Saving in Cloud Projects

Citavi lets you save a Citavi project and its attachments (usually PDF files) in the Citavi Cloud. The Citavi Cloud uses Microsoft servers located in Germany.

When you make changes to a cloud project, Citavi saves changes in the cloud every five seconds.

For this to happen, you need to be connected to the Internet and the cloud servers need to be available. If one of these conditions isn't met, Citavi saves changes on your computer until the connection has been reestablished.

Scenario 1: Communication with the cloud server is possible

Every five seconds, Citavi checks if you made changes to your cloud project. If yes, the changes are saved automatically in the cloud project.

If you close Citavi (and had previously selected the "remember me on this computer" option) Citavi saves a copy of your cloud project on your computer. The name of this copy is identical with your cloud project's project key and has the file extension .cache. The file can be found in the folder ..\AppData\Local\Swiss Academic Software\Citavi 6\ProjectCache. The purpose of this file is to make it faster to open the cloud project faster and to make it possible to work offline.

Never make changes to this folder or its contents without first contacting the Citavi Support team!

Scenario 2: Communication with the cloud server was interrupted after you opened a cloud project.

As soon as a connection to the cloud is lost, Citavi begins saving all unsaved changes once per minute to a special file on your computer. This copy uses the name of your cloud project's ProjectKey and uses the .CHANGEMAP file extension. The file is located either in the directory %Temp%\Swiss Academic Software (versions to Citavi 6.3) or in the directory %localappdata%\Swiss Academic Software\Citavi 6\Temp (Citavi 6.4 and later).

• Scenario 2a: You closed Citavi normally
  The file with the .changemap extension will be deleted. Citavi saves a complete copy of the project along with all unsaved changes in a file with the name [project key].cache.
• Scenario 2b: You didn't close Citavi normally (Citavi warned you not to close or your computer crashed).
  The file with the .changemap extension will not be deleted. Citavi 6.2 and later use the changes written in the .changemap file the next time you open the cloud project and will add the changes to the cloud.

Scenario 3: You open a cloud project while the cloud server is not available

You were logged out of Citavi and had not yet opened your cloud project from your current PC. Because the cloud server is not available, Citavi opens your cloud project from the file [project key].cache. Citavi saves your changes to the .cache file until the connection to the cloud server is available again.

Technical Background

The .cache file in the folder ..\AppData\Local\Swiss Academic Software\Citavi 6\ProjectCache contains a local copy of the complete project in XML format along with any changes that were made in offline mode but could not yet be saved. This copy is saved in the compressed GZIP format.

The .CHANGEMAP file in the %Temp%\Swiss Academic Software folder is a file in JSON format that only contains the unsaved changes.

Under what circumstances are cloud projects not available in Citavi?

• If your internet connection goes away, for example if you're working on the train and you lose the wi-fi signal.
• If your laptop goes into sleep mode because the battery is low.
• If you let all programs keep running but put your computer into standby mode.
• If Citavi's cloud servers are not available for a short period of time due to a planned or unplanned outage. In such cases, please check the information on www.citavi.com/support. Server availability can be viewed at http://status.citavi.com in the "Account" section).