My Scrivener project won't open

Check what you are opening

A Scrivener project is not one file. The .scriv is a folder of many small files; a Mac shows it as a single icon, called a package, while Windows shows it as an ordinary folder with a .scrivx file inside that opens it. Many refusals to open come from that folder being incomplete, not from the writing being damaged.

• A zipped project has to be unzipped first. Scrivener opens the .scriv, not the .zip.
• A project inside iCloud Drive, OneDrive, or Google Drive may be only partly downloaded. Make the folder available offline, wait, and try again.
• A project copied by hand may have lost pieces on the way. Copy the whole .scriv, never files from inside it.
• A project saved by Scrivener 3 cannot be opened by Scrivener 2. The reverse works: Scrivener 3 offers to update the older format and keeps a copy of the original.

Literature & Latte's knowledge base strongly discourages keeping a live project in Google Drive, which can rename or convert the small files inside it, and carries advisories for a few other services. For syncing with Scrivener on an iPad or iPhone, it recommends Dropbox.

Restoring from Scrivener's backups

1. Find the backup folder. Its location is shown under Backup in Scrivener's settings (File › Options on Windows).
2. Sort the folder by date modified, and copy the most recent zip that predates the trouble to somewhere outside it. The names carry dates only if Use date in backup file names is on.
3. Unzip the copy, rename the .scriv so you cannot confuse it, and open it.
4. If it will not open either, try the backup before it.

When no backup opens, the text is usually still readable by hand. In a Scrivener 3 project, the Files › Data folder holds one subfolder per document, and each has a content.rtf that any word processor will read. It is slow work without the binder's order, but the prose comes back.

In Tabularia

Tabularia imports a Scrivener project directly. Import folder as new manuscript takes the .scriv, and one of those backup zips goes in whole, as a single file. The binder becomes chapters and scenes. If Scrivener refuses a project, trying the import on a copy costs nothing, though damage to the project's own files may stop it too, and any import deserves a chapter-by-chapter comparison with Scrivener's binder before you rely on it.

There is no package for a sync service to split. Work is stored in the browser on your device and, with the Cloud plan, synced by Tabularia itself. The limit is the browser: clearing its storage or deleting the profile removes local data, and a Free plan leaves no second copy anywhere. Cloud subscribers can also export a project archive, a single .tabularia.zip holding the whole project with its Snapshots, to keep wherever they like.