I have Scrivener on my iPhone and iPad and files are synced on a DropBox Basic account I have.
Tonight, I bought Scrivener through the Apple App Store and installed Scrivener onto my MacBook Air BUT nothing seems to connect.
It looks like Dropbox wants a stash of money for me to sync online, otherwise, my Scrivener on my MacBook will just sync locally.
I already pay for iCloud storage – am I missing something, is that a viable option?
Do you have any other devices connected to this Dropbox account? I’m counting three, which should be fine (for free).
Thanks, yes, I only have three devices connected to my Dropbox.
I can’t sync the laptop Scrivener with my iPad and iPhone. Or they haven’t synced yet.
What am I missing?
Do you see the local Dropbox folder in Finder? (Should be located inside your Home folder.) Any files or directories in there that you recognize?
Only old corrupted ones (so far) … just realized I had both my iPad and iPhone Scrivener apps open. Closed them and will close my desktop one too to see if that might do the trick?
(Thank you so much for your help btw).
Sounds like trouble. Did you backup your projects before they got corrupted?
I would say that dropbox sync between MacOS and iOS is the most finicky thing about Scrivener. As I frequently lose my work thanks to corruption of the file between syncs, I urge you to be careful.
I have things backed up in several locations … just a matter of tracking them all down (and continuing to back up work every time).
Discovering tonight that it is helpful to look at the app in my iPhone and then close the iPhone and then open the file on my MacBook … seem to be making incremental steps.
But it feels like my Dropbox world and my IOS devices and my MacBook all live in separate worlds?
Again, thank you for your help.
I can appreciate what you are saying. Treading very carefully.
Well… On your MacBook, create a new Scrivener project inside the Dropbox folder (I suspect there’s a directory “/Scrivener” or “/Apps/Scrivener”?). Create a new scene, type some words, close Scrivener. Let Dropbox sync. Can you open this project on one of your iDevices?
Good idea.
I did that … that file doesn’t show up on my IOS devices.
So the Dropbox app on my MacBook is synced but the files are different from the ones on my IOS devices.
And there is a Scrivener file box.
Down to two worlds now, it looked like there were three.
Would be great if I could just use iCloud then I could just create one iCloud space and move everything into it (okay, that sounds too easy, but it is a theory). 
Yeah, but you can’t, sorry. At least not yet. So we should see what’s going on with your Dropbox. Are you sure you’re logged into the same account?
fyi - All my Scrivener files originated on a Scrivener version I bought directly from Literature and Latte. They’ve made it over to the IOS devices (it seems). The new install of Scrivener 3 is a fresh purchase from the App Store.
That’s a great question. Am wondering if the files on my IOS devices might be local? (Although it says they’re in the Scrivener area).
I don’t think I have two Dropboxes.
And you see the same files on both iDevices? Or not? This would be a clue if they’re “just” local.
Different files on different devices.
Alright… So maybe your projects on the phone and iPad are just stored on these devices. We can fix that later.
Does the test project from the MacBook show up in the iOS Dropbox? If so, are you able to open it with Scrivener on any of these devices?
Yes, it does show up in the Dropbox file system on the MacBook and it shows up in the Dropbox app on my IOS devices.
But not inside of the Scrivener Apps on iPhone and iPad
Thank you so much for your help tonight, really appreciate it.
I have until November to get this sorted out
Sounds good. Let’s see… Scrivener on iOS isn’t connected (yet). Please try these steps:
https://scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb/ios/dropbox-syncing-with-ios#setting-up-dropbox-sync