
Mendeley encrypts users' database after Zotero provides an importer - fantasticfears
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import
======
zwaps
Zotero has improved a lot, while Mendeley has repeatedly regressed.

Mendeley used to be quite a good program, but recently you can not export
annotated PDFs meaningfully. For example, sending a folder of annotated PDFs
to a co-author during a literature review is impossible. This is obviously the
case since Elsevier does not want you to trade research papers, whether you
have lawfull access or not.

The updates that took away features were silent. What happened to me some time
ago was these updates occured during a high-stress phase with a short deadline
until conference submissions (if you are a researcher, you know what I mean).

I had used Mendeley for years to annotate and categorize literature. I was now
in need to send my categorized PDFs to a central repository for my co-authors
to evaluate and add to. After some update, without me noticing it, it was no
longer possible to export folders of PDFs or PDFs in general!

I had everything in Mendeley, weeks of work. I was completely f'ed - deadline
approaching. I had to re-aquire all PDFs and go through all annotations by
hand.

ELSEVIER IS SIMPLY ANTI SCIENCE. Collaboration is a key in science. Sharing
results, research and literature is crucial.

Mendeley makes this impossible. It does NOT allow you to fully access your own
work!

So in conclusion, USE ZOTERO. It's good now, better than before. You can use a
PDF reader with annotations to open and save the PDF and Zotero will keep
those annotations. You can export Bibliographies, including notes AND files.
You can not do that with Mendeley.

So again, as a researcher, I emplore you to drop Mendeley completely, as I
have done.

Thank you.

~~~
boyband6666
Zotero has improved a lot, though sadly it still has a way to go on the user
experience of Mendeley. My main gripes are

\- The way that it still doesn't play nice with cloud services (syncing the
directory and its just a matter of time until you get database corruption. It
takes a lot of wonky setting up to get it to kind of work, which just
shouldn't be the case

\- The lack of developers and thus slow pace of improvement. I'm a researcher
not a programmer - which I think describes most people using it. That means
unfortunately we are reliant on one or two volunteers to improve the product.
The pace of improvement is slow, and theres also no way to meaningfully
advance it - be that through offering bounties for someone to implement
certain features, just inputing lists of bugs/feature requests (the list is
already v long, and doesn't move much), or anything else.

It's a really good bit of software (and I don't want to sound ungrateful), I
just know it still has a lot of quirks. This means it can't always do what you
want, and it isn't an easy obvious choice for new researchers - Mendeley is
certainly more familiar and easier to use.

~~~
dstillman
> The lack of developers and thus slow pace of improvement [...] we are
> reliant on one or two volunteers to improve the product

I'm not sure why you have that impression. Zotero has amazing, invaluable
volunteers, but there's a paid, full-time dev team working on Zotero every
day. In the last year, we've added:

\- Google Docs integration [1]

\- Unpaywall integration [2]

\- A new, greatly improved PDF recognition system [3]

\- Faster citing in large documents [3]

\- A much more powerful saving interface [4]

\- Mendeley import...

\- ZoteroBib, a free web service for generating bibliographies [5]

\- A barcode scanner for iOS [6]

\- Regular updates and bug fixes [7]

[1] [https://www.zotero.org/blog/google-docs-
integration/](https://www.zotero.org/blog/google-docs-integration/)

[2] [https://www.zotero.org/blog/improved-pdf-retrieval-with-
unpa...](https://www.zotero.org/blog/improved-pdf-retrieval-with-unpaywall-
integration/)

[3]
[https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-0-36/](https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-0-36/)

[4]
[https://twitter.com/zotero/status/991052142717886464](https://twitter.com/zotero/status/991052142717886464)

[5] [https://www.zotero.org/blog/introducing-
zoterobib/](https://www.zotero.org/blog/introducing-zoterobib/)

[6] [https://www.zotero.org/blog/scan-books-into-zotero-from-
your...](https://www.zotero.org/blog/scan-books-into-zotero-from-your-iphone-
or-ipad/)

[7]
[https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog](https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog)

(Disclosure: Zotero developer)

~~~
boyband6666
I didn't realise there was a full time team as well. As I said I am grateful
it exists, and advocate for Zotero to be the preferred option for nearly all
opportunities.

It is fair to say though that it isn’t as well resourced as others, and is
also starting from behind. As long as that momentum continues it should
eventually be the de facto solution (iff Mendeley are going to make user
unfriendly choices), but as yet I don't think it is comparable to the
behemoths like R that have maturity and continuous development and thus are
superior in every possible way to the paid alternatives (Stata, SPSS).

------
mwexler
For those wondering, here's what I gathered as some context.

Zotero = Your personal research assistant. Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool
to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.
[https://www.zotero.org/](https://www.zotero.org/)

Mendeley = Reference Management Software, produced by Elsevier who also
happens to be the publisher of many peer-reviewed journals. Elsevier come
under fire for it's high costs and gateway actions to restrict access to
information they've published in journals and host in archives. This most
recent action of making the database of references in Mendeley difficult to
export is a continuation of their attempt to protect what they, and some legal
systems, would see as their IP. Others disagree.

The battle continues...

~~~
carbocation
Good idea re: giving context as to what these programs are. For most of us who
do research, these programs are essentially interchangeable "reference
managers." Here's what I mean:

I read a scientific paper or look up a citation. I add that with a click or
two to my reference manager. It also stores the PDF for me.

In the future, I can easily re-read the PDF. I can annotate it and the
annotations will be stored.

Critically, when writing my own paper, I can import those citations and
trivially change the format to whatever the publisher wants without any
effort.

To me, across _most_ features, these two programs do exactly the same thing.
When picking a citation manager, it's more about which one I trust will be
around for the long haul and will not interfere with my research.

~~~
zwaps
The only difference is that Mendeley has a built-in PDF viewer with
annotation. Of course since you can no longer share these annotations, nor
export the pdf, that's all pointless.

Mendeley opens PDFs externally, but many PDF readers can create and save
annotations.

~~~
carbocation
In your second paragraph I think you mean to lead with "Zotero" instead of
"Mendeley." And yes, I agree with that distinction. In practice, it hasn't
been much of a problem (even though I do my work across OS X and Linux).

------
justinclift
Reading through that, it seems like Mendeley uses SQLite for it's local
database.

There aren't that many SQLite encryption libraries around (generalising), so
it's probably using either SQLCipher or SEE.

[https://www.zetetic.net/sqlcipher](https://www.zetetic.net/sqlcipher)

[https://www.sqlite.org/see/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki](https://www.sqlite.org/see/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki)

There's a reasonable chance the page size and passphrase is stored or cached
on the machine. If someone (not me) takes the time and effort to trace through
the application, it should be feasible to figure out what's going on. :)

~~~
Lord_Nightmare
They're using SEE, see [https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-
encrypted-db](https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db)

~~~
shittyadmin
Unfortunately here's the catch - while it's probably trivial to reverse
engineer enough to extract the key for the SEE database, it means that Zotero
would need an SEE license to be able to handle the file still.

As an alternative it should be quite possible to produce a hook using Frida or
similar that would disable database encryption on the Mendeley side so it can
be imported through the usual channels. Not pretty though.

------
__jl__
For Zotero users: Try the add on zotfile (zotfile.com). It allows you to
extract PDF annotations and save them as notes in Zotero (among other things).
Full disclosure: I am the developer.

~~~
boyband6666
Genuine question - why make zotfile and not adding things to Zotero directly?
After all it is open source. Zotfile adds a lot of useful things that feel
like they should be in the main program, not optional extras.

I'm not a programmer however, so this may be very naive question!

------
carbocation
Luckily, my Linux desktop was still running an old version of Mendeley so I
was able to make the switch.

My reason for wanting to switch was that Zotero has Google Docs integration.
After making the switch, I was pleased to pay a modest amount for storage of
my PDFs, which makes me feel like a customer instead of a product.

~~~
leemailll
If your institution does offer f1000 subscription, I suggest you take a look
at f1000 workspace.

~~~
ramraj07
This is literally the worst thing you can do. Even a tenured professor doesn't
seem to stay in the same institution for their lifetime nowadays so why would
you go to a service that even you personally cannot pay for yourself
(reasonably)?

~~~
bocklund
It's $10/month for premium?

[https://f1000workspace.com/#plans](https://f1000workspace.com/#plans)

~~~
leemailll
And online storage space is unlimited
[https://guides.lib.unc.edu/comparecitationmanagers](https://guides.lib.unc.edu/comparecitationmanagers)

------
erreJulian
I´ve been using Zotero for a long time now and I can’t recommend it enough.
Along with several plugins, such as ZotFile [1] and ZoteroBetterBibTex [2]
I’ve been able to build a very flexible workflow that allows me to work either
in a traditional processor, in Latex and even in Markdown+pandoc on iOS.
Recently they also added support for Google Docs [3] and it does seems to be
working quite well. It enjoys the benefits of open software, such as an
engaging community and support.

[1] [http://zotfile.com](http://zotfile.com) [2] [https://retorque.re/zotero-
better-bibtex/](https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/) [3]
[https://www.zotero.org/support/google_docs](https://www.zotero.org/support/google_docs)

------
Vinnl
Note that this has been happening a while, given that there's submissions [1]
[2] from 7 months ago.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17302019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17302019)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433880)

------
jjoonathan
Mendeley also snitches evidence of your SciHub habit to Elsevier. It probably
won't amount to anything, but do you really want to bet against Elsevier
becoming exceptionally greedy, desperate, or both?

~~~
aw3c2
Please provide some citations for that claim.

~~~
jjoonathan
It uploads your PDFs to Elsevier servers for storage. By design.

Asking how that could lead to Elsevier obtaining evidence of paper piracy is
like asking how using gmail could lead to google using your email to do
targeted advertising. You are _giving_ them everything they need to do it, so
of course they might do it! The position that needs defending is the
supposition that they can't.

~~~
aw3c2
That is quite far fetched. You made it sound like they specifically identify
and monitor sci-hub usage somehow.

------
pjc50
Ah, Elsevier.

It's probably not that difficult to reverse-engineer and extract the
decryption keys, but doing so opens you up to DMCA risks.

~~~
lozenge
I don't think the DMCA would apply, as presumably you own the copyright of
whatever's in the database. You would need EFF or other support to prove it
though...

~~~
black_puppydog
On the other hand, it's gonna be hard to even detect if you just use it to
import your collection to Zotero.

------
masnick
For anyone who is interested in the different options for reference
management, I've been sporadically maintaining a webpage about the various
options since 2015: [https://maxmasnick.com/projects/reference-
managers/](https://maxmasnick.com/projects/reference-managers/)

I re-un-recommended Mendeley back in June 2018 when this news first broke. (I
was initially too sketched out by Elsevier to recommend Mendeley, and this
just confirms these suspicions.)

tl;dr Zotero is a pretty good bet for most people, especially since they added
support for citation management in Google Docs at the end of last year (very
important for academic writers). PaperPile
([https://paperpile.com](https://paperpile.com)) and Papers
([https://www.papersapp.com](https://www.papersapp.com)) are also worth
checking out.

~~~
ramraj07
Which one gives the best seamless mobile integration experience? Papers for
iOS wasn't bad (if you let it finish syncing with Dropbox ) but curious about
this!

~~~
masnick
Probably Papers is your best bet at this point.

Zotero will let you send PDFs to/from a tablet with the ZotFile
([http://zotfile.com](http://zotfile.com)) plugin. This works well if your
workflow is (1) find PDF on your computer; (2) read on tablet. But if you want
to do anything else -- even choosing a PDF to read from your tablet without
touching your computer -- then Zotero won't work. With that said, I know
Zotero is working on mobile apps...not sure how far they have come though.

If you're Mac/iOS only, also check out
[https://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookends/bookends.html](https://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookends/bookends.html).

~~~
spott
Do you have any experience with bookends?

~~~
masnick
Yes, it's got some really nice features but it is a little clunky/complex
compared to Zotero. I would try out Papers first before looking at
Bookends...Bookends can work great, but it does take some work to set up.

Also, Bookends annoyingly checks to see if you are running the same license on
multiple devices on your network, and if you have more than once instance
running it forces you to close it down. This may seem superficially
reasonable, but for someone with both a desktop and a laptop it's quite
annoying. I emailed the developer about it and they didn't seem to get why
this was a problem.

~~~
spott
I'm using Papers 3 right now, and it is fairly buggy. I'm not a fan of
switching to a subscription model (especially as I'm not an academic, which
makes it too expensive), so I was looking for something else.

I like Zotero, but the lack of an ipad client is annoying. The file plugin
requires more forethought than I really like. Bookends having a mobile client
was one of the attractive features.

What is the work that it takes to get set up?

------
veddox
Mendeley is (or at least, was) a great software. It works on Linux and did
exactly what I needed. Half a year ago, I suddenly couldn't open my PDFs
anymore from within the desktop app. Web interface still worked, mobile still
worked, just the desktop version was broken. (Which happens to be the only one
I seriously use.) When I wrote to them several months later inquiring into the
issue, they told me they were still working on the fix. (It's still not
working on my machine.) Now this. Perhaps I really should look into Zotero...

------
masteranza
Yep, if you're still using Mendeley, you should move to Zotero immediately. I
have used Papers app for some time, but they've worked on the desktop app way
too long after their merge with ReadCube and now I'm happy with my free
Zotero. I've just tested ReadCube Papers with a simple pdf and it's nice and
fast, but cannot resolve the metadata (even the suggestions are wrong) while
Zotero can do it unambiguously on the first try.

------
burtonator
I'm the author of Polar. An app very similar to both Zotero and Mendeley:

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

Both Mendeley and Zotero are better than Polar (for now) with bibliography
management but I believe we're better at both at document annotation and
knowledge management.

We're also Open Source and launched on Hacker News a few months back.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960)

We're still rather new so not a lot of people have heard of us yet but moving
forward very aggressively.

I'd also like to thank the Zotero guys for posting their notes about the
Mendeley encryption issue.

I think this is a completely unacceptable situation and antithetical to what
we should expect in the scientific community.

The Polar on disk repo is exactly the opposite.

We store all your data on disk and your annotations are in JSON format so
they're easily hackable.

This is part of the design.

We MAY add end to end repository encryption at some point but it will be in
the users control. We're not doing it to lock the user out or to prevent
export.

The end to end encryption is so that you can store your repo in the cloud and
not have to worry about your data being viewed by anyone other than you.

~~~
zwaps
Thank you for your work.

I will try your software soon. What I really like so far is the reading
progress, which is actually very, very important for me. So far, I have to do
this with manual tags in Zotero.

By the way, since this is a work tool, I (and I imagine others) are fully
willing and able to pay you for support or storage or other features.

But since Mendeley, me and people I know have become very sensitive about
lock-in, encryption and collaboration barriers associated with pro/non-pro
accounts. It seems you are determined to take the right steps, I just want to
emphasize the importance for your business.

The backlash against Mendeley isn't random. If I build my pipeline on your
product, my lifelihood and hours upon hours of crucial work depend on it. This
is not a casual software, where switching is inconvenient but not a big deal.
Mendeley has f'ed me in a crucial deadline situation, even though I was paying
them lots of money. That company is dead to me, and I will badmouth and try to
destroy their business any chance I get.

------
pytyper2
These science website corporate types keep outsmarting all you scientists.

------
shittyadmin
Some quick RE work:

sqlite_rekey_v2 is at 00CA1C13 on the Windows version of 1.19.3

Hooking it with Frida or similar should allow you to drop the 3rd parameter
and set pKey to NULL allowing you to create a database which can be read by
standard sqlite.

Keys however appear to be account-specific - I haven't looked into the full
algorithm yet, but it's fairly pointless as you'd need a copy of sqlite3 with
SEE support (which costs $2600 or so) to decrypt it using that method anyways,
I tried briefly but was unable to come across a stray copy of sqlite3 with SEE
enabled, the above solution is probably better for now anyways.

------
phren0logy
To anyone looking for an alternative, I'd just throw out there that I've been
very happy with ReadCube. It's proprietary subscription software, but that's a
trade-off I can live with for a great browser plugin, mobile apps with good
annotation, cloud storage of annotated articles, seamless syncing across
devices, and a high-quality Word citation plugin that works on the Mac.

This company bought Papers, the Mac app, and it looks like they are finally
getting ready to release the desktop client based on that acquisition.

~~~
veddox
I used ReadCube several years ago when it was still really new (and free).
Great program, _very_ pretty interface - but it didn't work on Linux. When I
switched from Windows, I had to let it go.

~~~
phren0logy
I mostly use the web version, and that seems to function well everywhere these
days. Not sure about the desktop version, but after ages and ages they are
finally getting the desktop application that incorporates their Papers
acquisition, so it might be worth looking again if you like it. Hopefully,
that does a better job on Linux, but that's always a gamble.

------
lvs
Entertainingly, it was precisely that update that induced me to drop Mendeley
and switch to Zotero. After updating to that version, every login attempt at
the app failed. I guess it hadn't fully updated the database because import
into Zotero worked flawlessly. I was pleasantly surprised by how much better
Zotero has gotten in the last few years.

The browser and MS Word plugins actually work pretty well, although several of
the citation style templates seem out-of-date.

------
ismail
I dropped Mendely a year ago. Because it kept crashing and they could not
resolve the issue. The bug has not closed since then. I was unable to extract
my highlights. I tried mucking about in their SQLite dB.

Tried zoetro but prefer using highlights app ad It saves the highlights on the
PDF. And you can then export to markdown etc.

Not sure how zoetro saves highlights but I am never going to take that risk
again. A years worth of research down the drain.

------
snowwindwaves
I have been using Qiqqa for 4 years and it is perfect for me. It allows me to
perform full text search on my PDF library, performs OCR when necessary, and
supports tagging, annotations, and bibtex.

[http://www.qiqqa.com](http://www.qiqqa.com)

It is wonderful software. It provides me with my own personal google for my
PDFs. I used to use google desktop.

------
asdff
I wish there was one reference manager that wasn't so clunky and convoluted,
and I've about tried them all now.

------
laughingman2
I hate to be under the thrall of Elsevier software. But the shitty tactics
would force me to switch to Zotero anyways. I just wish Zotero packed in a
consistent cross-platform pdf annotation tool and a mobile app. I wouldn't
mind paying for these.

------
bocklund
Changes in 1.19 encrypted the database, but I think 1.19.2 restored this
feature see: [https://www.mendeley.com/release-
notes/v1_19_2](https://www.mendeley.com/release-notes/v1_19_2)

~~~
falien
That just added the ability to save a copy of the encrypted database. It did
not remove the encryption.

------
fori1to10
The only reason I keep using Mendeley sometimes is because it is nice for
reading on the phone, and it syncs annotations back and forth without issues.
If I can set something as smooth with Zotero, that would be it.

------
boromi
Anyone else here use Jabref? I like it's simplicity.

~~~
erreJulian
Only if I need to tweak a .bib file, but I use Zotero with BetterBibTex
([https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/](https://retorque.re/zotero-
better-bibtex/)) and it generates a .bib file of my entire database.

------
plg
paperpile is sweet I just wish they would let iOS users add a paper to their
database

------
aasasd
I wonder if they're not actually required by GDPR to provide access to data
export in an open format―though it might, again, only apply to online storage.
And of course, it would only be required in the EU.

------
mdip
If I'm understanding things correctly from the reading (which, let's be
honest, that's an assumption on its own), the tl;dr seems to be that Mendeley
heard about an open source product working on a set of importers that would,
potentially, result in Mendeley customers migrating to this free
alternative[0]. To provide cover for this change, they invoked user security.

And hey, user security is a pretty good reason to encrypt a database, but if
security were the _only_ aim, they could have made the data accessible for
export purposes (after all, it's accessible for the _user_ to read).

At this point in history I'm not even sure it's worth going into all of the
reasons this is a terrible thing to do on their part. At _best_ , they'll
scare off some users from migrating away briefly and buy themselves some time
to figure out what they need to do to produce something that's better than the
competition they're attempting thwart. More likely, they'll simply fail
(quickly or slowly). It's that last point that _really_ matters to me. If I'm
buying an application that I'm going to rely on, I want comfort that the
company will continue to maintain the product -- or in the case of open-
source, confidence that the product is still regularly maintained (or in
languages/frameworks that make it practical for me to maintain myself).

 _Aside_ from the fact that I wouldn't want that feature 'as it has been
designed, today', I wouldn't want to rely on a product that's being designed
by individuals who aren't well versed in the perils that DRM-like behavior
causes. After all, that's what this is -- it's an attempt to keep the user
from transforming their own data for the purposes of locking that customer
into the product while attempting to position the lock-in as a security
feature. And it failed on both accounts, Zotero worked around the encryption
(which means the bad guys can to) and if people looking for a product like
this _care_ about that capability, they'll likely refine it to the point that
it's as capable encrypted as it is decrypted.

Every time I've been asked to implement a DRM solution I've either outright
refused or paired it down so much that the "R" didn't really exist. They're
horribly complex to write, off the shelf solutions are already cracked and
time would be _better spent_ giving customers something they're _willing_ to
pay for. The thing that makes me roll my eyes every time I read one of these
is "there are still engineers out there who think this is a good idea?"

I can't wrap my head around what causes this kind of thinking -- it's not a
zero-sum game, there's room for more than one product in the marketplace --
_even if one of them is free and open-source_. Trying to beat the competition
by sabotage rather than by making a better product doesn't work ... at least
not for very long.

[0] And they also do my least favorite "other marketing thing" \-- "Create a
Free Account" and no hint of what the thing costs in any obvious place. So
maybe this other product is free? I doubt it -- Like most companies, I'm
assuming they're perfectly happy collecting your personal information for free
(in order to send marketing to you to get you to _pay_ for whatever _service_
is tied to the _free_ account). It's the little deceptive things that drive me
crazy -- you didn't trick me, you only managed to make me suspicious of your
product.

[1] I've gotten lucky ... usually budget and time doesn't allow for wasting
energy on customer-hostile features that won't achieve the ends they're aiming
for. The only case where something "DRM-like" was in an application I wrote
was to be the opposite of customer-hostile. We had an app that provided
information to users based on their permissions, determined by them logging
in. I pushed to make the automation (sending us the login information) opt-in,
with manual provisioning options. It worked well, since if they failed to true
up after months of warnings, the application would deactivate (due to the size
of the customers, _months of warning_ was somewhere near a year and could
_also_ be disabled with a flag).

~~~
mdip
...I was going to edit my original comment, but it seemed more appropriate to
just follow up with a reply...

I was unaware that this was an Elsevier product (another comment pointed that
out).

I do not use Elsevier products (directly, anyway, maybe I do indirectly but I
doubt it). I have, however, followed the various controversies surrounding the
company for the past several years. Those who are with me will not be
surprised that Mendeley added this sort of "feature".

Elsevier is _not_ in the business of providing a helpful, useful, research
library and tooling. Their business model is to be the _only_ source of that
information. This has been done using a combination of legal, contractual and
technical means. I won't get into the whole ethical/legal argument about
whether or not they should be _allowed_ to do some of the legal/contractual
things that they do to "pseudo-control" that data[0].

This _smells_ like a feature borne out of corporate culture. Their business
really _is_ about exerting control over their customers, so it's natural (to
them) that tool their customers rely on would similarly contain features
related to keeping customers in the walled garden[1].

[0] Especially research done via grants paid for with public funds) -- I
suspect I'd enter an echo chamber pretty quickly (and even if not, I'd be
unlikely to persuade someone in a medium-length comment.

[1] There's some clever pun here about paper walls and research papers but
it's too early to be that clever.

~~~
boyband6666
So it was not developed originally as an Elsevier product, they bought it
around 2013 I believe. By all accounts until this, they've also been fairly
faithful with the way it's been managed and updated. It is certainly more
shiny than Zotero, but I was too nervous about the potential for them doing
something like this that I chose zotero (I was moving away from EndNote at the
time, which is just too quirky).

I hate being right about such things. This is exactly what the fear was when
they bought what was a fantastic piece of software, and doing really
interesting things for researchers.

------
iicc
GDPR?

~~~
TelmoMenezes
Oh come on...

~~~
iicc
EU citizens have an explicit right to a direct transfer in to Zotero.

[https://gdpr-info.eu/art-20-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-20-gdpr/)

"Right to data portability"

>The data subject shall have the right to receive the personal data concerning
him or her, which he or she has provided to a controller, in a structured,
commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those
data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the
personal data have been provided, where:

> the processing is based on consent pursuant to point (a) of Article 6(1) or
> point (a) of Article 9(2) or on a contract pursuant to point (b) of Article
> 6(1); and the processing is carried out by automated means.

>In exercising his or her right to data portability pursuant to paragraph 1,
the data subject shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted
directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible.

~~~
fantasticfears
Good point. I'm trying to get my dump from them.

