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My Library > Sync Items to Notion does not work

Open EvaHoogendoorn opened this issue 5 months ago • 7 comments

My references are not syncing to Notion (4.15.3), even though I have added 2 references in My Library in Zotero. When I click on My Library > Sync items to Notion, nothing happens.

Does someone know why it is not working?

I am well connected to the internet.

The connection is enabled in Notion, with access to the Notero basic page:

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EvaHoogendoorn avatar Jul 15 '25 11:07 EvaHoogendoorn

Hi @EvaHoogendoorn, thanks for reporting this. Unfortunately the Sync Items to Notion option does not work on My Library—it only works on collections.

I see in your screenshot that you don't currently have any collections, so there a couple options for you:

  • Select an item or multiple items (using shift + click) in My Library, right-click on the item(s), and select Sync to Notion.
  • Create a collection, add items into it, then right-click the collection and select Sync Items to Notion.
    • If you want items in the collection to automatically sync, enable the collection in the Notero settings.

Please let me know if these options help!

dvanoni avatar Jul 15 '25 14:07 dvanoni

Hi @dvanoni, unfortunately I have a similar issue. I have added two screenshots below. I tried multiple things, from Basic to the Advanced Template for Notion - somehow it still does not sync, also not when I manually click "Sync items to Notion" within Zotero. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

Thank you for the plugin and hoping we can get it working for me! Much appreciate your work.

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Zekiel89 avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 Zekiel89

Hi @Zekiel89, are you clicking "Sync items to Notion" on your "TRIUM" collection? When you do that, does the progress window appear in the bottom right?

If the progress window is not appearing, would you mind sending a screenshot of the Error Console (in the menu: Tools > Developer > Error Console) just after you've clicked "Sync items to Notion"?

Thanks!

dvanoni avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 dvanoni

Wow, quick! @dvanoni the progress window does not appear, however I get an error message in the console as follows:

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Some better view of the content of "TRIUM":

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Zekiel89 avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 Zekiel89

Thanks for the screenshots, @Zekiel89! I think I see what's happening. The "No valid items to sync" message is the clue.

Notero only syncs items that are directly in the selected collection rather than in descendant collections. In your case, you'd want to right-click the "Globalisation, Inequality & Work" collection and select "Sync Items to Notion" there rather than on "TRIUM".

Another thing I see is that some of the items in your collection are PDFs that don't have "parent items" (as Zotero calls them). Notero is unable to sync those, and you'll need to create parent items for those PDFs in order to sync them. You can do this by right-clicking on a PDF item and selecting "Create Parent Item..."

Please let me know if this helps!

dvanoni avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 dvanoni

Hi @EvaHoogendoorn, thanks for reporting this. Unfortunately the Sync Items to Notion option does not work on My Library—it only works on collections.

I see in your screenshot that you don't currently have any collections, so there a couple options for you:

  • Select an item or multiple items (using shift + click) in My Library, right-click on the item(s), and select Sync to Notion.

  • Create a collection, add items into it, then right-click the collection and select Sync Items to Notion.

    • If you want items in the collection to automatically sync, enable the collection in the Notero settings.

Please let me know if these options help!

Sorry, I forgot to answer, but thanks for your help, much appreciated! It worked 👍

EvaHoogendoorn avatar Aug 12 '25 08:08 EvaHoogendoorn

Thanks for the screenshots, @Zekiel89! I think I see what's happening. The "No valid items to sync" message is the clue.

Notero only syncs items that are directly in the selected collection rather than in descendant collections. In your case, you'd want to right-click the "Globalisation, Inequality & Work" collection and select "Sync Items to Notion" there rather than on "TRIUM".

Another thing I see is that some of the items in your collection are PDFs that don't have "parent items" (as Zotero calls them). Notero is unable to sync those, and you'll need to create parent items for those PDFs in order to sync them. You can do this by right-clicking on a PDF item and selecting "Create Parent Item..."

Please let me know if this helps!

@dvanoni you are brilliant, this works and resolved the issue. Thank you so much!

Zekiel89 avatar Aug 13 '25 18:08 Zekiel89