No longer works now that Mendeley encrypts its database
bwiernik opened this issue · comments
Mendeley has started to encrypt the local sqlite database (shortly after Zotero released a native tool to import Mendeley databases), so this workflow doesn't work with Mendeley version 1.19 and later.
Thanks for pointing it out (I wasn't aware of it).
Well, those are bad news for Mendeley users, I guess. And that is another good reason to say goodbye to Mendeley. Of course, my code will be useless in this case.
Users who download version 1.18 could still use it. (Zotero also recently added tools to import directly from Mendeley 1.18 and earlier databases).
Thank you for your code, though! I've pointed many people to it over the years.
Thanks for the update about using v. 1.18 (and for your comments about the code :-) ---though I'd use Zotero's importer now :-).
Hi @rdiaz02 @bwiernik , not sure if you're still maintaining or using this, but we are sorry for breaking your script! We would like to officially support local database access in a way that will keep working as we make changes to the db & we're currently collecting use cases and setting up one-on-ones with the dev team, so if you'd like to give the Mendeley developers some feedback on what data you need to access so we can make sure to support your use case, please get in touch via email.
I am not using this myself anymore (I used it, got what I needed, and got done with it), though other people might. What data do I need? The script used the sqlite Mendely db. If that is no longer accessible then the script won't work.
The goal of this script (and also Zotero’s analogous function) was to export ALL of the data available in a Mendeley account via the local database. If there were an API that could provide all of the data (items, folders, groups, tags, files, annotations, etc.) in an easily exportable format, that would suffice. But also just un-encrypting the database would be equally functional.
@bwiernik is correct.
Note, though, that at least for my case (the case of this script) having to access through an API would be a major hassle relative to directly having the sqlite database (it would be necessary to call the API from R, which would probably mean through calls to the system, etc; a pain).
Regardless, I think as of today my scripts are probably not the way to go. Instead, what I think we would all like to see working for posterity would be Zotero's native import (for references see https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import and https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/72260/available-for-beta-testing-mendeley-import ).
Fine by me. Thanks.
Hi @bwiernik,
Apologies for reaching out on this forum, as I could not find an email to contact you on. I am Elizabeth, one of the designers at Mendeley who would be interested in hearing your feedback, as William suggested.
Please could you let me know what time would be best for you, at mendeley.design@elsevier.com?
Many thanks,
Elizabeth