Where are my backups?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Using Scrivener-Preferences-Backup, I’ve set the following for my backups: to go to a folder on my desktop, to keep the last 25 backups, and to backup on closing.

It appears to be backing up on closing, but it’s going to a different location (documents folder) and overwriting the previous backup.

How do I fix this?

2

Anyone?

3

Can you show a screenshot of your backup settings?

4

Tried to paste a screenshot here as requested but it didn’t work - if there’s a trick to that, and you feel like sharing that with me, please do.

Have attached a pdf instead (couldn’t give you a jpg either, because Apple forces you to choose between the useless tiff extension and the annoying pdf one).

Hope this helps

backup settings.pdf (60.8 KB)

5

Just to leave no stone unturned: where is your project itself located? (In the Documents folder by any chance?)

Also, for clarification: I get that you are saying it is writing to your Documents folder, but are you also saying it is not writing anything to your designated Desktop backups folder?

6

What is in the Desktop backup folder? Nothing at all? Only old backups?

Katherine

7

Sorry for delay in responding. Correct GR. Not writing anything to the designated backup folder. And yes, project itself located in documents folder.

kewms - nothing at all in designated folder.

Just for clarification, backups are being written to documents folder and overwriting previous backup.

Thanks
Lou

8

Hi, Lou,

I’m sorry you are still having this problem. Here are a few things I would try:

  1. I would click on the Open backup folder… button in your backup settings and see what folder it opened. The one on the desktop, something else, or nothing. That would indicate something about what Scrivener thinks it is doing.

  2. I would also try re-Choosing your intended backup folder again with the Choose… button. (After that click the Open Backup Folder button again to see that Scriv has gotten the correct idea.)

  3. I would try putting your backup folder in a different location than your Desktop. Move that folder (or make a different one) and in your Scriv backup settings re-Choose that folder in its new location to be your backup place.

  4. Have you tried doing a Search in your mac’s Finder to see if your 25 backups actually exist somewhere on your hard drive? Just do a search for your project file name and that will also turn up any backups anywhere. Because, for example, if my Scriv project was called TOT then its backups would get names like TOT.bak, TOT.bak1, TOT.bak2. So, a search for ‘TOT’ would show them all. (If your project is named something that might show up in lots of text areas (like TOT) then, search for ‘TOT -kind:mail’ to save yourself some headache.)

-gr (fellow Scriv user)

P.S. Lou, when I asked about whether your project file was in the Documents folder, I was trying to divine if you were distinguishing between your project file and a backup file. Because you say that your project is backing up to the Documents folder and overwriting the previous backup. That left me wondering if there were really two separate project files that are in your Documents folder (the proj file and a single backup of it) or just one (namely the project file which of course gets written to every time you use the project).

9

Hi GR

Thanks for the response. Number 3 & 4 I had already tried and found they weren’t the answer.

I just tried number 1 and nothing happened… which told me exactly what was going on, thank you! I would have thought I’d tried that before…

So rather than just go straight to Number 2, in case there was something wrong with my folder, I just deleted it, created a new one with a slightly different name, then chose it in preferences, and backups now appear to be working perfectly.

Thanks again - much appreciated.

Lou :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

10

Glad to hear it!!

gr