I’m just getting started with Scrivener, and I realized (I think) that my backup settings need some refinement. Currently my backups are going to the large Mac Documents folder (both on my laptop and in icloud), which seemed like a good idea. Now, as I have several projects going, along with lots of other random stuff in my Documents folder, I realize I need to direct my autosave/backup to a designated Scrivener file within the Documents folder. This is probably a very rudimentary question, but how/where do I make these changes? Thank you!
Hello Patricia.n, and welcome to the forum.
We advise having your working projects stored in a different location than your backups. By default, the direct-sale version of Scrivener for Mac stores your backups to ∼/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/Backups, which is discussed in Section 5.2.1 of the Scrivener manual. (You can access a PDF of the manual via Scrivener’s Help menu.)
You can use a Finder window to go to your Documents folder and then select File > New Folder to have your Mac create a new sub-folder within your Documents. You can then name that folder something like “Scrivener Backups” and use drag-and-drop to move your bak.zip copies of Scrivener projects into that new folder.
You can then go to Scrivener > Preferences > Backups and select the Choose… button to change where backups are stored. That will open a Finder panel, and you can navigate to the new save location from there. Going forward, all of your backups will be in that new location.
If you’re already having your Mac back up your Desktop & Documents Folders to iCloud Drive (Apple > Systems Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Options… button), then you have some redundancy built in. But, I recommend adding Apple’s Time Machine to back up your entire Mac to an external hard drive as another level of protection.
You might also want to review our Knowledge Base article on keeping projects organized. I try to review it a couple of times a year to ensure that I have good, working copies of my main projects and my backups.
I’m also a bit of an organizational nut, so I have a dedicated “My Writings” sub-folder within my Mac’s Documents folder. It has additional sub-folders for each project, which helps me keep my Scrivener projects, their associated compiled Word docs, that project’s Aeon Timeline document, and other project-specific material together.
But, I’m a former project manager, so my methods of multi-folder organization are likely overkill.
If any of that is unclear, please let me know.
Thank you so much–this is all very helpful! I’m trying to wrangle my documents and other files, and am trying to become more organized in general. I really needed some feedback to get headed in the right direction with my Scrivener files. I do have my entire Mac backed up to Time Machine (forgot to mention that). The keeping projects organized article looks excellent. Thanks again!
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