Installing on Additional Computers

To find out if the additional computer is eligible for installation without purchasing an additional licence, please review the terms of the user licence agreement. (Please note that a licence is only valid for a single platform, so a Windows licence cannot be used to install Scrivener on a Mac.) In general, you may register and activate Scrivener or Scapple on any Windows computer you own or for which you are the sole user (e.g. a work computer that is used only by you) and on Windows computers of family members living with you.

Installation

All you need to do is download the installer for Scrivener or Scapple and install it, just like you did on your first computer, using the same registration information and instructions that were sent to you. Full instructions for installing our software can be found in this article.

The first time that you open the program on the second computer, click the “Enter Licence…” button on the trial message that pops up, then enter your email address and license code when prompted. If you’ve lost the original email with your license details, you can use our Lost Licence Recovery form to have them sent to you.

Deactivating the Old Machine

If you are moving from one computer to another (rather than expanding to owning two computers), it is a good idea to deactivate the software from the old machine. You can do this by selecting Help ▸ Deactivate Scrivener/Scapple. Once deactivated, the program will not be accessible on that machine unless the licence information is re-entered.

Optional

To copy Scrivener projects

Scrivener projects are just ordinary folders on your machine that have a .scriv extension. You can copy them to the new computer using Windows File Explorer, just like copying any other folder. If you're not sure where you saved your projects, check your user Documents folder (the default location when first creating a project). You can also use the Windows search tool to look for “scrivener project”, which should show you all the .scrivx files that you can double-click to open a project in Scrivener. Right-click any of these results and choose “Open file location”, then press Alt+↑ to move up a level and see the project folder.

Be sure when copying a project that you copy its entire .scriv folder, not just the .scrivx file contained inside it. We recommend compressing the project folder into a ZIP archive before you transfer the file to the new machine, especially if you are transferring it via email or some cloud-sync systems. You can extract the project folder from the ZIP file on the second PC by right-clicking on it and choosing “Extract All”.

To copy general application settings

1. On the first computer, open a project in Scrivener and go to File ▸ Options….
   
2. At the bottom of the Options dialog, you will see a Manage… button. Click this to open the dropdown menu and select Save Options to File... to create a .prefs file of your settings.
   
3. Copy or move the saved .prefs file to your second computer.
   
4. Open Scrivener's Options on the second computer and select Load Options from File... from the same Manage menu, then select the .prefs file you created. You may discard the file when finished or keep it as a backup.

To copy custom project templates, layouts, compile settings, script formats, personal word list, and themes

If you have not changed the default location for automatic backups, they will also be copied during this procedure.

1. On the first computer, use the Windows file browser to navigate to the Scrivener folder in your user application data directory: C:\Users\Account\AppData\Local\LiteratureAndLatte\Scrivener. (This is a hidden directory by default, so the easiest way to access it is to copy and paste the path directly into the address bar of File Explorer. Replace “Account” with your Windows user name.)
   
2. Copy the "Scrivener" folder to the same location on the second machine.

These steps will replace these items on the second machine. It is possible to instead copy templates, layouts, themes, and compile and script settings separately to add them to the second computer if you have already created new ones there. Each of these also can be exported and imported individually within relevant functions in Scrivener.

To copy project backups

If you have not changed the default location for Scrivener's automatic backups, they will be included when copying the Scrivener application data folder in the steps above. Likewise, if the backups are already saved in a cloud-sync folder such as Dropbox or OneDrive that automatically synchronises with your second machine, you do not need to follow these next steps.

1. On the first computer, open a project in Scrivener and go to File ▸ Options….
   
2. Open the Backup pane and click the button to Open backup folder…. Then transfer the backup files in this folder to your new machine.

If the backups are copied to the folder used for automatic backups on your second machine, they will be included when limiting a project's number of backups (set in the Backup options). Please note that if you do not use timestamps in your backups, you may have unique backups with identical names on both computers if you have already been working on the same project on the second computer. Since the backups copied from the original computer are likely to be older, do not overwrite your newer versions unless you are sure you know what each contains. You can instead copy the backups to a location separate from the new automatic backups.

To copy Scratchpad notes

1. On the first computer, open a project in Scrivener and go to File ▸ Options….
   
2. In the General pane, click on Scratchpad and then copy the file path from the “Notes location” box and paste that into the address bar of the Windows File Explorer.
   
3. Open the notes folder and copy the documents in this folder to the second computer's Scratchpad folder (check its path in Options, as explained in step 2).

That's it! You should now have both computers set up identically.