I recently read that to minimize the risk of corrupted Scrivener database (library) backup files, it’s advisable to enable ZIP compression for Scrivener backups.
Is this is accurate? I’ve cross-posted this question in the MPU forum.
Specifically, ZIPping a backup puts the entire Scrivener project structure into a single file. (It’s actually a folder, with subfolders and potentially hundreds of component files.) This prevents “sync” operations from transferring parts of the project independently, which can lead to a range of issues. It also prevents accidental modification, since you have to unZIP the backup in order to edit it.
1 Like
Further to @kewms sage advice, simply … YES.
Because a zip file is a single file—as opposed to an unzipped Scrivener project which is many, many interlinked files—you can save it anywhere, especially on any cloud service without having to think. Only the maximum file size the cloud provider allows or your bandwidth would be the limit.
And it is easy to tell which is the live project and which is a backup when the latter are named [project name date stamp].zip.
So I absolutely recommend zipping the backups.
1 Like
YES, for your own safety, do zip the backups and save them in Dropbox.
Thanks everyone for the quick responses. I’ll zip right over (I know, I know… 
) to the Scrivener app and set backup to compress zip the files.
1 Like