Hello,
My Scrivener projects are stored all in my DropBox folder. But “something” started to fill up my iCloud folder (first level) with around 200 folders with names like “E02B1B1A-7D36-4BF1-A706-2137BBC1829B 2”. Inside them, 1 or 2 snippets from my most used project. Besides these folder, also a file “ui.plist” shows up.
I am throwing them away. But they always end up reappearing 1-2 weeks later!
Again: this project is stored in my Dropbox folder. Backups are set to be saved to a specific folder in my Documents (not first level of iCloud). I have not used Scrivener for iPad or iOS for months. So what is putting all these folders on my iCloud?!
Probably Apple is putting them there. Check to make sure you do NOT have “Optimize Mac Storage” enabled in your iCloud settings. Also double-check your iCloud Drive settings, particularly the Desktop & Documents Folders settings.
Those are the internal folders that Scrivener uses to store the data in your project. Each folder corresponds to a Binder item. I would not advise throwing them away, at least not until you confirm where they are coming from and that the underlying project is behaving correctly.
Yes, I am using “Optimise storage” (or my Mac would explode) and my Desktop and Documents are indeed synced to iCloud. But it has been like this for years and years and never was a problem. Scrivener projects being in stored in DropBox, they are not synced to iCloud, are they?
Only the Scrivener backups are stored on a subfolder of my Documents (so sent to iCloud). Could it be the problem? Never was. Are these Scrivener folders with long names being created/used by the running Scrivener or parts of the backups?
The only wrong thing I noticed by chance is that my Scrivener iOS and iPadOS apps were among the “Apps using iCloud” in my devices settings. I unchecked that, but the “strange folders” are still reappearing. I will erase Scrivener from my iPad and iPhone, to see if it changes something.
Last thing: the first few times the “strange folders” appeared, I put them in the bin without daring to empty it. My Scrivener projet carried on working fine. Emptied the bin, no problem, everything seems to be in place. So now I’m juste throwing them away. The problem is I they are so many I am always scared another folder gets thrown with them.
Scrivener saves projects in the location you specify when you create them. It saves automatic backups in the location specified in either the Scrivener → Settings → Backups tab, or the Project → Project Settings → Backups tab.
It also allows you to create duplicate copies via either the Save As command or the Backup To command.
But that’s it. Any copies of your project that were not created by one of these mechanisms were created by software other than Scrivener. So something else is going on.
If these only recently started appearing, what changed? For instance, Apple has been known to quietly change iCloud settings as part of Mac OS upgrades.
Those folders already exist as part of the internal structure of any Scrivener project. The weirdness here is for them to be appearing by themselves, without the rest of the project. Are you sure that they are in the top level iCloud folder, not nested inside a subfolder? (Finder will show you the full path for an item in a variety of ways.)
Is not the root cause of these “funny” files with long file names appearing on Apple’s iCloud server because @SputNic reports that the computer has been instructed to “optimise” files. Hence Apple “helped” by choosing to copy those files to the server, and perhaps deleting them from the local disk? Synching and Backups seems irrelevant (unless OP told the computer to sync/backup with iCloud). Deleting those files on the server may not have been the best move.
yes, all the “funny folders” appear on the to level of the iCloud folder. Next to important ones like “Documents” or “Desktop”…
all my Scrivener projects are stored in my Dropbox folder
I do finish syncing and do turn off my Mac (after every use, I’m not leaving it on for nothing)
my Mac is a 2021 MacBook Pro with a M1 Pro chip
Never had any consequences after deleting the “funny folders” so I guess they are temporary files
My suspicion remains that the “funny folders” appear there because, when I installed Scrivener on my Mac, it was toggled by default on “Apps using iCloud” in Settings. I toggled it off when I saw that but, for whatever reason, it is messing up.
Considering this, what I did now is to remove Scrivener from my iPad and iPhone and deleted the “funny folders” once again. If they are not coming back in the next few weeks, that was the cause. If they are coming back, I will be clueless… and read again your replies to find the hint of a solution (and/or I will be hoping MacOS Sequoia magically cleans all that :-))))
Glad you are making progress. My strong hunch, though, is that the root cause is your use of Apple macOS “optimise disk storage”. Apple’s doing all these file moves, I strongly suspect.
Dropbox syncs files in the Dropbox folder. You say you put your Scrivener projects in that Folder (mine are all in ~/dropbox/scrivener). Dropbox synching has nothing to do with Apple macOS “optimise storage” feature to “help” you by “moving” (duplicate to their server then delete you your local computer) files. They have their own (and secret) algorithm for deciding which files get moved.
the Apple macOS “optimise storage” function is not a very good idea for more people, IMHO.
Files stored in the Dropbox folder are also present on the local disk. (Or if they’re not, you’ll have other problems, at least with Scrivener.) It’s not clear whether iCloud knows (or cares) that the Dropbox folder is special.
Incidentally, if you are using “Optimize Mac Storage” because you are out of space on your local Mac, I would recommend buying an external hard drive instead. Local storage is always going to be faster than cloud storage, and has the added advantage of being under your direct control.
@kewms got there before me about buying external storage. You’re fully in control of it, it’s pretty cheap these days, and to my mind is cost effective against the prospect of Apple Optimise Storage screwing up your data… that’s not designed with complex data structures like a Scrivener project in mind. It’s probably fine if all you’re using is Mail, Pages, Numbers etc., but don’t let it near any Scrivener project!
‘Optimise Storage’ I stay well away from that. And not just with iCloud, with any cloud service. I have ample internal storage (2TB), but also a 6TB NAS and multiple 1TB external Drives.
Paranoid over data safety and security - ‘too right’ (The Kiwi’s might remember that ad)
A quick update: I waited a bit, the “strange files” seem to not show up anymore - so was it a problem with my iOS and/or MacOS versions of Scrivener? We’ll never know: I upgraded to MacOS Sequoia and, boom!, not hundreds but thousands of such folders appear on the first level of my iCloud! This time also with files like “search.indexes”, “Binder.backup”, “docs.checksum”, “version.txt”, “mobile.settings”!
Again: I erased these folders and files with zero consequences on my original Scrivener file.
I heard you regarding the backups. I originally put my Scrivener files on Dropbox not for backup but so I could work on my iPad… The truth is I very rarely used the iPad app. So I can remove my Scrivener files from there and backup on an external drive. Which doesn’t solve the potential “optimise space setting” problems, I know…
