I just purchased your software and do not want to use my local C: disk for file management. I use Microsoft One Drive and want to store all my files there. Performance is not an issue for me. How can I do this?
Thank You.
Jerry
L&L recommend all projects be stored locally and synced to cloud if you wish.
It is not designed to work on projects in the cloud.
Your local drive, or USB external is it. Personally don’t recommend thumb drives.
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Just make sure Scrivener can always access its files locally. The Project is a folder with files, and all files should be stored offline.
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Strongly suggest that you save your backups as zip files which are more stable on cloud drives. Make sure your set to keep a local copy and the folder where your active projects are should not be on one drive but on the computer. Remember every active project folder can be recreated from a zipped backup if that folder was lost. I use Google Drive this way as 2 dollars a month for 100 gigs of storage, which is much cheaper than the pay dropbox plan for 2 terabytes (nothing smaller).
I use thumb drives as an extra backup option when actively writing or editing a book in Scrivener as an additional backup source.
I also have Idrive backup my whole computer as an additional backup method. Paranoid and backup all my music and digital pictures with Idrive.
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Other replies have covered the technical aspects of this: Scrivener expects the entire contents of a project to be available locally.
But my question is why. Why do you want to allow a third-party service to have exclusive control of your access to your own files?
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Thank you RuffPub, AntoniDol, and GoalieDad for taking the time to respond to my post.
I will take your advice and use the local disk as you recommended.
Thanks Again.
Take Care,
Jerry
Thanks for your reply.
I wanted to use OneDrive as a seamless backup solution. OneDrive is a well established third-party service that is used by over 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies having OneDrive and SharePoint across 250,000 organizations worldwide including on and offline banking. Because of the rigor and security provided with OneDrive I am not concerned. OneDrive only has as much control of my files as I give it.
Thanks,
Jerry
Repeating above, best to have your Scrivener files local outside of OneDrive sync, but feel free to direct all the automatic Scrivener backup zips to a OneDrive synced folder. Watch though that if those zips get deleted or corrupted those flaws will pass up to OneDrive on next sync.
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For a backup, sure. But that’s not what you said in your original post.
Edit: I had a look at Microsoft’s site. They certainly have a vast array of “enterprise” products. But it is not at all clear to me that “Microsoft Cloud” for businesses has anything in common with “Microsoft OneDrive” for consumers. Nor is it at all clear that Microsoft’s enterprise customers are completely offloading their data management.
Our own experience with OneDrive and Scrivener projects is that it has pretty much the same issues as the other services in the space.
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Thanks for the good advice.
Jerry
I figured out that Microsoft OneDrive works just fine with Scrivener. After setting up the proper folder structure I tested creating a project, editing it, backing it up, recovering it from the backup, then verifying the backup worked. Again, all under a OneDrive folder.
Keep in mind my only purpose for this is to create a backup, not share the data across devices.
You will see in the process a few closing of all projects and Scrivener itself. I am just being conservative to avoid any surprises.
What is not in the process below is the actual folder structure (that I will provide upon request) that supports it and the changed Scrivener input and output option values,
Here are the steps:
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Close all projects.
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Close Scrivener.
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Open Scrivener.
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Create project Template – Fiction – Novel and save it in a user-defined .scriv folder under OneDrive.
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Edit the Scene folder in Binder and add the words TEST BACKUP AND RECOVERY TEST ALPHA.
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Backup as zip.
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Close all projects.
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Close Scrivener.
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Unzip the compressed backup file.
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Open Scrivener.
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In Scrivener Open Existing Project select the unzipped file.
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Verify message from step 5 exists.
This is a straightword test of a very simple project.
Again, this all worked under OneDrive.
Hope this helps.
Jerry
I don’t recommend your approach for backups.
(And yes, since a backup is zipped, any cloud would work. The issue is when you want the project to reside on the cloud. That doesn’t work.)
The reason I don’t think it is a good way to handle backups (and personally would NEVER do things this way) is that your backup(s) that you want safe somewhere is/are still perpetually exposed to manipulations. Manipulations = potential errors, mistakes, everything the “backup” – per definition – should not be exposed to.
You want your backup to the cloud, that part is smart. But you don’t want this cloud to be accessible without an express and voluntary login.
In other words, if it is a folder on your desktop and all you have to do is double-click that folder and all your backups are there… → garbage. (You are not protected.)
Also : I use cloud to backup as a 1/2.
I also keep a copy on an external drive dedicated to that. (I unplug it whenever I am done copying backups to it.)
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Good thoughts. Thanks.
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When you say you are saving the Scrivener project to One-Drive. Are you saving it to a local folder that is synced to one-drive, or directly to one-drive?
L&L warn against the latter, regardless of cloud service. Scrivener is not designed to work that way and sooner or later you will lose work.
People have in the past claimed that using non-supported cloud services works, only to find at some indeterminate point, the cloud service totally stuffs their project.
Regardless of what you think you might achieve through trial and error - DON’T.
.zip backups are simple. Point the backup location to your chosen cloud folder in Scrivener settings/options (Mac/Win) and it’s all taken care of. Like Vincent, I have a local (NAS) and cloud backups.
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As said not a good idea to have your active project folder on one drive. This should be on local copy in computer.
Remember, a zip backup can recreate your project folder when extract it.
Also as Vincent said need at least one more backup strategy such as external drive. I use a 32 gig usb key.
I use google drive for zip backups saved locally as well and my third backup is the whole computer with IDrive.
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Local folder that is synced to one-drive.
Thanks,
Jerry