Is it safe to have my default Scrivener project folder in iCloud? I keep very little on my MacBook drive (except my backups, so Time Machine grabs them).
Under those circumstance: No. Absolutely not.
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To point out one thing, if you can load the project and work on it normally, then it is actually on your MacBook. iCloud Drive isn’t a remote storage that you access over the Internet (it would be unusable slow if it was). The main issue we’ll see, with Dropbox, iCloud and other “smart sync” type services, is just that in fact: people switch devices and do not fully download the project to their local system, resulting in only parts of it loading.
Sync means there is something watching your local device for changes and updating itself with the changes you make (and vice versa).
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With “Optimize Mac Storage” enabled one device is already enough for a disaster.
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Okay thank you, I will move them back to my hard drive. I do use optimize for storage, and nearly everything I keep in iCloud is not on my hard drive.
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The other thing that happens is that the “smart” sync service “helpfully” “saves space” by removing data from the local system so that it only exists in the cloud. That can cause problems whether a second device is involved or not.
Yeah, I would think it wouldn’t do that if the disk is largely empty, as described, but even then I would be very cautious of using such a feature in general.
In short there are better sync services out there if you want a stand-alone, mostly empty portable device that only syncs a few things. Selective sync, where you pick and choose what fully syncs, is a much better solution to this problem.
I don’t actually need it to sync at all.
I’ve moved all of my Scrivener project files over to DevonThink, where I store my most important files. It gets backed up to Time Machine, and manually to iCloud.
I moved my Scrivener backups to iCloud instead.
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Humm. The zipped backup files or your Scrivener production files you work on?
What’s wrong with say putting the working files (actually macOS packages) in ~/documents/Scrivener and the include all in your backup regime, eg TimeMachine at minimum?
Not zipped. The actual working file. DevonThink can store anything. When you open the file, it opens the originating software, and saves it back to the file stored in DT.
Space. And… I have always had much better luck with cloud storage than relying on hard drives. Having both has ensured I haven’t lost any data in at least 15 years.
You would think that, but it appears to happen.
I often wonder how much of iCloud’s behavior is driven by the desire to get people to buy more iCloud space.
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Well, my top two apps for what i do are DEVONthink and Scrivener. It would never occur to me to put Scrivener projects into DEVONthink as i use that for stuff to find later. I also was dubious it would work. Tried it and yes it does work. But i still have no plans to move my Scrivener projects there. Enjoy what you do.
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Yes, it works fine to store Scrivener projects in DT. Both of them use official Apple guidelines for package formats, for their own software, and both are designed to handle other file types that do so. Neither would be very good about promising file archival features if they ignored an entire swath of what valid file types are.
So in theory you could put a DEVONthink database package into a Scrivener project, and then put a Scrivener project into that database… but I really wouldn’t recommend being that crazy. 
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