Bought a new Mac and was about to follow the L&L instructions for moving Scrivener (ie downloading again and registering with licence etc then downloading files from back up…) But Migration Assistant on Mac just did it for me…so no need.
There’s some machine-specific information in Scrivener’s internal library files. If you happen to see any strange behavior, try reinstalling from a fresh download first. Your projects should be fine, though.
im so stuck!! i have a new mac and cant find simple instructions on how to transfer projects between the two machines! i have been able to upload scrivener on my new mac but somehow it didnt sync - can anyone help?
Move files machine to machine take care and perhaps not really that “simple” for some, hence lack of “simple” instructions. But doing this is pretty basic and should be routine.
The projects exist on the first machine, I assume. Find out the folder name. Create a folder with the same name on the new machine. Move the projects (which look to be “folders” but behind the scenes are Apple packages composed of hundreds/thousands of files) from the old machine to new machine via any one of a number of methods (USB stick/disk, wire, network connection, cloud-based service, etc.). Use of the Apple Migration Assistant (Move your content to a new Mac – Apple Support (UK)) would probably have made all this simpler for you, but might be too late. Is there someone you can call on to help you?
I would:
- on the old machine, insert a USB stick/thumb drive/removable medium, then open the project in Scrivener and use File —> Back Up To… and set it to Zip the output with the USB stick/whatever as the target.
- Eject the USB stick and plug it into the new computer.
- Copy the project.zip to a suitable folder on the new computer, double-click it to unzip it, then double-click the project.scriv on the new computer to open it in Scrivener. (If you don’t have file extensions turned on, the zipped and the unzipped versions may have the same name but should have different icons,)
Using a zipped version is by far the safest way of transferring by external media.
If the two have compatible versions of the operating system (i.e. the old computer is running 10.14 or later, you should be able to airdrop the zipped file to the new one.
Mark
2 Likes
Lots of good advice already. I’ll just add that you should be sure everything is up and running on the new machine before you dispose of the old one.
It worked beautifully. Thank you.