In this video, I walk through my personalized system for backing up and organizing writing files—a method honed through years of trial and error.
You’ll learn how I manage older versions of my working manuscript, track revisions, and create redundant backups. I also share how these strategies protect against data loss while offering flexibility to revisit earlier ideas.
If you’ve ever lost work to a crashed computer or regretted deleting a passage, this practical approach might save you future headaches. Adaptable to any project, it balances simplicity with thoroughness.
Hello, Jane Cleland here. “Can you talk more about the process by which you back up your files? How do you label them? How do you sort through them? How does that work?” I don’t use a special email account; it’s my private email account that I use. And here’s how I label my documents: I will say XYZ, whatever the working title is, and the date. And after a few days, I will do a “save as” with the next date, whatever today’s date is that I’m now saving a new copy.
Now, why do I do that? Because I back up to OneDrive, but any of the cloud-based services, they overwrite the files with the same name. And I want to make sure that I have earlier versions. And so I protect those earlier versions in two ways. One is that “save as” process. So now I have a finite record of what that file looked like before I switched to the new name. And the second way I do it is at the end of each day’s work, I email myself whatever that working copy is. So that may be two or three days worth of emails. In other words, I don’t change the working copy date every day; I do it periodically, so I at least have one day’s work worth, and I can always compare it to the previous day to see what changes were made.
I’ve never needed to do that, but I have gone back to earlier versions to find a particular turn of phrase or an interaction, a small scene, maybe even a bigger scene, that I deleted, and then I say, “You know, I’m not so sure I should have deleted that.” So, I go back to an earlier version, and there it is.
In addition to all of that, if I’ve done especially good work, I’m pleased with the writing I’ve done, and I’m now going to get up and have lunch, I’m emailing that version to myself. It’s not the end of the day version; this is an interim version. But I don’t want to take a chance on my computer crashing before OneDrive’s backed it up or whatever, so I just email it to myself.
Now, do I just leave them in new mail? No. I put them in a certain folder that is labeled “working copies,” and that way I know right where they are, and there they are; I can access them from anywhere. It works for me. I hope something like that may work for you. Adapt it to your own needs, but that’s what works for me.
I’d love to hear how you do it. How do you protect your work? How do you back it up? Do you use version numbers? How do you deal with that? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I read all the comments; please put them there. And if this tip had value for you, would you like it? Would you share it? Would you subscribe to the channel? It opens up features that let us make these videos even more valuable for you. Thank you.
*Transcripts are software-generated. To report any transcription errors, please use my contact form!
