Recover files from trial version

Help needed to recover my files from trial version.
I have been using the trial version of scrivener until today when I decided to purchase it. What a surprise ( a really bad one!) when the version installed does not show any of my files.

Anyone could help me out, please?
Thanks!

Fabs

You can find all your scrivener files by searching for .scriv in Finder (you can also save this search to create a dynamic library of all your Scrivener files if you so wish). Once you’ve located them on your harddrive, you can open them directly by clicking on them, or navigate to them from within Scrivener. I’d guess your recent files list just got cleared, but your files should still be there - there’s no difference at all between the trial and non-trial versions apart from the time limit on the trial, and files aren’t directly stored in the app.

They will be wherever you saved them. Try using Spotlight (the little magnifying glass icon on the top right of your screen) to search for the title of one of them, then command-click on the file to reveal it in finder. It will likely be in the same file as all the others.

EDIT: temporalranger posted while I was drafting, and said much more elegantly most of the stuff I was trying to say.

Thanks for the prompt answer!
However, it did not work out. THe only files found in my HD from scrivener are the ones that come with the purchased version.
Tutorial.criv
Comic
Tutorial PDF doc

I am attaching the screenshot of Finder.

Any thoughts, please? Thanks.

Your .scriv files are stored independently from the program, in the same way a word document or image is saved separately to Word or Photoshop. Installing/Uninstalling Scrivener shouldn’t affect that at all…

hmm.

A couple of things to check:

  1. Double check your trash, in case your .scriv file ended up in there.
  2. Scrivener automatically backs up your file on close with the default settings. Try navigating to users/[your account name]/library/application support/scrivener/backups (unless you changed the default backup location in preferences, in which case navigate to wherever you changed it to). These backups are zipped, so you’ll need to unzip them before opening in Scrivener.
  3. Did you purchase from the site or from the app store? Neither should produce this result, but there are a few differences between the two.
  4. Do you have Time Machine or another back up utility on your machine? If you can’t find your file in another way, it may be worth checking for any .scriv files it backed up.

In the screen shot above, you have “Contents” selected as where to search for the .scriv extension. Click on “file name” instead.

Alternately, when you type .scriv in the search oval, it should give you an option that looks similar to “File type: Scrivener”. Choose that if you have it available to you, and everything should show up

Thank you very much, temporairanger!!

I got all files following the step 2. However, I had to rename and re-organize all files again after importing… what was much better than having lost them :slight_smile:

And, answering your question… yes, I purchased scrivener from the site.

Also, my big thanks to “robertdguthrie” and “nom”.

This forum really rocks!! :mrgreen:

Have a nice day everyone!!