How could I make Scrivener automatically make back ups at a special period?

[Biff]

How could I make Scrivener automatically make back ups at a special period?

[devinganger]

How could I make Scrivener automatically make back ups at a special period?

Only way I can think of is make sure that "back up now" is on a special hot key combo, then have a system script that fires that hot key into the open Scrivener process at a set interval.

[RobG]

The default settings create a backup every time a project is closed. Closing a project at the end of each writing session is a better habit to get into rather than leaving the project open for long periods, which I think your question implies.

[Biff]

No no, actually it does not imply that, I would think. I leave the projects open all the time because, among other things, when I have ideas I immediately must / want to write them down.

And making back ups takes quite a long time, so when I want to close Scrivener / the projects I want them to be closed quickly, I do not want to wait for them to be finished for five minutes or so.

[devinganger]

No no, actually it does not imply that, I would think. I leave the projects open all the time because, among other things, when I have ideas I immediately must / want to write them down.

And making back ups takes quite a long time, so when I want to close Scrivener / the projects I want them to be closed quickly, I do not want to wait for them to be finished for five minutes or so.

If you use the software in ways that it was not designed for and not optimized for, don't be disappointed when there aren't simple avenues to do the things you want. And don't be surprised that occasionally, people remind you of those design considerations. You're going to have to hack some sort of kludge together.

[kewms]

If making backups takes such a long time, how large are your projects? Are you backing up to a local drive, or to slower media like a USB stick?

The fastest possible backup for a given project size would be to backup *uncompressed* to a local disk, and then use system tools -- after Scrivener closes -- to compress the backup and move it to another location if desired.

There are also many different tools that will backup all or part of your disk for you, outside of Scrivener's control, and many of these can be automated. So, for example, you could configure a backup application to run whenever you are idle for a given amount of time, while you are asleep, and so on. Using software like this is a good idea regardless of how Scrivener's backups are configured: you shouldn't count on any single backup method, including Scrivener's automatic backups.

Katherine

[Biff]

If you use the software in ways that it was not designed for and not optimized for

OK, didn't know I was using it like that, what ways are these?

If making backups takes such a long time, how large are your projects? Are you backing up to a local drive, or to slower media like a USB stick?

250 MB, 635 MB, 57 MB...To a local SSD drive, yes.

The fastest possible backup for a given project size would be to backup *uncompressed* to a local disk, and then use system tools -- after Scrivener closes -- to compress the backup and move it to another location if desired.

It should be done automatically or with a singe or two clicks for all projects together. Yes, a usual sync / back up program would do it, but if Scrivener could do it it was easier.

Yes, there are many programs. But since Scrivener offers making back ups the thought was, it would be good / easy...

Many thanks!