Set your own OpenAlex API key for literature search
ScholarThread's literature search runs on OpenAlex. Adding a free personal key gives you your own search allowance instead of sharing ScholarThread's default. Here's how, and when it matters.
ScholarThread's literature search is powered by OpenAlex, a free, open catalogue of the world's scholarly work. When you search the OpenAlex tab on the Search page, or when ScholarThread fills in a paper's metadata, it is talking to OpenAlex on your behalf. You don't have to do anything to benefit from it. But there's a small, free step that makes it more dependable: adding your own OpenAlex key.
What a personal key does
OpenAlex is free and serves an enormous amount of traffic, so it limits how much any one caller can use. By default, ScholarThread uses its own shared key, which means everyone using that key draws on the same allowance. When OpenAlex limits shared use, searches can slow down or fail until it eases.
If you add your own free key, your searches use your own allowance instead. That keeps search working when the shared one is under pressure, and you are not competing with other people for it. There is no cost and no paywall — the key is free from OpenAlex.
It matters most if you search a lot, or import many papers at once, or often see a message saying OpenAlex is rate-limiting requests.
Adding your key
- Go to openalex.org/rest-api, create a free account, and copy your key. OpenAlex may ask you to verify your email before the key works.
- In ScholarThread, open Settings → Connections and find the OpenAlex card.
- Paste the key into the Paste OpenAlex API key field and click Save key.
Once it is saved, the card shows "OpenAlex API key configured" and notes that your searches use your private OpenAlex allowance. If the key is not accepted, the card shows the error under the field.
Changing or removing it later
The field disappears once a key is set, so you update a key by removing it and adding the new one:
- In Settings → Connections → OpenAlex, click Remove key.
- Confirm with Yes, remove (or Cancel to keep it).
- Paste the new key and click Save key.
Removing the key does not break anything. Search and metadata lookups fall back to ScholarThread's shared default key.
Is it required?
No. Search works without your own key, using ScholarThread's shared default. The key is a small optimisation that pays off most when you work heavily with OpenAlex or when the shared allowance is busy. If you only search now and then, you may never notice the difference.
Either way, your library is built on open, citable metadata — the key just decides whose allowance those requests use.