How do you back up a manuscript?
- Three-layer backup chain: cloud sync, weekly snapshots, quarterly cold copy.
- Cloud sync alone is not a backup — corrupted files sync instantly.
- Weekly dated snapshots capture handoff states.
- A quarterly cold copy protects against cloud-service failure.
- Working authors have never lost more than a day of work to backups.
You back up a manuscript through a three-layer chain: continuous cloud sync on the working file (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive), weekly dated snapshots saved to a separate folder, and a quarterly cold copy on an external drive disconnected from the internet. Cloud sync alone is not a backup — corrupted files sync instantly to all your devices and into the cloud.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Manuscripts represent months or years of work. A single corruption event or accidental delete on a cloud-synced file can wipe out everything if you don’t have point-in-time copies. The three-layer chain is the difference between losing a few days (with backups) and losing a year (without).
Chapter ii·What to include
- Layer 1: cloud sync on the working folder (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive).
- Layer 2: weekly dated snapshots saved to a separate cloud folder.
- Layer 3: quarterly cold copy on an external drive, disconnected after writing.
- Workspace tools (Scrivener, WriteLoom) often have built-in versioning — keep it on.
- A "snapshot before editor handoff" rule.
- A six-month test: restore from a backup to verify the chain actually works.
Chapter iii·Example
A working novelist runs the three-layer chain: her Scrivener project syncs continuously to Dropbox, a weekly cron job copies the project to "snapshots/2026-05-26/" in Dropbox, and on the first Sunday of each quarter she copies everything to a SanDisk external drive she keeps in a fireproof safe. In ten years she has lost zero work.
WriteLoom keeps dated snapshots automatically alongside your manuscript — one of the three layers, built in.
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