Mendeley Data
mendeley.com · Storage · 1 record · JSON
Mendeley Data (Elsevier) Storage
fails: quotainstitutionno cardRper-object-cap
| Free tier | 10 GB per dataset, free, unlimited datasets per account ('you can split your datasets into small sizes'; 'we can reference datasets within datasets'). Institutional Digital Commons Data raises this to 100 GB/dataset. unit GB; metered on unstated |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Per-object cap | per-object-cap: 10 GB (10000000000 bytes) |
| Retention | | Published datasets cannot be edited or deleted (versioning only) — a write-once archive, not a mutable store |
| Egress | Free, public datasets downloadable without login. Backed by AWS S3 eu-west-1 plus DANS long-term archive (three replicas). |
| Identity | institution derived from the record's prose, not from an identity field, and no signup was executed: small sizes'; 'we can reference datasets within datasets'). Institutional Digital Commons Data raises this to 100 GB/dataset. Published datasets cannot be edited or deleted (versioning onl |
| Limits |
per-object-cap: 10 GB per dataset (100 GB institutional). Retention: published datasets are immutable and 'archived with DANS ... in perpetuity', no expiry. Read path caveat: the download URL pattern returns a JSON envelope rather than bytes for non-existent file IDs, so anonymous bulk scraping needs real file UUIDs from the dataset API. |
| Binding | per-object-cap the per-object cap sets the shard size and therefore the object count; it bounds the total more tightly than any headline quota |
| Interface | rest rest |
| Tooling | Documented REST API (data.mendeley.com/api/docs) with OAuth2 client-credentials; search endpoint /api/datasets/v2/search is anonymous. Download URLs are /public-files/datasets/<id>/files/<fileid>/file_downloaded. |
| Composes with | 10 GB per dataset × unlimited datasets per account = effectively unbounded per identity; multiple free accounts multiply further. This is the cleanest 'per-record unlimited' shape in the niche. |
| Reliability | Published datasets cannot be edited or deleted (versioning only) — a write-once archive, not a mutable store. Download endpoint resolves via JSON for bad IDs, so naive crawlers must parse the API first. |
| Notes | 10 GB per dataset, free, unlimited datasets per account ('you can split your datasets into small sizes'; 'we can reference datasets within datasets'). Institutional Digital Commons Data raises this to 100 GB/dataset. |
| Evidence rung | reported One page read moves it to documented. |
| Checked | 2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-04 |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence (4)
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-21 | data.mendeley.com/faq | 100 GB institutional cap, DANS perpetuity archiving, 'once a dataset is published, it is not possible to edit or delete it' |
| 2026-10-21 | www.elsevier.support/mendeley/answer/what-can-i-do-when-my-d | '10GB per dataset limit', with the vendor's split-and-reference alternative route |
| 2026-10-21 | data.mendeley.com/api/datasets/v2/search?query=test&limit=1 | probe: GET -> 200, real dataset JSON with doi 10.17632/... |
| 2026-10-21 | withheld | probe: GET .../public-files/datasets/jxj8bn2vyf/files/1/file_downloaded -> 200 but Content-Type application/json, code 400 envelope (not bytes) — read path needs real file UUIDs |
More fields (1)
{
"dead_end": {
"failure_class": "quota",
"why": "10 GB per dataset, free, unlimited datasets per account ('you can split your datasets into small sizes'; 'we can reference datasets within datasets'). Institutional Digital Commons Data raises this to 100 GB/dataset.",
"retry_when": null,
"first_recorded": "2026-10-21"
}
}Unknown or withheld values (5)
$.evidence[3].urlprivate-url$.extras.dead_end.retry_whenprocess$.free_tier.notesprocess$.per_object_cap.notesnot-extracted$.retention.notesnot-extracted