Introducing Mendeley Reference Manager – designed for today’s researcher workflow

Updated on 22 February 2022 with new details and timelines.

Whether organizing research, annotating articles, generating a bibliography or sharing references, Mendeley has been there to help ease the workflow of millions of researchers around the world. Using valuable feedback from our users, we have developed a completely new build of the reference manager that is more resilient, streamlined and intuitive – and we can’t wait for you to try it.

Do more with Mendeley

Mendeley Reference Manager simplifies your entire referencing workflow and provides what you need to stay organized and focused on what matters – your research. Mendeley Cite, an add-in for Microsoft Word, makes citing seamless. Together they make storing, organizing, annotating, sharing and citing references more efficient than ever before.

Try the new Mendeley to:

  • Work in different locations with identical desktop and web versions
  • Insert citations seamlessly while writing – without having to leave your document
  • Enjoy peace of mind with automatic sync, knowing that your latest changes are always backed up in the cloud
  • Collaborate with others in real time – automatic sync enables sharing and annotating papers alongside team members in private groups
  • Experience the reliability of software regularly updated with new features and releases

A closer look

Mendeley’s new reference management suite consists of three integrated applications that together provide you with a single, powerful solution.

Mendeley Reference Manager – Installed on your desktop or as a web application, you can easily organize all your references in one library using collections and tags, and find important references quickly with keyword search and filtering. The built-in notebook helps you keep your thoughts organized in one place. Create notebook pages for different topics and use them to collect annotations and highlighted text from PDFs as you read them. Create and participate in private groups from within the app and share resources and annotations efficiently with a team. You can switch seamlessly between desktop and web versions of the reference manager for convenient access to your research on any computer.

Mendeley Cite – Generate citations and bibliographies and change citation style in just a few clicks with the new Mendeley Cite add-in for Microsoft Word. Your whole document remains visible while finding, selecting and inserting references – you no longer need to switch back and forth between your library, the citation panel and what you’re writing. What’s more, because your library is stored in the cloud, Mendeley Cite works even without the desktop version of Mendeley Reference Manager being installed. Compatible with Microsoft® Office 365, Microsoft Word versions 2016 and newer, the Microsoft Word app for iPad® and the free Microsoft Word for the web, Mendeley Cite offers users a range of options, and we will continue to expand these in the future.

Mendeley Web Importer – Adding this extension to your browser enables you to easily build your library of references as you search online. Access full-text research with one click where available, and spend less time navigating and more time building your knowledgebase.

The three applications are fully integrated – your collections are visible and searchable throughout your workflow so that you can quickly and efficiently build, manage and cite from your library. Because all three are available on a wide range of platforms and web browsers, you have the flexibility to work how and where you want.

The new Mendeley suite also has a clearer, more intuitive look and functionality, so that you can get up and running quickly and manage your references with ease.

How to upgrade

Mendeley Desktop users can try Mendeley Reference Manager’s desktop app worry-free – both applications can be installed on your computer at the same time. Ready to explore the new Mendeley? Here’s how:

  1. Sync your existing library in Mendeley Desktop
  2. Download and install Mendeley Reference Manager
  3. Open the new reference manager, and sign in using your existing Mendeley credentials

That’s it! With those simple steps, you are ready to use a more powerful version of Mendeley.

Mendeley Reference Manager will replace Mendeley Desktop in the long run

As part of the continued evolution of Mendeley, from 1 September 2022, users will no longer be able to download and install Mendeley Desktop software. Existing users of Mendeley Desktop will continue to be able to sign into, use and sync their Mendeley Desktop.

Longer-term, once we are confident that the new Mendeley Reference Manager sufficiently meets your reference management needs, we will begin the process of stopping all sign-ins to Mendeley Desktop. We will be sure to give you plenty of notice before this happens.

We want to hear from you

Listening to Mendeley’s user base has been a critical part of developing the new Mendeley applications. Because we understand that your needs evolve, the product team is always eager to hear from you, so we can continue to build a Mendeley that supports you. Send us your feedback, ideas and suggestions anytime from within the apps, or via the link below.

We are regularly releasing updates for the new Mendeley applications, which helps us progressively integrate your feedback and suggestions. It also ensures that bugs are fixed quickly and updates to approved third-party software are implemented in a timely way. Our aim is to provide a smooth experience for Mendeley users, so your attention can stay focused on your research.

The Mendeley team values the opportunity to provide solutions that help researchers do their vital work more easily and efficiently. We are proud to be a trusted partner to so many researchers around the world, and committed to supporting you and your research today – and into the future.

Try the new Mendeley Reference Manager now.


Your experience matters

We welcome your feedback about the new Mendeley Reference Manager. While we will be unable to respond individually, your message will be reviewed by our team and suggestions may be added in future releases. Provide feedback.

We’ve listened to our users and are refocusing on what’s important to them

Concentrating our services on the tools that are providing the most value towards our users’ work – reference management, research data management and citation solutions. What does it mean for the Mendeley Community?

At Mendeley, we aim to help researchers work even more efficiently so they can spend their time making discoveries.

As Head of Reference Management Laura Thomson says:

“We want to take reference management off researchers’ minds by making all the tasks related to collecting, organizing, reading, annotating and citing as simple as possible.”

To ensure we are supporting researchers as effectively as we can, we regularly review what our users show us and tell us they need and value most.

Based on our evolving understanding of our customers’ needs, Mendeley is increasing its focus on its core reference management, research data management and citation tools.

In recent months, we have made many improvements:

  • The new Mendeley Reference Manager now features real-time sync of a user’s document library to the cloud, so that there’s no delay in seeing changes made to their library across all their devices.
  • We built a new citation add-in, Mendeley Cite, as a standalone extension for Microsoft Word so that it can additionally be used in the browser with Office 365 and with Word for iPad without the Mendeley Desktop app.
  • Our refreshed Mendeley Web Importer now leverages Mendeley’s catalog of open access links as well as industry partnerships such as GetFTR to help maximize convenient access to full texts and save researchers even more time in importing them to their libraries.
  • Mendeley Data has expanded coverage to more than 25 million datasets over 2000 data repositories, making researcher data even more findable and citable.

To focus on providing the best possible service and experience for the users of these tools, we will simplify Mendeley and retire the following features from December 2020:

  • Mendeley Feed and Public Groups
  • Mendeley Profiles
  • Mendeley Funding

Our customers can find out more about what this means for them on this page in our Support Center which we’ll be keeping regularly updated.

The new Mendeley Reference Manager is now available and we will continually improve the tool based the feedback of our users. Mendeley Desktop continues to be supported and we remain committed to our Mendeley Institutional Edition customers. Mendeley has always had open public APIs, and we maintain these as part of our commitment to interoperability, which is one of our four core principles, together with source neutrality, transparency and user control.

Mendeley exists because every researcher faces challenges with building their knowledge, being personally organized and efficiently preparing articles for submission. We continue our core mission of dedicated support to researchers in achieving these goals and intend to keep Mendeley available free of charge.

Mendeley has been helping researchers simplify their workflow and accelerate their research for many years now, and we look forward to continuing to do this for many years to come.

– Rose L’Huillier, EVP Researcher Products

Importing references just got even easier: introducing the new Mendeley Web Importer

Mendeley Web Importer Chrome DesktopFor the past decade, Mendeley Web Importer has been vital for busy researchers, making it easy to add articles from across the internet to their reference library.

Today, we’re pleased to announce an all-new version, with new features and a refreshed design. The new Mendeley Web Importer is available for both Google Chrome and Firefox.

What’s new?

Rebuilt for reliability and flexibility

Mendeley Web Importer has been completely rebuilt to ensure rock-solid reliability in finding relevant references and uploading them to your Mendeley library.

The new version also lets you get on with other work while uploads are in progress. It can keep uploading PDFs to your Mendeley library even if you close the window or switch tabs.

Preview the full text before adding it to your library

Everyone’s workflow is different. If you prefer to scan the full text before deciding to add it to your Mendeley library, now you can simply select ‘View PDF’ in the Mendeley Web Importer interface. The PDF will open within Elsevier’s enhanced PDF reader, adding navigational shortcuts and clickable elements to the full texts. More enhancements are planned too, so keep an eye out for future announcements.

Mendeley Web Importer preview PDF

 

Organize your PDFs into collections and share them with groups

The redesigned interface makes it clearer and easier to add references directly to the collections and groups in your Mendeley library. Mendeley Web Importer now also remembers the last collection you selected, saving you time.

Get more full texts than ever before

We’ve introduced new technology to enable the retrieval of even more full-text PDFs. That means that when you use Mendeley Web Importer, you can have total confidence that you’re getting everything you need.

If your account is authenticated to a registered institutional network, Mendeley Web Importer also retrieves full texts from publisher sites, including ScienceDirect, Wiley Online, Taylor and Francis Online, and SpringerLink.

Huge accessibility improvements

It’s important that everyone can navigate Mendeley Web Importer in the way that’s best for them. If the keyboard is the right tool for you, you can now simply select either Ctrl-Shift-S on your PC or Cmd-Shift-S on your Mac to import references and full texts using only the keyboard.

No more waiting for version updates

Websites change all the time. To ensure constant compatibility, we have a responsive development strategy for Mendeley Web Importer.

To ensure your version doesn’t fall behind, meaning a sub-optimal experience for you, we now automatically cascade updates to your browser as soon as they are available.

Get started with Mendeley Web Importer

To get started, simply visit www.mendeley.com/reference-management/web-importer.

For Google Chrome, if you already have the earlier version of Mendeley Web Importer installed, the new version will overwrite the existing version automatically.

For Firefox, you will need to uninstall the previous version and install the new one.

We expect to release ports to Microsoft Edge and Safari later in 2020.

What’s next?

The new Mendeley Web Importer is designed to save you time and simplify your research workflow.

We always welcome your feedback on how to improve our solutions and services, so do let us know your thoughts on the new Mendeley Web Importer using our feedback form or using the ‘Send feedback’ link in the new Web Importer settings page.

___________________________________________________________________________

Mendeley Web Importer is just one of Mendeley’s reference management tools available to help you build your knowledge. Find out more about reference management from Mendeley here.

Looking for advice on effectively building your knowledgebase? Take a look at this Elsevier Connect article on key steps to collecting and organizing research.