Does anyone out there 'get' macOS High Sierra?

I'm at my wit's end.

I'm not really much of a computer user but have been obliged to delve more deeply for a writing project.

I'm trying to set up 'Scrivener' so it'll back up my work both to a spare disc in my MacPro and also to my iCloud account.

It'd be handy if I could also write on my MacBook Air when not at home - though I appreciate I'd have to be very careful not to have the project open on both computers simultaneously.

I cannot for the life of me make any sense of how to do this, the software refuses to do what I ask it to. And none of the advice I have been able to find on the various forums or Youtube makes sense (to me).

I don't suppose there's anyone on the forum who has been confronted by and managed to solve this problem.

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Originally Posted by joethebus

I'm at my wit's end.

I'm not really much of a computer user but have been obliged to delve more deeply for a writing project.

I'm trying to set up 'Scrivener' so it'll back up my work both to a spare disc in my MacPro and also to my iCloud account.

It'd be handy if I could also write on my MacBook Air when not at home - though I appreciate I'd have to be very careful not to have the project open on both computers simultaneously.

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I have had a look at the manual it is not the most intuitive. You need to set up your project, and find where it is on your hard drive then you need to move the whole thing to you iCloud drive, you will then be able to access it from your MacBook Pro and your MacBook Air if both machines use and are signed in to the same Apple ID.

I would regularly take a copy of the project file on your iCloud drive using Finder and saving the copy to your local hard drive I would back this up for safety. You should only work on the iCloud drive version, if you update the project from either machine when you do not have access to wifi then the version on iCloud should get updated with the last version automatically when you are next on wifi.

My advise would be to set a dummy project up, save it to your iCloud drive or move it, once there great a few sentences, close it switch off wifi and then update it, reconnect to wifi and then re-open it and you should still see the updates. You could alternate between computers to double check all is fine. Once you are happy set up the actual project.

I do work with Macs, but do not know Scrivener, but it should work like any other application with respect to saving documents as it will use the operating systems underlying file saving functionality.

Thank you very much, Adrian ...

I was more or less on the right track, then, in attempting to set up a back-up folder in iCloud to save zipped and dated back-up files from either computer when I finish work, so I can go to the latest version each time from either computer when I re-start.

So far I have been unable to get both computers to save to the same folder in the cloud. I'll have another go (using a dummy project) with a bit more determination now I have advice from someone who knows what he's doing.

Is there any software you know of that will enable me to back up automatically the local computer I'm using - particularly on occasions when I'm working somewhere where broadband speeds are poor so can't back up to iCloud (my files are biggish even when zipped, because there's a lot of audio visual reference material in the project) - or is Finder the only way?

Or is Scrivener doing that for me already, do you think?

Again many thanks for your help. I'll try to do what you've suggested, it makes sense to me which doesn't happen often when I'm trying to think in Apple! But I fear I may well be back for more help!

With best wishes

Joe