Hi, Just getting my toes wet switching from Sib. to Dorico on Mac (OS 26.6.2 on a Studio M2 Ultra and a M4 MBP). I’m thinking outloud and looking for advice on best practices to establish my “architecture” for saving files and backups before I get too far along. What I’ve always done w/Sib is keep all my scores in a “Music” folder and then used subfolders, by piece. These folders are saved to my Dropbox with the current files set to “make file offline” so I can access my work on either my desktop or laptop (FYI: DB is of course backed up as well). Older files stay up “online only” so they don’t take up space on my boot drive. Dor. wants to save everything in Documents on my boot drive. I also like to keep everything for a piece together in its own folder: notation file, program note, PDF and audio export, etc.) so I can go to “Viola Concerto” and find everything in 1 place. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m really only simply replacing folder titles - “Dorico Projects” with “Music,” which is no big deal, so the only difference is storing both the projects and the backup folders on DB (but as different folders). I can change this, and it’s all personal preference, but any advice for or against this, specifically putting everything on DB? I don’t think the app cares where or how I save things as long as I keep projects and backups separate and am consistent for my system. Thanks. Joel
I store in separate folders on a NAS drive in a “My Dorico Projects” folder, but it pays occasionally to check the mandatory “Dorico Projects” folder to check what has accumulated there. I also have a shortcut from that folder to my NAS project folder.
Welcome to the forum, @Joel_Friedman!
If you go to Preferences > General > Files, you can specify the default root directory that Dorico uses, and then of course you can create any folders you like under that.
For what it’s worth, I have been saving all my Dorico files to my Dropbox account since 2016. I’ve never used the default folder under Document, although that is where the backup files are stored. I’ve never had a problem with that arrangement. If you want to save a file to DB, but don’t want it on your hard drive, it takes but a moment for it to download when you want to open it.
And, Welcome aboard!
I’m the same, all Dorico files in Dropbox since 2018. Tens of thousands of files, no issues except for the occasional PEBCAK. I never use the Dorico default folders.
Ha.
Jesper
Thanks Derrek. I’ve been curious about this route as I am backing up to a NAS and I wouldn’t mind getting rid of DB since it’s not just the cost but the idea that they now can scan our data for their AI (yech). What’s stopped me is the combo of how freaking expensive all drives have become recently (thanks AI!) and the concern of should there be a fire or flood losing all my info since it’s on a physical drive and private network (all good, but…) and not in a cloud offsite. I haven’t figured out where an offsite backup would live (not to mention that added expense).
Thanks for the welcome! 
Thank you, good to know I’m not alone! We all have our work-related idiosyncrasies. Mine is mixing what’s in project folders, not just Dorico but all related files (except DAW stuff), one-stop shopping, so to speak. Thanks for the welcome!
Thanks Dan! I like PEBCAK too.
I was more concerned with fire before I moved to my present location. At that time, crucial files (financial and musical) were backed up to a thumb drive that I wore on a lanyard around my neck, so unless a fire occurred while I was at home (in which case I had other pressing concerns) I felt protected.
Where I am now, with no history of fires and a thorough fire suppression system, I keep the thumb drive in a room well separated from my office.
But as Mark Twain once said, “Nothing is foolproof…”
I’m also using my Synology NAS for storing everything in project folders and on the NAS I have the CloudSync app running, that synchronizes all files to a Cloud provider in Switzerland who stores everything with end-to-end encryption. This makes it impossible to be scanned or used otherwise.
So everything is always available and in a worst case scenario I still have the cloud backup