Zotero
Zotero is a reference manager for collecting sources, organizing research materials, annotating PDFs, and creating citations and bibliographies.
What is Zotero?
Zotero is a desktop research and reference management app that helps students, academics, and other writers collect, organize, cite, and share sources. It lets you save books, articles, web pages, PDFs, and notes into searchable libraries, making it easier to manage reading and writing projects. Zotero can automatically generate citations and bibliographies in many citation styles, and it integrates with word processors for inserting references while you write. The app also supports PDF reading and annotation, syncing libraries across devices, and group libraries for collaborative research. On Mac, Zotero is commonly used for literature reviews, thesis writing, course work, and long-form research projects.
Key features
- Save books, articles, web pages, and PDFs into a personal research library
- Organize references with collections, tags, notes, and saved searches
- Read and annotate PDFs inside the app
- Generate citations and bibliographies in many citation styles
- Insert references into word processor documents while writing
- Sync your library and attachments across devices
- Share sources and collaborate with group libraries
Review app leftovers with diCleaner
Inspect caches, support files, containers, and login items before cleaning.
Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
Zotero is a well-known research tool from the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Its browser connector, local document integrations, and optional cloud sync are consistent with its purpose of saving sources and inserting citations. Review what you sync to your Zotero account if your library contains sensitive research materials, and check installed plugins before troubleshooting unusual behavior. On Mac, the bundle ID org.zotero.zotero is consistent with Zotero.
Recommendation: Keep Zotero if you use it for research, citation management, PDF annotation, or writing with references. If you no longer manage papers or bibliographies with it, you can remove the app, but doing so may disconnect local libraries, plugins, and word processor citation workflows until you reinstall it.
Common paths
/Applications/Zotero.app~/Zotero
Cache paths
~/Library/Caches/org.zotero.zotero
Support paths
~/Library/Application Support/Zotero
Preference paths
~/Library/Preferences/org.zotero.zotero.plist
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