Skip to Main Content

Mendeley - Managing your Sources

Read this First!

"Mendeley Desktop" has been discontinued and has been replaced with "Mendeley Reference Manager".  

Elsevier announcement: "As of September 1, 2022, users will no longer be able to download and install Mendeley Desktop software. Existing users, who have already installed Mendeley Desktop, will continue to be able to sign into, use and sync their Mendeley Desktop." 

The new Mendeley Reference Manager program has a number of issues, particularly the Mendeley Cite add-in for Microsoft Word. At this time, we are not recommending Mendeley Reference Manager and suggest using Zotero or EndNote instead. 

See below links for guidance on importing your Mendeley library to Zotero or EndNote:

About Mendeley

Logo for Citation software Mendeley

Mendeley is a free* reference manager and academic social network. Make your own fully-searchable library in seconds, cite as you write, and read and annotate your PDFs on any device.

With Mendeley you can ....

Store and Access your Sources in One Place

  • Securely store and access your sources, PDFs and papers across devices, you can search and sort your references, documents and notes in one place - right down to the keyword you're looking for.

Read and Annotate your PDFs

  • Use Mendeley online or offline to access your PDFs on the move. Highlight, annotate and add sticky notes to capture​ your thoughts in context

Create Citations and Bibliographies

  • Generate your citations and bibliography in the style of your choice - in just a few clicks. Compatible with Microsoft Word, LibreOffice and BibTeX.

WIth a *Free Account you:

  • Get 2GB of cloud storage. You have to use Mendeley’s cloud storage in order to have a fully functioning account. However, 2GB should provide you with significant space for your collection.
  • Have no limit to the amount of public groups that can be created (share references only). You are only allowed 1 private group with 3 private members and 100mb of storage. 

To get started, follow the steps below.

1. Sign up and Download Mendeley

2. Add & Import Sources to Mendeley

  • Download articles in PDF  
  • Drag and drop files into Mendeley
  • Import your library from other research software
  • Use the Web Importer to import from Search Everything and other Library Databases

3. Organizing your Sources in Mendeley

  • Sort, view, highlight and annotate PDFs
  • Star favorites and store them in multiple folders
  • Filter and search for keywords

4. Generate Citations with Mendeley

  • Download the Word citation plug-in
  • Auto-generate citations and bibliographies
  • Change formats to suit your chosen style