--- title: "How to Back Up a Novel Properly" description: "Why a single copy in the cloud isn't a backup, the 3-2-1 rule in plain terms for a novelist, and the formats your manuscript should be saved in so you can open it in twenty years." source: https://usegalley.com/blog/back-up-a-novel --- Share [Guides](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/guides) # How to Back Up a Novel Properly August 12, 2026 [Guides](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/guides) ![A handwritten index card, Backups: 1. the laptop; 2. the cloud; 3. a drive at a friend’s; restore it once to check](https://usegalley.com/images/blog/thumbs/back-up-a-novel.png) TLDR Keep three copies of the book, on two different kinds of storage, with one somewhere else (the 3-2-1 rule). Sync is not a backup, because a deleted or overwritten chapter syncs too. Keep version history so you can go back to last week, and save a copy in an open format like.docx or Markdown that any program can read. Every writer knows someone who lost a book. A laptop stolen from a car, a hard drive that died, a USB stick that went through the wash. And most people’s backup plan is “it’s in Dropbox”, which helps with one of those and not the others. A novel is usually the only copy of something you can’t rewrite from memory. So it’s worth twenty minutes to do this properly. ## Sync isn’t a backup Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive and Google Drive keep a copy of your files in step across your devices. That’s great when your laptop dies. It’s no help when you delete a chapter by accident, overwrite the file with an old version, or a program corrupts it, because the sync service copies that change to every device within seconds. Most of them do keep old versions for a while (often 30 days, sometimes more on paid plans), so check how long yours keeps them and how to get one back before you need to. ## The 3-2-1 rule The rule IT people use, in plain terms for a book: - **3 copies** of the manuscript. The one you work on and two others. - **2 kinds of storage.** Your laptop and the cloud, or your laptop and an external drive. Not two folders on the same disk. - **1 somewhere else.** Away from your house. A cloud service counts. So does a drive at a friend’s place. The most common setup for a novelist: the working copy, an automatic cloud copy, and a monthly copy to an external drive or emailed to yourself. ## Keep versions, not just copies A backup of today’s file doesn’t help if you need last Tuesday’s chapter, the one before you cut the scene you now want back. That’s what version history is for. Scrivener has snapshots, Word has version history if the file is in OneDrive, and Google Docs keeps every change. Whatever you use, make sure you can go back a week, not just a day. Take a manual snapshot before any big change: a rename, a restructure, cutting a subplot. ## Save it in a format that’ll last The book should exist somewhere in a format any program can open. Word (.[docx](https://usegalley.com/glossary#docx)), plain text, Markdown, or an [EPUB](https://usegalley.com/glossary#epub). If the only copy is in one app’s own format and that app closes or stops running on your computer, you’re relying on an export that might not exist anymore. Once a month, export the whole book to.docx or Markdown and put that in your backup too. It takes a minute. ## A quick checklist 1. Where’s the working copy? 2. Where’s the second copy, and is it on different storage? 3. Is one copy outside your house? 4. Can you get back a version from last week? 5. Is there a copy in an open format? 6. Have you tried restoring from it once? The last one is the one people skip, and it’s how you find out the backup was empty. ## How Galley does it Galley saves as you type, when you leave a chapter, and when you press ⌘S, and tells you if a save fails. Each chapter keeps snapshots, one a day plus one whenever you take one yourself or make a big change like a book-wide replace, and you can compare any snapshot with the current text and [restore it](https://usegalley.com/docs/restore-a-version). Deleted chapters stay in the bin for 30 days. That covers the “last Tuesday” problem. For the 3-2-1 part, **Back up everything** in the Toolkit downloads your whole library, with the [story bible](https://usegalley.com/glossary#story-bible), as one zip of standard files, and every book exports to Word, Markdown, PDF and EPUB whenever you want. So you can keep a copy of the book on your own disk, in a format that doesn’t need Galley to open. The [your data docs](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-data#you-can-leave) have the details, and [your work is safe](https://usegalley.com/features/your-work-is-safe) has the short version. ## More on guides - [Vellum on Windows: Your Actual Options](https://usegalley.com/blog/vellum-on-windows)Vellum only runs on a Mac and its makers have said that won't change. Here are the real options if you're on Windows: renting a Mac, buying a cheap one, or using a formatting tool that runs anywhere. - [The Best Book Writing Software for Self-Publishing Novelists (2026)](https://usegalley.com/blog/best-book-writing-software)A no-hype guide to the writing tools novelists actually use (Scrivener, Vellum, Atticus, Ulysses, Dabble, Reedsy, and Galley), sorted by what you need each one to do. - [Book Writing Software Without a Subscription](https://usegalley.com/blog/writing-software-without-subscription)Every serious book writing and formatting tool you can buy once instead of renting, what each one costs, and the subscription tools that also sell a lifetime licence. [Every guides post](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/guides) [← All posts](https://usegalley.com/blog) ## Go on, write a page in it. Opens straight into a book. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for. [Open the demo](https://demo.usegalley.com) [See what €199 gets you](https://usegalley.com/buy?from=site)