Zotero + your Synology NAS

Here’s how you can automatically sync Zotero to your Synology NAS using WebDAV.

Zotero is an archiving tool for research. It automatically saves snapshots of the websites & research papers you archive, but to sync a lot of snapshots between devices you either need a paid storage subscription or your own WebDAV server. This is how I set one up on my Synology NAS. It took me about 30min when I was learning how.

Step 1: set up WebDAV & remote access on your Synology

On your Synology NAS, set up WebDAV:

  1. Set up a DDNS hostname for your Synology.
    • It’s easiest to use Synology for this (*.synology.me).
    • To do this securely, you must set up https, e.g. via the Get a certificate from Let’s Encrypt and set it as default checkbox or with your own manual certificate.
    • Set up port forwarding, for at least port 5006.
  2. Set up WebDAV.
    • I only enabled HTTPS, not HTTP, since I don’t want to connect insecurely by accident. HTTPS uses port 5006 by default, which I left unchanged.

Next, choose/​create a user & Shared Folder to sync with:

  1. Choose or create a Shared Folder that Zotero will sync to.
    • You can use an existing folder; Zotero can sync to a subdirectory.
  2. Choose or create a user that Zotero will connect with.
    • I recommend a non-admin user with limited access to only the one Shared Folder you’ll use. This reduces the danger of exposing you NAS as a WebDAV server, especially if no other account is allowed to use WebDAV.
    • Make sure the user has permission to use the WebDAV application.

You now have everything you need to connect to your drives with WebDAV: specifically, your remote access URL (and WebDAV port), your Shared Folder name, and your user info to login.

You’ll use this info to connect Zotero.

Step 2: connect Zotero to your new WebDAV server

For each computer (or phone!) running Zotero:

  1. In Zotero, open Preferences:

    • On Windows: Edit > Preferences
    • On Mac: Zotero > Preferences
    • On iOS: outside of My Library, click the settings cog, then Account

  2. On the Sync tab, under File Syncing, check Sync attachment files in My Library using, then change the dropdown from Zotero to WebDAV.

  3. In the form that appears, select:

    • URL schema: https
    • URL: from step 1, ① your remote access URL plus ② your WebDAV HTTPS port (:5006) plus ③ your Shared Drive name
      • For example, mynas.synology.me:5006/Drive - Ben
      • If you want to sync to a subdirectory, add that, too: mynas.synology.me:5006/Drive - Ben/my/sub/directories.
      • Zotero will automatically create a further /zotero/ subdirectory.
    • Username: a username with read/​write access to that Shared Folder, e.g. ben.
    • Password: the user’s password.

    For example:

    Example form filled out with data from above

  4. Click Verify Server. A popup should read: File sync is successfully set up:

    Example form filled out with data from above

Your done!

See also