A few simple questions about two macs and a usb thumb drive. Also installations.

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Greetings,
I have Scrivener 2.8.1.2 running on my Imac which has MacOS 10.13.3. I wish to make a copy of my scriv file onto a thumb drive and take from Imac to Macbook pro. The MBP is running OSX 10.9.5. (I trust I have got these names right, for some reason Apple changed the name.)

My internet is crappy, so I need to use a USB drive to pass the scriv file back and forth. I will use only one machine at a time.
OK here are a few questions which may seem trivial, but here they go:

  1. My version of Scrivener on the Macbook is an old “try out” copy. I tried to update it there, but was required to show a password, which I never got, for some reason. All I found on my emails were a series of questions I asked several years ago about why I never got a serial number. What to do?
    Idea: Buy TWO copies of Scrivener and install one on each machine.
    Or buy a new version of Scrivener for the Imac and bring it up on the Macbook as well. This would be cheaper.
    But what about the two different versions of MacOS??? If that’s an issue, I can visit Apple and get them to update the MacOS on the MBP. (I tried but there’s a glitch.)
    ???

  2. OK, suppose we have to identical versions of Scrivener running on the two machines. What is the exact Scrivener protocol to update the scriv file between the two machines? Any gotchas?

Thanks in advance and I appreciate the guidance.
John Brookes

2

The Scrivener FAQ literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/faqs explains how to restore your license if you’ve lost it. It also tells you that you can use Scrivener on multiple computers without having to buy additional licenses. So that should cover those questions.

The legacy download page for Scrivener 2.9 literatureandlatte.com/legacy-download states that it will work on MacOS X 10.9, so that’s the version I would install on both Macs if I were you.

And after that, it should really be just moving the .scriv files around with the USB stick.

3

Just a detail… seeing you have Mac+Windows in your info:

What looks to you like a .scriv file is actually a package, i.e. a folder disguised as a file. On a Mac you can copy it or move it and everything will work just fine, but on a Windows machine it IS a .scriv folder and then you have to make sure that you really copy or move the COMPLETE .scriv folder! :slight_smile: