading and please consider subscribing if you'd like new posts delivered straight to your inbox.