Can I safely use iCloud to view my Mac Scrivener projects on my iPad / iPhone as ‘read-only’? If so how.
I’m using macOS, iPadOS 26.2. I haven’t purchased Scrivener for iPad yet.
Thank you.
Unfortunately Scrivener has no concept of read-only on any platform. However you can effectively achieve that result by making use of what amounts to disposable copies—which incidentally is an idea that starts with how you would want to transfer a project to your mobile device in most cases anyway. I use this same technique on the Mac, for any project I have essentially archived and never really want to edit, but might want to look up something within, from time to time. The idea is simple:
- Save the project as .zip compressed rather than .scriv. This can be easily done with the
File ▸ Back Up ▸ Back Up To...menu command on a Mac or PC, which has an option for zip compressing it on the fly, and will by default date and time stamp it for convenience. - That’s pretty much it. Now whenever you need a copy to look at, or want to reset, unzip a copy of the .scriv, open it and then dispose of that unzipped version when done.
For iOS this is no different, but in case you are not aware you can access Scrivener’s storage in Files.app. It’s safe to leave .zip files in there that you can tap on to extract a copy of the “archived” project. If you ever need to reset, you can close out the project, go into this folder, delete the .scriv and then tap on the .zip again.
Refer to the user manual PDF, in §14.2.3, Managing Projects Directly, for variety of options available for copying projects over. You could use a cloud service, if you don’t mind slow transfer times and all that, but the fastest will be AirDrop (on Mac) or USB though.
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