Yosemite with Dropbox and admittedly an old iMac, but everything operating fully.
Every time I start up my iMac Dropbox goes through what looks like a full file check and an update of many files. When I look in the dropbox (desktop app) pull down menu bar window it shows a long list of files that are inside Scrivener BUT were not accessed while using Scrivener for many weeks … ALL are image files (jpg, png and gif), and ones that I had brought in to the current Scrivener project many weeks ago.
This despite the fact that before I closed down, the last thing I close is Scrivener, and dropbox does a full sync as Scrivener closes down and backs up (all within the dropbox folder) just before I shut down.
During the start up the next morning, and when it is finished, I can see within dropbox that it says beside each file “8 hours ago” or the time since the shut down/sync.
Any idea why this is happening ? Is Scrivener marking every file within it’s back up package as updated even though only a few are ? Why only image files ?
This issue probably would not bug me so much if I had a current iMac. But because it is a bit old, this whole dropbox process takes quite a while and I have to wait until it’s finished to use the iMac effectively.
Just to be clear, are the changed files that Dropbox is reporting in the project, or in the backup?
When Scrivener creates a backup, it creates a brand new project that is an exact copy of the existing one. So yes, from the point of view of Dropbox, all of the files will be “new,” whether there are changes in the original project or not.
There are a couple of ways around this. You could store the live project on Dropbox and the backups locally – which has the added advantage of not putting all of your eggs in the Dropbox basket. You could store the images and other large files separately from the main project. Or you could adjust the backup options.
Firstly all of Scrivener files are inside the ‘Dropbox’ folder on my iMac. Main project and auto backups.
The dropbox window doesn’t distinguish between the project or the backup. It just gives the names of the files and a thumbnail.
I can understand that … but I guess I was thinking along the lines that Dropbox would recognise the files within the package that were not changed and not bother with them …especially as they were synced before shut down.
That would require me to do a “save as” to have a backup put on Dropbox … yes ?
That would seem to go against the spirit of Scrivener which is to keep everything within the project. And the project package is just 47Mb.
How? The backup has to work properly even if all other copies of the original project are completely lost, which means it has to contain everything. From Dropbox’s point of view, the files it contains are all completely new.
If you store the live project in your Dropbox folder, then it will automatically sync to Dropbox, just as it does now. If you have set the backup location to your local drive, then yes, you would need to use “Backup To” to place a backup on Dropbox.
(I would recommend “Backup To” rather than “Save As” because it will automatically ZIP and time stamp the backup, making it easier to tell which is the backup and which is the live project.)
Again, we recommend storing either the live project or the backups in Dropbox, but not both. Dropbox errors do happen, and having a local copy will protect you in that event. If you haven’t already, please read the first post in this thread, on best practices for using Dropbox: