I had a great scene in my story, changed the plot, thought I couldn't use it anymore and put it into the Scrivener Trash. That's good, it stays there unless you clear the trash file, which I did... Now my plot has changed again and I could have used this scene. Actually, I think there were 2, probably close to 800 words..... From now on, I will keep EVERYTHING!!! I've only just starting to backup my manuscript, but I do keep a general backup, maybe it is somewhere..... Hetty
Eh, odds are if you rewrite the scene it'll be better than version 1.0 I always recommend keeping everything you wrote. Not to copypasta it in the future but just for reference if you ever need similar ideas or need a refresher of a certain something. I just use plain old folder and subfolder organization for that, though.
What I don't understand, is why you put it in the trash folder. Did you not take a 'snapshot'? Scrivenor has features that allow to avoid the very thing you are talking about. I'm always worried, if I do put my surplus in the trash, I might accidentally empty it. I also keep a 'remnant' folder. Anything I cut gets put into that. I never use the 'trash' folder. Ever.
I accidentally hit "trash" instead of "add" and lost a whole section of a chapter in Scrivener. Then I had a hard time finding the stupid trash file, all the while I carefully treaded around the "empty the trash" option fearing I might accidentally hit it. Scrivener says emptied trash cannot be recovered. But you can get software for some OSs that let you recover deleted data. Until it is written over it's still there, but your OS can't see it.
I have a loose ends dump chapter I just cut and paste to. But for me stuff got trashed accidentally. You can never have too much back up. I have Time Machine running and I save to multiple flash drives from time to time.
I use WORD. If I make a change to something but feel I might want to refer back to the original, I just save with "rev" added to the file name.
If you have a Mac, an use Time Machine, it's just a quick click away. If not, look into DropBox. It's free, quick, and automatic.
What you are writing is saved regularly, but when you put something in the trash, it deletes it from all the working files, and if you dump the trash according to the software info, you can't retrieve it. That leaves the computer itself. Files are not immediately destroyed, they still exist but are invisible. There is usually recovery software that can retrieve invisible files until they are overwritten.
quote="obsidian_cicatrix, post: 1163592, member: 55301"]What I don't understand, is why you put it in the trash folder. Did you not take a 'snapshot'? Scrivenor has features that allow to avoid the very thing you are talking about. I'm always worried, if I do put my surplus in the trash, I might accidentally empty it. I also keep a 'remnant' folder. Anything I cut gets put into that. I never use the 'trash' folder. Ever.[/quote You are very wise! Actually, I am still learning Scrivener and only today realised what the Snapshot feature was. Really good and I am sure I will use it a lot. Hetty
Thank goodness, I realised those early scenes were written in Onenote and are still safely there. Phew!!! Thanks for all advise and sympathy! And some 'shaking of head because of the stupidity' LOL Hetty
Glad to hear you found your old scenes again! Personally when I delete a scene, I always copy it into a new file and save it under "scenes for later" or some such. I might never end up using it but it's there at least. I also send a copy of my MS to my email every time I make any changes, which means if my computer burns in a fire I'll still have access to my book, and if ever I do delete a scene irretrievably, I've probably got a copy of said scene somewhere in one of the old back ups. But simply put, never delete anything!
Try using Dropbox instead of constantly emailing yourself. Might be easier and faster since it uploads into the server for you. It's what I do, no matter what silly mistake I do (Aside from deleting everything and saving) I won't lose my work.
I'm using SugarSync, which is similar to Dropbox. It's a cloud system, basically, and it keeps 5 back-ups of your work so even if you save over your SugarSynced copy, you can retrieve some old stuff. I relied on it for a long time, but then I started sometimes writing on my tablet when I'm out and syncing them became a bit of a nuisance. The tablet's an Android system that's clearly not been tested for bugs, and SugarSync being relatively new hasn't been optimised for Android. Anyway, all in all, this resulted in my tablet not being able to download the latest existing copy from SugarSync, even though it's there and downloads just fine everywhere else. So I started saving it into my physical computer again. Thank God I did too, because soon after something messed up on my tablet and the OLD copy overrode the new copy. Now on my laptop (when I usually work on my book) I only use the SugarSync copy - eg. the only copy I have is on the cloud - and now the cloud copy is old So yeah, just opened up documents and copy and pasted the missing work from the back up after that. It was only 1-2 paragraphs, I haven't yet lost more work than 1-2 paragraphs before. Anyway, since then, I also email it to myself. I'd taken to saving it also onto my hard drive but in the recent month I grew lazy. I'll go back to doing that again I think. Basically because if a file is corrupted, the content becomes irretrievable, so my husband, who works in IT, advised me to save a copy in a separate location on my laptop, as well as use the cloud technology. So I have 3 copies - 1 on my hard drive, 1 on cloud, 1 in my email. The only thing I don't use is USBs because I lose it and it's a hassle to keep plugging and unplugging it lol.
