Scrivener Reviews: Is It Legit?

Customer Experience

Positive experience45.6% of reviews
Neutral16.8% of reviews
Negative experience37.6% of reviews

~ Based on 731 written reviews from the US App Store.

Is Scrivener Safe?

Scrivener appears mostly safe based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for Scrivener is 83/100.

This assessment is based on 2,622 user ratings, with an App Store average of 4.2/5.

Safety Analysis

77.6% of ratings point to a safe experience
6.9% of ratings suggest some concerns
15.6% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 2,595 App Store ratings for Scrivener.

Is Scrivener Legit?

Scrivener appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Scrivener is 83/100.

Based on 83 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

This is awesome! But..

Great companion to the Mac app. Really hope they optimize this for the duo soon. I love typing on mine and would love to use it for my writing. As it stands it’s usable but it really needs an update. Typewriter mode (if it’s there I can’t find it) would be incredible!

Also would love to have a tab button. I think there is a work around by making it add spaces after every enter key but a dedicated tab button in the tool tray would be an awesome addition
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Good functionality, export doesn't work

Doesn't export correctly, manuscript formatting doesn't seem to apply, even when i duplicate the export format and ensure everything is correct it exports without front matter and single spaced. i wanted scrivener so i wouldn't have to download any other apps while writing but it seems i'll have to get another to format exports.
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iPhone Duo

It’s time for you guys to unleash Scrivener for the iPhone Duo. Make it fire. Make it ice. Make it everything nice. Think iPad when the phone is open and I shall open my wallet if necessary.

No iCloud

It’s strange to me that they don’t have iCloud syncing. I don’t know anyone that uses dropbox and with iCloud folders I don’t know why you can’t just sync files between my Mac and my iPhone. It seems a pretty basic feature and they don’t support it.

My go to tool

This software literally blew me away and opened up my world as a writer. I use it for the starting place for all sorts of work and planning now. Worth every penny.

Worst sync

It is possible for a company like this to figure out a better way to sync between desktop and mobile… until then back to word.

Also, working in folders for each section is horrible flow.

Great app…

…but I wish they update their iPhone version for iOS 27 and the Duo.

Clunky UI

I use a keyboard with my iPad to write, which I’m sure many authors do. I have to go multiple clicks into a menu in order to indent, and hitting tab on my keyboard does nothing.

Syncing with other devices doesn't work well

Scrivener is a good word processor for writing. This app claims to sync with projects on other devices so that you can write anywhere. That may technically be true, deep in some nested menu somewhere it may be possible to sync. I fussed with it for 2 days and had no luck.

Don’t waste your money

I’d heard good things about the desktop version, so decided to try the app as I often write on the go. What a waste of $40.

It’s complicated, things that should be simple take multiple actions and it’s just not fun to use.

Wonderful tool for writing.

Once you understand the flow this app is exceptional. The keyboard row is the best and I love that it can be customized. This to me is like an older model of cars when there were no fancy computers. It’s easy to navigate and you don’t need bells and whistles to create. This makes it easy to customize. Following the example above, if you want to change a radio in an older car you pop a new one in whereas with newer cars you have to face a whole network of logistics. Overall, it’s wonderful and it’s obvious it was made with great care and attention to detail.
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No update for far too long again! 3 yrs!

I have been using Scrivener for many years, and throughout those years there have been minimal updates. It’s been frustrating. And now there is an issue where I try to search for a word in my project, or use find and replace, and the box shows for a millisecond and disappears again. So I currently can’t use the feature which is quite a big problem. And now I know that it’s going to be like that for a long time due to the history of non-existent updates! Also, still no sign of them using a different cloud storage. Probably the only app that doesn’t use apple cloud or google drive as a back up option. Limited to Dropbox, which I haven’t used for years! How is this still a thing in 2026? I really need to find an alternative to this, which is a real shame because if the company actually put some care into this, it’s a great app, and could be even better. Seems they don’t care at all. 3 years since the last update (for ios17!) is unacceptable from an app that wasn’t cheap.
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Crashed and burned.

I love this app, I truly do, but they have zero technical support, when I reached out for a syncing issue between this and the Mac app I was given troubleshooting steps that didn’t simply just not work, they were the incorrect steps for what I was being told to do, and as for the underlying issue? “It’s Apple’s problem”—they’re not going to troubleshoot on their end or try to patch anything or actually investigate what’s wrong, they’re depending on Apple to somehow divine what the issue is for their system and to fix it in Apple’s next update. Guess what basically any OS system update DOESN’T do, guys…that’s right! Troubleshoot for special snowflake you. I was willing to stick it out for three months and see whether you were right on the offest of off chances, and I’ve run the OS updates, but surprise surprise nothing’s fixed, so now I have to go track down an alternative when I should’ve had THE last word processing app I’d ever need, paid in full and curated to how I work. Saying that I’m disappointed is such an understatement that it’d be comical if I was currently capable of anything but the disappointment.
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Great for writing on the go

This app is invaluable for writing on the go if you use Scrivener on your computer. I would love to see some updates, particularly for navigation inside documents. It drives me mad when I want to select a few words, and the selection expands from one word… two words… oops half way to the of the document!
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SO HAPPY

This app is everything I dreamed of - I needed an iPad app that was relatively intuitive, inexpensive, and at least offered capabilities similar to “MS Word”, which I’m used to on a computer; Scrivener is SO MUCH better than Word, or than I had any right to expect!!!! Almost everything is made easy, from organizing the storyline and chapters, cutting and pasting, managing research and characters, storing images, enlarging or shrinking text on the fly… it does it all! Kudos to the coders and thank you for developing this now-indispensable writing tool!
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One of the best

So my experience with scrivener has been wonderful, i have been using it for nearly 9 months now for writing and making lists and some other things

But its easy to use and it never tries to delete your stuff like doc’s does…

It’s worth every penny if u plan to use it for how it’s meant to be used.

Edit: I’ve been using scrivener for over a year now, I still love it and it is and will always be my goto writing app

I will say that it needs a few updates yes, but to be fair its been 3 years since its last update
So if you could do some bug fixes that would be wonderful
Thank you, have a good day.
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This is awesome! But..

Just got this, love the app on my Mac but the only issue I’ve ran into is the appearance settings. It’s usable, but I’d like to see more options than just light and dark, like in the Mac version. I’d also love to see the typewriter (no distractions) mode like in the Mac version. Those might be in there, but I’ll have to mess around with it a little. More than anything, this is worth it just to be able to edit my manuscript from my phone if I get inspired and am away from my computer.
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Sucks at syncing!!

This app (Mac, iPhone, iPad) has terrible syncing problems with Dropbox. I’m constantly getting error messages about syncing problems, despite me closing the app at the end of use and saving, and never having the document open on two devices at the same time. About once a month I lose edits because they fail to sync what I edited or wrote. I don’t understand why we’re in 2026 and this app sucks so much at syncing. Ditch Dropbox, and use the Apple method of syncing like every other modern app. I never have problems like this on Notes.
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New IOS update 26

New headaches.
First it was keyboard formatting issues, where the keyboard disappeared, now I found a new issue that makes this almost unusable for me.

When I strictly use iPhone/ipad, no issues with copy/pasting my work to and from. But when I open one of my scrivener projects on windows… holy moly. The formats go all 🦆ed.

It’s something to do with the fonts on windows messing with the ones on iOS I reckon. Anyway. I freezes my phone/tablet in place when trying to apply formatting styles.

Further reducing the rating until this is fixed. If this is a windows - iOS compatibility issue, I think that should be highlighted somewhere. Very disappointing.
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Don’t bother

Frustrating that this app has not been updated. Being restricted to syncing through dropbox is a problem because it is buggy.