Understanding auto-saves / backups in C3

Are auto-saves and backups the exact same thing in C3?

In C2 you can have the project periodically save itself, sure, but you can also set the amount of backups to keep, and set a directory to keep them in. They are created until the amount set is reached, at which point they start overwriting themselves. It's nice cause you have a sort of version history you can keep up with in case something goes wrong, and you can set the backup directory to whatever you want.

With the following settings:

all I get is a single ._autosave._c3p in the same directory as my project, regardless of choosing "Same Location" or "Dropbox". Is this the intended behavior?

Hi there!

The "periodically back up projects" is basically an autosave. It will either create or update a file with a name that matches projectname._autosave_.c3p for the active project at the specified interval. You can choose which service you want it to save to using the location dropdown, but the actual location is decided by C3. It will either place it next to a file which matches the project name or at the root. If you choose the "Same location" option it will save it to the same service you opened the project from, so if your project is saved on Dropbox it will be saved to Dropbox. If you select "Google Drive" but you open your project from Dropbox it will autosave to Dropbox and so on and so forth.

Originally it was called "periodically back up projects" because it would only save to browser storage, and this was considered more of a temporary back up basically. I've since updated it to save to any service, so it's more of an autosave.