If Scriv says that the project is open it is probably because it wasn’t properly closed on the other machine, before being transferred to the thumb drive, or before the thimb drive was disconnected.
The safest way of moving projects between computers is to Back up to… to the thumb drive, as a zip file, and then copy the zip from the thumb to the new PC, unpack the zip file and then finally open the project.
Note that the .scriv folder (you need to enable viewing file name extensions if you don’t see those) is your project. The .scrivx file within it is just an index of the contents of your project. It sounds like you just copied the index file, not the whole project folder.
If you find it easier, you can open each project on your original PC using Scrivener and use File->Save As to create a new copy on your thumb drive. When you go to transfer your projects from the thumb drive, be sure to copy the folder for each project, not just the .scrivx file within each folder.
Thank you all for your advice.
It turns out I could only open them on the new machine because the thumb drive was still in. So I’ll give your suggestions a try. The projects were closed on the other laptop when I moved them onto the thumb drive.
How can I transfer projects from an old laptop to a new desktop? I purchased the new Scrivener 3 updated version (I had version 1) and there was nowhere to migrate old projects from another computer that I can find.
Hello EJPD, and welcome to the forum.
It sounds like you’re upgrading from Scrivener 1 to Scrivener 3 for Windows. Is that correct? Or, are you a Mac user? I ask because the change from 1 to 3 suggests Windows, but this is marked as os-related, which is often a Mac designation.
If you’re a Windows user, we have a Knowledge Base article for installing Scrivener on additional PCs. Some of those steps may be helpful for things like transferring your saved word lists and so on.
We also have an Upgrade Guide for Scrivener 1 for Windows users. It will demonstrate how Scrivener will take your existing projects and upgrade their formatting to be compatible with Scrivener 3.
If you’re a Mac person, we have a similar guide for Macs, which helps with migrating settings.
And, there is also a project format upgrade guide for Scrivener 2 users going to Scrivener 3.
If any of those resources are unclear or if you have additional questions, please let us know.
Migrate projects the same way you’d migrate any other files, by copying them somewhere (to a USB stick perhaps), carrying it to the new machine, and copying from the portable drive to the new hard drive. There are other methods, depending on what media you have available, but this has nothing to do with Scrivener. It’s computer literacy.
Do be careful not to forget (if you’re on Windows) that a project is a .scriv folder, not a .scrivx file. On a Mac, the folder structure isn’t visible (thank the gods!), and the project appears as a .scriv file (actually a package, but it looks like a file).
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Hi,
I am in the process of moving my existing Scrivener 3 Projects from my Win 10 laptop to my new Win 11 laptop.
I have installed Scrivener 3 successfully, and have some questions.
- I have moved the following files to the Win 11 machine (a) the Back Ups folder (with Projects in .zip format), and (b) the folder which Scrivener was opening my Projects from.
Which one of these folders should I be opening my Projects from initially?
(I realize I have to extract the .zip files before opening the .scrivx Project files)
- I have saved the Options and Theme Options files from the Win 10 Scrivener 3, and have used the Load Options From File (under Files - Options - Manage) to move those to the Win 11 Scrivener 3
Is this correct?
I had another question, but cannot remember what it was right now, so will post again when I remember.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
Hello gvdv. I recommend opening the projects from the folder that is this PC’s equivalent of the live-project folder on the old PC.
That is, if your old PC had all of your working projects in Documents/My Writings, which you copied to the new PC as Documents/My Writings Copy, use those.
We also have this Knowledge Base article with tips on installing to a new computer. It might either answer your forgotten question or help you recall it.
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Thanks very much, Ruth.
Will do.
You can only open projects, and zip backups are not projects (until you decompress them), so you’d generally open from the projects folder, not the backups folder – unless you run across a corrupted project.
Hence me saying in my original post, “(I realize I have to extract the .zip files…”
Okay, but why extract them if you already have the decompressed projects?
I was wondering whether I should decompress them from the zipped back up folder, or use them from the uncompressed folder they also get saved to.
Unless the projects are corrupted, decompressing backups will get you nothing but exactly what you already have in the projects folder.
Thanks.
That is what I thought, but I was uncertain about whether I was right, so decided to post here to see if people had recommendations about whether to go one route (extracting the backed up .zip files), or the other (opening the ‘regular’ Project files).
As it happened, it did take me several tries to get the uncompressed, regular files to open properly after copying and pasting them from my old laptop to my new one, so I am glad there are two potential ways to access one’s work.
Just to be clear, the uncompressed project is equal, in every way, to the project contained in its latest zip backup. One cannot be better than the other unless one of them is corrupted, and a zip file is (in practical terms) never corrupted unless it came from a corrupted file. The uncompressed project cannot be superior to the compressed version – but they’re virtually always identical. In the case that they’re identical, it’s hard to see how decompression would be anything but a needless extra step.
Thanks very much for this.
What you have said clarifies and reinforces the impression I had about the two different ways of treating the files.
And I had been confused about whether one method of file preservation was more advantageous than the other.
I suppose that a .zip file does, in theory, compress the overall size of the folder(s) containing the file, so that would justify that method of saving the files.
Interesting that the .zip file method is not the only form of saving files in Scrivener.
Thanks again.
If one is syncing Scrivener backups to a cloud service, then zipped project backups are superior to unzipped project backups, because one large (zipped) file is more likely to sync reliably than many (possibly thousands of) smaller files.
I know this use case isn’t the scenario under discussion, but it’s a scenario where zipped backups are clearly the better tool.
Best,
Jim
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Hi Jim,
That makes a lot of sense.
Thanks.
I’m attempting to transfer a Scrivener 3 Windows Project to my laptop from my desktop. Apparently there are other support files that have to go along with it besides the .scriv project file. Any idea what all else I must include to complete the transfer? Thanks