Scrivener For Dummies

Forcing a Manual Backup

Want to quickly back up your project right now, but don’t have — or don’t want — the preferences set up to create a backup on project save? Choose File⇒Back Up⇒Back Up Now. A backup is immediately created in the location specified in Backup preferences. Backups created this way are treated just like automatic backups and are replaced by newer backup files when the version limit set up in Backup preferences is reached.

However, if you want to back up the file to another location, follow these steps:

1. Choose File⇒Back Up⇒Back Up To.

A Save window appears.

2. (Optional) Enter a new filename in the Back Up To text box.

You can also simply keep the provided filename.

3. From the file list on the left, choose the location.

If you don’t see the full window of location options, click the expansion button to the right of the Back Up To text box. (Windows users, click Browse.)

4. For best performance, make sure Backup as a Zip File is selected.

5. Click Save.

Windows users, click OK.

A backup of the project is saved with the name and to the location you chose.

Backups created this way aren’t automatically deleted, regardless of the number of versions you chose to keep in the Backup preferences, so Back Up To is a good option when you want to keep a backup of a specific version of your project.