Where does Scrivener for Windows save files – your working copies?
It seems obvious, I know. But if you were overwhelmed by all of Scrivener’s features and didn’t pay much attention when you created your first project, you might not have paid attention to where your files were being saved.
Scrivener saves your project working copies to where you designate when you first create it.
This is also the place where Scrivener auto-saves every time your Scrivener screen goes idle for 2 seconds. And it’s going to be saved directly over your old file, just like if you had used File>Save or Ctrl + S in your old word processor. (Oh, who are we kidding? Everyone used Microsoft Word.)
So with this particular name, there’s only going to be one copy — your working copy — which you save on top of every time you save.
You can read about this in Section 7.2 Creating a New Project in the Scrivener 1.7 for Microsoft Windows Users Manual.
By default, the location where Scrivener saves is usually somewhere on your hard drive in a documents folder, but lately I’ve noticed that Microsoft Windows keeps trying to set the default of different software to their cloud service. So pay attention the next time you create a new project, and be sure you’re saving it where you can find it again.
Designating Where Scrivener for Windows Saves Your Working Copies
1. From the toolbar choose File > New Project… > Blank (or Fiction, etc.)
2. To the right of “Where:” choose “Browse” and find where you want to save your Scrivener projects.
The really confusing part is that in Scrivener for Windows, this folder that you just named isn’t going to launch your project when you clicked on it. If you’re having trouble figuring out how to open an exiting Scrivener Project or File in Scrivener for Windows, see my post, How to Open a Scrivener Project.
It gets even more confusing because Scrivener also makes automatic backups, and will let you save manual backups, etc. (For more help on that see my tutorial Scrivener – Safely Saving Scrivener Files and Projects Tutorial.)
Other Scrivener Resources:
If you’re new to Scrivener or find it faster to look things up in a book than to google every question, I’ve found Scrivener for Dummies to be excellent! It’s by Gwen Herndandez.
If you need help recovering lost Scrivener files, try Recovering Scrivener Files on Author’s Log and be sure to look at the comments.
For help with all things Scrivener, don’t forget to check out the Literature and Latte Forums.
