I recently looked into what gets automatically backed up for forScore on iPad and concluded that it's very important to do manual backups to a cloud storage system like Dropbox (this is a referral sign-up link where we each get a bit of extra storage; the basic account is free).
Why is this needed?
- Apple does automatic backups to iCloud if you have it enabled, but if you run out of space you don't know what's backed up and what's not.
- If you accidentally delete the forScore app, the associated folder containing your PDFs and backup files is deleted forever and you may or may not be able to recover it! This happened to someone on Reddit 😱
If you want peace of mind and control over your backups, I highly recommend backing up your files to Dropbox. It's not difficult; it takes a little time to set things up but then it's just a few minutes here and there to keep things updated.
I've written up instructions with some videos to demonstrate how I'm backing up my forScore files. This assumes that you've signed up for a Dropbox account already and have downloaded the app to your iPad. Please pardon the wandering video focus as I tried to aim my phone at the iPad and press buttons at the same time. Also, I probably should have filmed it horizontally; open up the video on full screen and make sure you can see it all vertically.
1) Copy PDFs to Dropbox
Ensure that all of your scores are backed up! Don't forget to copy over new ones when you add them later.
When I say "click" in the video I actually mean to hold your finger down on a file or in a folder. On iPad, a quick touch (equivalent to a mouse click) performs a different function from holding your finger down (which is like a mouse right-click on Windows).
2) Save dated .4sb annotation file to Dropbox
This is the annotation backup file for your entire forScore library. Every few days/weeks I create a new dated file and copy it to Dropbox. It only takes a few seconds.
3) Create .4sc files for individual scores
This is optional but I think it's worth doing in case the consolidated library annotation file gets corrupted. These are individual annotation files that you manually create for each PDF score. I plan to update these individual files once in a while, but especially once the annotations for a specific score are complete.
Please note that if you touch (click on) an annotation file on your iPad, it will load it into forScore and overwrite whatever annotations are currently there! If you accidentally do this, you can recover a recent version by clicking on the automatic backup. As a general rule, don't touch those files except to recover your annotations from them. To delete or move a file, hold your finger on it for a couple of seconds.
Hopefully my videos document the process well but ask if you have any questions and I'll try to help!