Lost flashdrive, can Scrivener files be opened without Scrivener?

You wrote it. You have copyright. They do not. Anyone publishing it is violating your copyright, and you can sue.

If they put it online, you can file a DMCA takedown.

It's stressful and unpleasant, but really not likely anyone will publish.

Scrivener files can be opened, but you have to know how. And then the text isn't presented well; lots of other data mixed in, not really formatted well.

Did you retrace your steps and recall where you saw it last? It might appear somewhere, unless you left it outside the home (or it was stolen). Worth looking into, if you merely just misplaced it.

I think a friend left a printed version of my book in an uber instead of bringing it to his partner who wanted to read it . . . sigh!

I don't recall if my contact info was on it, but if I found someone's flash drive, I might check the files and try to contact the person who lost it, knowing the pain it would be for the owner.

A less honorable person might erase your files and just use it.

A book is a lot to read, never mind try and finish and steal. And you do have proof it's yours.

Remember, we writers beg people to read our books, Joe or Jane Schmo, what are the chances they're readers? Files with a weird extension, delete! I'm just saying all this hoping to calm you down, I'm sure your book is awesome, but the odds are in your favor, maybe more than 90%

Back to the uber, um yeah, someone sits there and sees this whole book . . . I ain't gonna read that, LOL!

I'm so glad you have back-ups! Nothing sucks worse than losing an almost finished book!!! I lost a scene once and thought I was going to die!

I don't have Scrivener, so I can't speak to that aspect though. Sorry for the stress it's causing you.

Best wishes and sweet dreams!

Tech-savvy people will simply trash it. "Lost drives" are often used to propagate viruses and other malwares, especially for spying on tech companies. The lesser-savvy people will go meh, reformat it, and use it as brand new and only if it's better than what they already have. Only a very small percentage will go as far as trying to examine the file format and try to match it with the executable, only to find out they have to a) install some bizarre software on their machine and b) maybe having to pay said software, which isn't worth it after all.

No biggie.

-cb

I'm one of that dangerous small squirrelly percentage that will always try to crack open a mysterious file-nut. But don't worry, I'm not in anyone's neighborhood

Well, yes and no, and I'm sorry this won't be comforting. You can open many of the RTF files stored inside a Scrivener archive folder with pretty much anything. However, it would be like trying to put together a puzzle by looking at one and only one piece at a time. It would be incredibly tedious to put anything together.

However, if they figure out it's a Scrivener file, they could theoretically download the forty day free trial of Scrivener to open it and then export to whatever format they want.

Maybe you should create a Google alert for some unique text in there, just to be on the safe side. Or maybe not. I'm pretty paranoid.

That's a good point. Anyone smart enough to work out how to open the file should be too smart to do anything to flash drive besides throw it away.

Do you have a copy of this novel somewhere else? It would suck to lose a novel, even more so one that's 90% complete.

My bet? Someone might try to open the files and be unsuccessful and will either dump it or reformat and use.