I am new to the forum (but not Scrivener) and maybe this has been asked before, but I couldn’t find the answer.
I keep a journal that is becoming a book. Because of the delicate nature of the information in the journal, I created a vault on my mac where I am keeping the journal, among other things.
My question: It seems I have to put the entire Scrivener application in the vault for it to secure the journal and the journal backups. Is there a way to leave the Scrivener Application in the Application folder and store only the projects and backups in the vault?
As you can save a Scrivener project anywhere on your computer which is naturally not at all in the application folder I wonder why you would have to either add the whole app folder to the vault or move Scrivener from the app folder to a folder in the vault to secure your project.
You say you are a Scrivener user for a longer time—don’t take my question as an offence, but is it possible that you did not create a new project but saved in the tutorial file which happens to be part of the Scrivener package in the app folder? With newer versions of Scrivener this mistake which can have dire consequences* can not happen anymore as it does not allow to save into the internal tutorial file but forces to save a copy outside of the app.
As it is part of the app it gets overwritten with an update of Scrivener. If you have used the tutorial for your project do not update under no circumstances before you have saved your project contents in another place!
Suavito has good advice. Scrivener is a document based application, not a database, which means that user data is stored in files which are located in your user folder, not embedded in the application or hidden away in the Application Support folder. If your data is “in” Scrivener it is very likely what Suavito cautions against, and in the tutorial itself, not a separate project file. You should immediately perform a back-up of your project by using [b]File/Backup Project To...[/b] and specifying a location in your mounted vault disk image.
Now that you’ve got that done (if necessary), the easiest way to store things in a vault and have them quickly available is to create an alias from the vaulted item to your Desktop, or wherever else you’d prefer to store it. When an alias points to an item that is vaulted, it will automatically mount the appropriate disk image for you and open the file in the target application. If the password is stored in your keychain (and if it is you might wish to consider not doing so, as then your vaulted image is only as secure as your login password and your security settings regarding how accessible your account is), this will all happen automatically without any intervention on your part. If it is not stored in the keychain, then you’ll need to enter your passphrase every time the image is not already mounted.
Since you are using a vaulted image to encrypt your data, you might wish to consider backing the entire image up frequently. Obviously, you don’t want to backup the Scrivener project itself to an un-encrypted area. You could certainly store backups in the vault itself, though.
There is no need to secure the Scrivener application itself, however. Or there shouldn’t be. One other thing you will want to pay attention to is the contents of the Scratchpad, if you use it. That is stored separately from all projects, and it would not be easy to secure it as Scrivener looks for it in a very specific place. Just make sure you don’t put anything sensitive in that one window.
Thank you both for your very generous advice. I have not made a file out of the tutorial and have backups everywhere, so the alias is what I was looking for. I’ll play with that and see if it solves my issue. I think it will. Thanks again
Actually, forget what I said about the Scratchpad, for now. I’m getting my versions all mixed up; in the current stable Scrivener, scratchpads are stored in the project file itself, not in a universal location.
Ah, thank you for that! Your other advice worked like the proverbial charm. I now have an alias of the journal on my desktop (too bad it cannot be put in the dock) and the Scrivener app itself is back in apps folder. All is copasetic in my world. Thanks again.
I’m getting my versions all mixed up; in the current stable Scrivener, scratchpads are stored in the project file itself, not in a universal location.