Save vs backup

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I have been using Scrivener for a couple of years now and I can’t write without it.
There is one thing I have never gotten my head around so thought I would just ask.
What is the difference between Save and Backup?
I have my Save preferences set to save frequently and that seems to go to my main .scriv projects file. But then it also sends a backup file to another location.
If my computer crashes I will lose it all anyway (in theory) except it is all on my Time Machine backup. So why all the backups?
Thanks.

2

If you backup to a different location, for instance a cloud service like Dropbox or iCloud, or to an external hard drive, nothing will be lost should you soak your laptop in Bordeaux (typical death of a writer’s laptop). Being paranoid about their work, most writers do both (time machine to an external HD and backup to clould service) quite regularly. Back up to a thump drive is also a good solution, but don’t lose that thing at a book fair …

3

One way to look at it is to compare with Word.
Most people hit ctrl-S (or click File -> Save) on a regular basis in Word to make sure that they lose as little as possible if the computer freezes. In Scrivener the software does this automatically every time you stop sriting for a few seconds.
Most people save their important Word files under a new name every now and then, like supernovel1.docx, supernovel2.docx, etc. to make sure that if they do some serious error, the whole novel isn’t destroyed. In Scrivener this is done automatically with the backup function.
On top of that you also have the Snapshot function in Scrivener, making it possible to test something and then roll back to the original state.

Using both a cloud service and Time Machine, you should be fairly safe.

4

Another reason: if you’re saving, the saves will normally go to the same place on your hard disk or wherever you save them, under the same name (naturally). In the (unlikely) event that something has gone wrong with your project, but has not yet manifested itself, you’ll save corrupt versions on top of good versions, making the good versions irrecoverable.

That will not be the case with properly saved and organised backups. (This happened to me with an MS Word project eleven years ago - 40,000 words down the pan. So I bought Scrivener. The first thing I remember doing was setting up my backups.)

Edit: ha, lunk and I have written more or less the same thing. Must be correct! 8)

5

Backup copies have a number of advantages over relying on Time Machine backups of your ‘live’ project:

  1. Typically, they are produced at the end of a writing session. Unlike Time Machine backup copies, you can be fairly certain that a Scrivener-produced backup will actually have some substantive differences, so you don’t have to recover and check as many versions that only contain a few differences.
  2. In combination with Time Machine, you’ll end up with backups for 30 days, and then a weekly backup going back as far as Time Machine retains its backups. Again, these backups should have more substantial differences between them, making the effort to recover and check them more fruitful than recovering the “live” version from backups.
  3. You can easily create milestone backups that stick around as long as you want them to via File->Back Up->Back up To… This gives you a “draft 0”, “draft 1”,…" sent to editor 1"…“sent to editor 3”… named backups if you need to preserve those copies for any reason.
  4. Reverting to a Scrivener-produced backup is Scrivener’s equivalent of closing a document and choosing not to save that session’s changes, only you have a longer period to recover that work if you later change your mind about throwing it out.
6

Hi Jo. Thanks for this thought. You have given me a couple of good thoughts. Dropbox and make the backups to my external hd.
Love your comment about Bordeaux! But living in Spain, my soaking liquid would be a Ribera del Duero. :laughing:

7

Thanks for taking time to answer.
Can’t really relate to your Microsoft reference. I have been an Apple user since the git-go.
Will look into the Snapshot function which I have never used.

8

Word for Mac was released before Windows even existed… :wink:
The same analogy can be applied on almost any common software, also for Mac, especially if you go back a few years. What programs domyou use? Pages? Numbers? Keynote? They all require that you manually save and that you manually save under a new name if you want to preserve an earlier version.

9

¡mucho mejor!