OneDrive Advisory (Windows 8 and 11)

If your PC is running Windows 8 or 11 and you’re having trouble opening Scrivener projects kept in OneDrive, please see the following solutions:

Windows 11

OneDrive’s Files On-Demand feature is enabled by default on computers running Windows 11. This feature can cause problems syncing and opening Scrivener projects kept live in OneDrive, as it causes certain files within the project folder to be inaccessible to Scrivener. If you find you’re having trouble opening a Scrivener project stored in OneDrive, you’ll want to either disable the Files On-Demand feature all together, or set your project to always be kept locally on the device.

To disable Files On-Demand altogether:

1. Right-click on the OneDrive cloud icon in the lower right of your taskbar to go to Settings.
   
2. Under the Sync and backup tab, expand the Advanced settings section.
   
3. Below the Files On-Demand heading, click on the button to Download all files.
   
4. Allow some time for files to be downloaded from the cloud. In File Explorer, you can observe the OneDrive folder and its folders/files inside. The badge on the files should turn solid green with a white checkmark, indicating they are available offline.

Set a Scrivener project to always be kept on the device

If you’d just like to set your Scrivener projects to be available offline and leave everything else in OneDrive’s cloud, you’ll want to first locate your project in File Explorer. A Scrivener project is in the form of a folder with a .scriv extension. Right-click on this folder and select Always keep on this device from the contextual menu.

Alternatively, if you have a lot of projects, you may want to keep them all in a dedicated folder and set that folder to always be kept on the device instead. That way you won’t need to go through the above steps for every project you create.

Windows 8

OneDrive on Windows 8 uses a feature called Smart Files. Similar to the Files On-Demand feature in more current versions of Windows, the Smart Files feature prevents files from being kept locally on the hard drive automatically, which can cause problems opening Scrivener projects. This often manifests as an error message that reads "This project is incompatible with this version of Scrivener", but the actual problem is that some of the project files are inaccessible to Scrivener.

To resolve this issue, you can either instruct Windows to keep all files available offline, or you can enable Scrivener to work with OneDrive files.

To configure Windows to use all files offline:

1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Settings. (If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Settings.)
   
2. Tap or click Options, and then turn on Access all files offline.

To configure Scrivener to work with OneDrive files:

1. Locate the Scrivener installation directory on your hard drive. This is usually one of the following

   C:\Program Files\Scrivener

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Scrivener

2. Right-click on the Scrivener.exe file and select "Properties" from the contextual menu.

3. Select the Compatibility tab.

4. Check the box that reads Enable this program to work with OneDrive files .

If you continue to have trouble opening the projects on Windows 8 (e.g. getting a message that the project is "incompatible with this version of Scrivener") or are not seeing your changes in the project, we advise switching to a different service.