Import Google Scholar References into Zotero (3 Easy Ways)

Google Scholar is where most researchers find papers. It is also, unfortunately, the worst-integrated source in the citation-management landscape. Google has no official export API, no BibTeX bulk download, and a quiet hostility to scraping. This guide walks through the three practical ways to get Google Scholar references into Zotero, DEEPNOTIS, or any modern reference manager in 2026.

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Option 1: The Zotero Connector (one at a time)

This is the official path and the most reliable for single references.

1. Install the Zotero Connector browser extension.
2. Open a Google Scholar search result page.
3. Click the folder icon in your browser toolbar. The connector detects every result on the page and lets you pick which ones to import.
4. Zotero opens and adds the selected items to your library with full metadata (title, authors, year, journal, abstract, and — critically — the link to the PDF when Google Scholar has one).

Strengths: it works, it handles the PDF download, it populates metadata accurately.

Weaknesses: one page at a time. For literature reviews with hundreds of candidates, this is painful.

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Option 2: Export individual citations as BibTeX

Google Scholar exposes BibTeX, RIS, and EndNote XML on individual results.

1. Click the "Cite" icon (looks like quotation marks) under any result.
2. A dialog opens with the citation in four styles plus export links.
3. Click "BibTeX", which opens a new page with a single .bib entry.
4. Copy the entry. Paste into your master .bib file, or save and import into your reference manager.

This is the old workflow. It works, but it's manual, one-at-a-time, and doesn't include the PDF link. For one or two references, fine. For dozens, use Option 3.

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Option 3: "My Library" + bulk export (the best option)

Google Scholar has a hidden feature most researchers don't use: a personal library.

1. On any Google Scholar result, click the star icon to save it to your library.
2. Build your working list by starring everything interesting.
3. Go to scholar.google.com/scholar_settings → Search settings → "Library links" and enable your institution if you have one (you'll get direct PDF access through your institution's subscriptions).
4. Visit scholar.google.com/scholar?scisbd=2 → "My library" in the left sidebar.
5. Select the items you want. There's a checkbox on each.
6. Click the export icon (down arrow) at the top → choose BibTeX or RIS.
7. You get a single file with every selected entry.

Import that file into Zotero (File → Import), DEEPNOTIS's BibTeX formatter for a cleanup pass first, or straight into any reference manager that reads RIS or BibTeX.

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Common problems

The bibtex export is ugly

Google Scholar's BibTeX is notoriously inconsistent. It often uses @misc for everything, mangles the title capitalization, and sometimes puts the full URL in the note field. Run the output through DEEPNOTIS's BibTeX formatter to clean it up before importing — the formatter normalizes entry types, removes duplicate fields, and standardizes the citekey format.

Duplicates

A literature review searching multiple databases plus Google Scholar will give you 30-50% duplicates. Before you start reading, run your combined .bib through DEEPNOTIS's deduplicator — it groups by DOI first, then falls back to fuzzy match on title, first author, and year.

Missing DOIs

Google Scholar's metadata sometimes lacks a DOI even when the paper has one. Pipe the list through the DOI resolver in Zotero (right-click → "Find Available PDFs" or "Retrieve Metadata for PDFs") to fill in missing identifiers. In DEEPNOTIS, the same enrichment happens automatically when you upload a .docx that references those papers.

PDFs not downloading

If your institution doesn't have access, Google Scholar won't have a PDF link. The Zotero Connector can't download what Google Scholar doesn't link to. For open-access versions, check if the paper is on arXiv, bioRxiv, or a university repository — often the author-submitted version is open even when the journal version isn't.

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Workflow for a serious literature review

If you're doing a real literature review, don't rely on Google Scholar alone. The standard workflow:

1. Start with a database search in your field's main database (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus) using a systematic query.
2. Export results as .ris or .bib.
3. Supplement with a targeted Google Scholar search using site:scholar.google.com or advanced operators.
4. Merge all exports into a single .bib file.
5. Deduplicate.
6. Screen abstracts. The 30-50% that pass go into your "reading" collection.
7. Read, annotate, cite as you write.

Google Scholar is excellent at step 3 (targeted follow-up searches and finding recent work that hasn't made it into indexed databases yet) but weak at step 1 (systematic queries with Boolean operators). Use it for what it's good at.

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If you're going to use DEEPNOTIS

The typical DEEPNOTIS user already writes their paper in Word or Google Docs. The flow differs slightly from the Zotero-centric one:

1. Drop all your PDFs into a folder, or paste their DOIs into DEEPNOTIS's LaTeX bib builder.
2. Upload your draft .docx. DEEPNOTIS extracts every citation already in your document.
3. If some references are missing metadata, auto-enrichment from a DOI, ISBN, or URL fills in what's missing.
4. Switch to any citation style with a dropdown.
5. Export the formatted document or just the bibliography.

You don't need to maintain a separate Zotero library if DEEPNOTIS is your endpoint — the document is the library.

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The one-line summary

For single references, use the Zotero Connector. For batches, build a "My library" collection on Google Scholar and bulk-export to BibTeX or RIS. Then clean with a deduplicator and a formatter before importing. Three minutes of cleanup here saves hours of confusion later.