[Tutorial] forScore iPad backups to Dropbox

twocats · 2025-02-04T06:50:06+00:00

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...

ShiroKuro

@twocats OMG THANK YOU!!!

I definitely need to do this this weekend! I would be heartbroken if I lost these files.

twocats

ShiroKuro I definitely need to do this this weekend! I would be heartbroken if I lost these files.

Hold off until I figure out how to move my library to Dropbox! Once I figure that out, I'll update the instructions.

fata760

I actually upload everything FROM Dropbox - so it's not used as a backup, it's just where I store my library.

twocats

fata760 I actually upload everything FROM Dropbox - so it's not used as a backup, it's just where I store my library.

I tried to figure out how to do this but couldn't figure out how to get forScore to look there! Do you need to do that when you initially set things up?

Maybe I should be brave and delete my main folder and restore from Dropbox.

fata760

On mine when you click on 'Services', Dropbox comes up as an option to load from.

As far as I know it's always been there as an option.

Do you have Dropbox as an app on your iPad?

Edited to add: If you press the '+' sign in the 'Services' menu it may come up as an option.

twocats

fata760 On mine when you click on 'Services', Dropbox comes up as an option to load from.

As far as I know it's always been there as an option.

Do you have Dropbox as an app on your iPad?

Edited to add: If you press the '+' sign in the 'Services' menu it may come up as an option.

I'll look next time I'm on my iPad! There are so many forScore features and I only use the bare minimum. But I did try Googling to find the answer to this and it didn't tell me. And yes, Dropbox as app.

twocats

@ShiroKuro and @fata760, I did some experimentation this morning and I stand by my original instructions. It looks like you can choose to load new PDFs from Dropbox but you can't make forScore save its backup files there by default or move existing library scores to Dropbox without losing their library metadata. I'm sticking to my original plan of having the main library on my iPad but making sure everything is duplicated to Dropbox regularly.

During my experiment, I thought I lost my library! Even after loading all the PDFs back into forScore, it didn't have any composer info. Thankfully recovering from my time-stamped backup file did recover everything. Thankfully I was not depending on the Automatic Backup file which is saved so often that if you mess up, it'll save your error and no longer be meaningful.

Key takeaways:

if you have a new PDF, make sure it's also copied to Dropbox (unless you're loading them directly from Dropbox like fata760)
regularly create a time-stamped library backup .4sb file and save it to Dropbox
optionally save .4sc files corresponding to individual PDFs (I would do this at big edit milestones, like after spending a lot of time cropping a new PDF or after you think you're done putting markings on the score)

ShiroKuro

So, a little late here, but I finally backed up my forScore file to DropBox. And I got forScore on my phone and synced it so now I have all my scores on my phone and on my iPad. Yay!

Thanks again, @twocats , for doing the tutorial! 🙂

twocats

ShiroKuro yay, I meant to check in with you in case you forgot!

I always feel much more secure backing things up after I make any major changes 🙂

ShiroKuro

twocats one thing in haven’t done is unzip that zip file in drop box and see what the scores look like, for example on my laptop. I’ll do that today.

ShiroKuro

@twocats so, as you probably know, the zip file only gets you the pdfs, no annotations, and as far as I can tell, the .4sb annotation file can't be opened outside of forScore. Is that right?

So say I wanted to back-up the pdfs + annotations, so I would have pdfs of those that I could open anywhere, am I understanding correctly that the only way to do that is one score at a time?

twocats

ShiroKuro the .4sb annotation file can't be opened outside of forScore. Is that right?

That's right, it's specific to forScore. But so are the individual annotation files.

ShiroKuro So say I wanted to back-up the pdfs + annotations, so I would have pdfs of those that I could open anywhere, am I understanding correctly that the only way to do that is one score at a time?

Yes, one score at a time.

If you wanted a PDF to use anywhere I think you can export a new PDF that includes annotations, but I haven't tried it!

ShiroKuro

twocats I think you can export a new PDF that includes annotations

Yes, if all you're doing is one score, you can click on "share" and then there are three options, one of those includes annotations. Using that, you can send it to an email address, print, upload it to Dropbox etc. You get a pdf that can be opened anywhere, and that includes the annotations.

But this has to be done one score at a time.

It would be nice to be able to get a batch backup of the all annotated scores, but ah well. At least I have all the pdfs, and then the forScore back up file.

And I now have forScore on my phone as well, so that's actually an additional backup as well.

thanks again for all your help in this thread!! 🙂

twocats

ShiroKuro It would be nice to be able to get a batch backup of the all annotated scores, but ah well.

Honestly I wouldn't trust it not to crash! The first individual backups are a pain but after that you can just update them as needed, when you're working on them.

ShiroKuro thanks again for all your help in this thread!! 🙂

You're welcome!

Jane

I tend to work on score annotations one at a time, in general.
I'll scan printed music and import the PDF into forScore, or download a PDF from imslp, or print a PDF out of the henle app.
Then I use forScore's stamps which do a fairly nice job of annotation.
Then I'll export that as a PDF from forScore back to a music folder on my laptop that gets backed up with other stuff.
I also create the full forScore archive files and back those up to the laptop (last weeks was 700MB).

And TBH, sometimes I'll print out the version that I've annotated in forScore, just because it's easier to have a few scraps of paper on the music stand than to go fetch the iPad from my bedroom.
(Please bear in mind that this is almost but not quite as stupid as when I've seen someone at our medical practice print something out of the medical records software, then fax that to someone in a different one of our offices... although that person could just have looked it up in the computer herself.)