You can add sources to your library in Mendeley in several different ways.

From within Mendeley Reference Manager, you can click Add new and add a source by: selecting File(s) from computer, Add entry manually, or Import library (from BibTex, Endnote XML, or RIS files).

Add entry manually allows you to add metadata for a source using an ArXivID, DOI or PMID, which can be a fast way to add a source.

You can also add sources to your Mendeley library using the Mendeley Web Importer, a browser extension that is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

Mendeley’s Web Importer can detect sources that are on a webpage that you are viewing and then you can select which ones you want to add to your library, or to a specific collection within your library.

In the screenshot above, the Mendeley Web Importer has detected references on a page of Google Scholar results. Altenried’s article has been selected in the Web Importer and will be added to the collection named Research in Mendeley Reference Manager. In this case, the Web Importer was even able to pull the full-text article as a PDF available through SAGE Journals. Note: the Web Importer does not pull PDFs consistently, so you may have to manually download and add a PDF file to a reference that you import into your Mendeley library after the fact.

In the screenshot above, the Altenried article found via Google Scholar can now be seen in the Mendeley Reference Manager desktop application. Any required edits to the source (like the author and the journal field, which are presently incorrect) can be performed by selecting the source and changing data in the fields on the right-hand side panel.

More information on adding references to Mendeley Reference Manager can be found here.