A particular project is usually found as one of the open windows (I write in it every day). But sometimes it disappears: not there under Window and cannot be found under “recent projects”. I can find it where it is backed up in my Dropbox folder, but this has happened a few times now.
There is nothing on Scrivener’s side that would cause that, it doesn’t manage projects directly at that level. If you can’t find the project file on the disk where you left it previously, you’ll want to check anything that has authority to move or delete the file. Or are you saying you don’t know where you saved it? If so, try the File/Find All Projects in Spotlight menu command, and if that doesn’t work just use Spotlight to search for “kind:Scrivener Project”.
Once you remind yourself where you are having your original project stored on your drive, you may even find that you yourself have been moving it (behind Scrivener’s back)!
The only use case I can think of where something disappears peremptorily from the Recents list is one where the project/file is stored on a drive that is not available at that later time – as it would be if it were stored on dismounted removeable media or on a remote server that was not accessible at the moment Scrivener was relaunched, or, of course, where the file had been moved in the Finder outside Scrivener.
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It happened again: a project I keep open (as I write in it daily) was no longer open and NOR was it listed under Recent. I could locate and re-open it from the folder in Dropbox where my Scrivener Back Ups live.
Instead of looking at Recent, did you search for it in Finder? Not the backup, the actual project?
Was Scrivener closed or only this project?
Do you ever use the shortcuts Alt+W or Alt+Q to close a window or app? If you do, make sure that you are in the correct app/tab/window when doing this.
Do you use more than one ‘desktop’ on your Mac? Have you made sure that you didn’t have it open on one of the alternate desktops?
How do you switch between windows? Alt+tab? Or some other way?
I searched for it by going to the Back-ups folder in Dropbox. I assume that going there via Finder would take me the same way.
No Scrivener was not closed. All the other projects currently open were still open.
No, I don’t use those shortcuts. I go to the red button top left to close a project and I never close [quit] Scrivener. It only quits if i ever need to turn off or restart the computer, which is rare.
No I don’t use more than one Desktop on my Mac.
I switch between Windows by going to the Windows menu at the top and choosing from there.
Thank you!
Why look for a Back up? Why not look for the active project? 
How do you switch between apps then? Using the Windows menu require that you are inside Scrivener.
It is wise to not have everything open all the time and to restart the computer once in a while. A crash might corrupt files and cause you to loose things.
Why look for a Back up? Why not look for the active project?
I don’t understand this question. Sorry. Please explain what would I be doing / where I’d go if I looked for active project? I think if I went to “find” in Finder I’d end up a the same place?
How do you switch between apps then? Using the Windows menu require that you are inside Scrivener.
I go to the list of apps at the dock on the desktop (which I can see from any app) and click on the one I want to go to, e.g. Safari. Word, iTunes etc
It is wise to not have everything open all the time and to restart the computer once in a while. A crash might corrupt files and cause you to loose things.
Thanks for advice re not having it all open. The idea of a crash is horrifying. I do keep a lot of Scrivener projects open as either i do write in them every day or want to add to them before long. Do you mean don’t keep these open or do you mean don’t keep apps open?
Thanks for your help. As you gather my knowledge is limited to what I use.
I don’t know exactly what procedure you are using to find your project that doesn’t involve using Finder, but if I read that literally it describes a process I would not recommend. One shouldn’t load backups directly in any way—the only way you should ever work with a backup is to make a copy of it somewhere else entirely and then open the copy. If the backup itself is opened directly, it is no longer a backup. That’s one reason why I don’t consider Dropbox a viable backup mechanism, because it makes it so easy to violate that principle, but that’s probably beside the point.
So whatever you are currently doing, I would advise dragging the backup out of your Dropbox folder to an area not being synced, with the Option key held down so that the mouse pointer has a “+” symbol beside it as you drag. Then double-click on the copy from that new location and leave the backups alone.
Now that’s the place you would return to if you ever lose track of the project in the future. That is the “active project” being described, as opposed to the backups that are made of it as you open and close it over weeks and months. The backups are only meant to be used if something goes wrong with that copy.
Okay, I think that would explain why the project isn’t always remembered then. As the wording in the option states, Reopen projects that were open on quit. If you do not quit Scrivener with projects open, then there is nothing to reopen the next time.
But it should appear in the Recent list, right?
It may be that zenarab IS working in the original project but it just happens to be kept in the same folder as his backups of it.
Zenarab, does the project you are opening have “.bak” as part of its filename? If so, then you are indeed working in one of your cycled backup copies – which might then be the source of your troubles. If not, we have not yet gotten to the bottom of this mystery.
Another thought: You have various projects that you tend to have open in Scrivener and work in. I wonder how many projects you regularly open / have open. As many as five? In which case, the project in question may sometimes not appear on your Recents list simply because the Recents list only shows at most five recent items. You can adjust that number in Apple > System Preferences > General. (By the way, Scrivener is not, of course, in charge of what is on the Recents menu – that is the province of the mac OS.)