EndNote 2025 & EndNote 21: Citation Management: Home

Citation management tools (or reference managers) will help you create bibliographies and manage the citations in your paper.  First, you must identify and collect the references to articles, books, chapters, conference papers, and other works you will use in your paper (as well as the actual sources), and add them to your library. Next, you integrate those references into your paper, as in-text citations and the reference list at the end of the paper, based on your preferred citation format. You can also manage your library, group references, share them, edit, delete duplicates, and more.

• As you write more papers and collect more references, it is strongly advised that you employ a citation management tool. It's likely you will be required to use one if you're in a research group.  

EndNote, also known as EndNote Desktop, is one of the most widely used citation managers at UC San Diego. It has more features than EndNote Online. However, unlike EndNote Online, Zotero, and Mendeley, EndNote Desktop is not free. There is no campus license, but we may be able to offer instruction or consultations on using EndNote.

• One benefit of EndNote Desktop is that you will get 3 years of unlimited storage for your PDFs.

The latest version is EndNote 2025, but information for EndNote 21 is included where applicable.

EndNote:

• Is PC and Mac friendly
• Pulls in references from Library catalogs (e.g., UC Library Search) or from databases (Web of Science, PubMed, JSTOR, etc.) to help you build your reference library.
• Locates full-text PDF files from the references, and creates references when importing PDF files. You can also annotate your PDFs.
• Allows you to group references based on research projects
• Works with MS Word and other word processors to properly insert references and format the bibliography or works cited list.
• Allows you to share references with other EndNote users.
• Syncs between EndNote, EndNote Online, and EndNote for iPad/iPhone

UC San Diego (campuswide or through the Library) does not have a license for EndNote Desktop.

• EndNote 2025 can be purchased through On The Hub or the EndNote website.
  • If you're upgrading from a previous version and have that serial number, it will be $106 - $125 for all users.
  • A new perpetual license will cost $234 - $275
  • A new perpetual license for students will cost $128 - $150. 
• It can also be purchased through the campus bookstore or directly from the EndNote website.
• If you're in a research group, check first to see if there's an available copy.

Once you have installed EndNote, you can sign up for an account to sync your references to your cloud storage, for backups and easier transferring between devices. 

1. If you have a Web of Science account or have previously used EndNote Online, you can use that same login for EndNote 2025. If you use the same account for EndNote and Web of Science, then you will be able to see which references in the Web of Science search results are already in your EndNote library.
2. To create an account, go to https://access.clarivate.com/login?app=endnote on a UCSD-connected computer (including VPN).

It is strongly recommended that you do not keep your active, syncing EndNote library in a folder on your computer that is also syncing with a 3rd party service like Dropbox, as this may affect your library. You can use these to store backup copies of your EndNote libraries, or copies of the compressed libraries for sharing, but opening a copy of the library from Dropbox or another location is not recommended.

Released in June 2025, EndNote 2025 is similar to EndNote 21. The primary differences between the two are the AI features now integrated into EndNote 2025. For more, see What's New with EndNote 2025.

• If you have EndNote 21, you should review the new EndNote 2025 features to see if it is worth upgrading now.
• If you have EndNote 20 or an even earlier version, this would be a good time to upgrade to EndNote 2025. Even if you don't want the new AI features, EndNote 2025 (and EndNote 2021) have additional features and functionality that are not available in the earlier versions.