The reason people put off switching research tools isn't loyalty. It's the library. You have hundreds of PDFs in folders, a Zotero collection you've curated for years, and a few documents' worth of planning scattered across notes and AI chats. Re-entering all of that by hand is a non-starter.
So don't. Here's how to bring it across in one sitting.
1. Start with the PDFs you already have
If your sources live as files — a Dissertation/Sources folder, a Downloads pile, a Dropbox — this is the fastest win.
Open Add source → Bulk PDFs, then drag the whole folder in (or select up to 50 at once). Folio reads each PDF, looks for its DOI, and confirms the citation against CrossRef. You get verified metadata — authors, year, journal, title — not a filename masquerading as a title.
A few things happen automatically that save you real time:
- De-duplication. Anything already in your library is skipped, matched by DOI or title.
- The files come with you. Each PDF is stored, so you can read and annotate it inside Folio.
- Nothing is guessed silently. A PDF with no findable DOI still imports, but it's flagged Check title so you can fix it in a second.
This step uses no AI credits. It's free.
2. Bring over your reference manager
If you've kept a library in Zotero or exported a .bib/.ris file, use Add source → BibTeX / RIS or Zotero. Your existing metadata carries over intact — no AI, no reformatting. Folio reads BibTeX, RIS, CSL JSON, MODS, and EndNote.
This is the right path if your sources are already well-organized somewhere else. Use bulk PDF import for the loose files; use this for the curated library.
3. Don't throw away your planning
Most researchers have already done real thinking before they open a writing tool — increasingly, with an AI assistant. If you've been sketching a thesis or arguing through an outline in ChatGPT or Claude, you can lift it straight in.
New ▾ → Import from AI chat, paste the conversation, and Folio extracts a working thesis, an outline, the papers you discussed, and the key claims — then opens a draft already shaped around them.
The important part: every citation gets verified against CrossRef. AI assistants invent references constantly, so Folio confirms each one and flags the ones it can't — they're left unchecked, never silently added. Integrity is the point of the whole tool; we're not going to launder a fake citation into your library at the door.
For the cleanest result, click Copy prompt in that window, run it in your AI chat first, and paste the tidy reply back. It returns DOIs for each source, so more come back verified.
4. You're not starting from an empty page
By the time you've done the above, you have a populated library, a draft with an outline, and your sources ready to cite. That's the whole point of the on-ramp: the first thing you do in Folio shouldn't be data entry.
You can do any of this later, too — the on-ramp lives permanently under Account → Profile.
Folio is free to start with the Scholar plan. Bring your research in.