Workflows by profession

A writer's search setup

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

Writing scatters across more containers than any other work: files, notes apps, writing apps' libraries, and email drafts.

The version problem is the whole problem

novel-draft-FINAL-v2-edited (1).docx is the punchline, and the fix is boring: dated snapshots, one live file.

Projects/Novel/
  novel.docx                      ← the only file you edit
  Snapshots/2026-07-31 novel.docx

Snapshot at milestones (a Shortcut or a two-line script makes it one keystroke). The live file has no version suffix ever; history lives in dated copies that sort themselves.

macOS Versions adds automatic history underneath (File → Revert To) for apps that support it — a safety net, not a system.

Where the words actually are

• Word/Pages files — yours, searchable, portable
• Scrivener — projects are packages; the text is inside .scriv bundles, findable

only via Scrivener's own (excellent) project search

• Ulysses/Bear/Notes — libraries and databases; their search or nothing
• Email to self, chat drafts — the graveyard

The principle: apps with libraries own their search; the filesystem owns files. Keep finished work as files, in your folders, whatever the drafting tool — export from library apps at milestones.

Searching by phrase

You remember what you wrote, not what you called it:

mdfind -onlyin ~/Documents "the phrase you remember"
rg -i "the phrase" ~/Documents --type-add 'doc:*.{md,txt}' -tdoc

Spotlight's content search is genuinely the right tool here (plain text and docx index well); ripgrep covers Markdown/plaintext workflows exactly.

Research

One Research/ folder per project, and downloaded PDFs renamed on arrival — 2019 Smith mangrove economics.pdf — because a folder of download (7).pdf is write-only memory.

Common questions

How should writers version drafts?

One live file with no suffix; dated snapshot copies at milestones. Never a chain of -final-v2 names.

Can Spotlight search inside Scrivener projects?

Not usefully — .scriv is a package. Use Scrivener's project search, and export milestones as files.