Paywalled papers

Recipes for papers you can read through a subscription or an account but that have no open copy.

• An Elsevier paper
  • The same paper, you click
• Every failed paper of a reference list
• mosaic cannot find your Downloads folder
• PDFs you already downloaded
• A PDF without DOI metadata
• Replace a file already in the library
• Log in to a publisher once
• Check your saved sessions
• A CAPTCHA or an SSO prompt
• Forget a session

An Elsevier paper

mosaic get 10.1016/j.paerosci.2006.01.001 --auto

--auto drives your own Chrome (or Edge; on WSL the Windows one) through the paper's PDF chain and files each download it saves; ScienceDirect's fingerprint wall passes because the driver is a genuine browser. Log in once per publisher in the window mosaic opens. Guide: auto pass.

The same paper, you click

mosaic get 10.1016/j.paerosci.2006.01.001 --handoff

Without Chrome, or when a site shows a check a browser must pass by hand: mosaic opens the article page in your default browser and watches your Downloads folder. Click "Download PDF" as usual; mosaic checks the new file is a PDF, moves it into the library under the paper's name and stops. Tutorial: your browser does the download. Guide: hand-off.

Every failed paper of a reference list

mosaic get --from refs.bib --auto
mosaic get --from refs.bib --auto --interactive   # the auto pass, then a window for the rest
mosaic get --from refs.bib --handoff              # you click, mosaic files

The open papers download as usual; the subscribed ones run through the auto pass, one publisher after the other. A login prompt waits up to 3 minutes per site. --max-auto N raises the 50-paper per-run cap for the auto pass. Each paper's ledger is in the cache, so re-running the same command resumes where it stopped.

mosaic cannot find your Downloads folder

mosaic get 10.1016/j.paerosci.2006.01.001 --handoff --watch-dir /mnt/c/Users/me/Downloads

On WSL mosaic asks Windows where the Downloads folder is, also when it was moved into OneDrive; on Linux it asks xdg-user-dir DOWNLOAD, then tries ~/Downloads. --watch-dir names the folder when neither works, or when your browser saves elsewhere.

PDFs you already downloaded

mosaic import ~/Downloads/1-s2.0-S0094576517312663-main.pdf
mosaic import ~/Downloads/*.pdf --download-dir ~/papers/hall-thrusters

import finds each file's DOI (the PDF's metadata, then the article ID in a ScienceDirect file name, then a single DOI in the text), takes title, authors and year from the cache or Crossref, and moves the file into the library under the usual name. Files that are not PDFs, or whose DOI it cannot find, are reported and left in place; the command exits with status 1 if any file failed. Tutorial: PDFs you already have. Guide: PDFs you downloaded yourself.

A PDF without DOI metadata

mosaic import scan.pdf --doi 10.1016/j.paerosci.2006.01.001

--doi names the paper when detection fails, and works with one file at a time.

Replace a file already in the library

mosaic import ~/Downloads/better-copy.pdf --doi 10.1016/j.paerosci.2006.01.001 --force

Without --force, import refuses to overwrite a PDF already filed under the same name.

Log in to a publisher once

mosaic auth login springer --url https://link.springer.com

A browser window opens at the URL. Log in as the site asks (institution, SSO, two-factor), wait until the publisher's page shows you logged in, then press Enter in the terminal: mosaic saves the cookies to ~/.config/mosaic/sessions/springer.json. Later downloads use the session without any flag. Pressing Enter in the middle of SSO redirects saves a session that does not work. Needs the browser extra and a Playwright browser (Installation). Guide: saved sessions.

Check your saved sessions

mosaic auth status

The Login column tells how long ago a session was saved: publisher logins live in cookies that end within hours or days, so a session saved more than a day ago is probably logged out. Log in again, or let a successful get --interactive refresh it.

A CAPTCHA or an SSO prompt

mosaic get 10.1088/1361-6595/ab46c5 --interactive

--interactive (-i) retries the failed papers in a visible browser window loaded with your sessions. When the PDF does not arrive by itself, the terminal says it is your turn: log in, solve the check or open the PDF in the window. It needs a display; on WSL2, WSLg provides one. Guide: interactive download.

Forget a session

mosaic auth logout springer

Deletes the saved session files for that name.