Your writing is a folder of dated files, so backing it up is copying files — and sync to your own server is already a live copy. Settings › Sync also has explicit backup and restore for the ledger, for your settings, and for names and structure.

Three things to back up

1. The ledger — the day pages, ink and all. Back up ledger… writes one file you can save anywhere; Restore ledger… reads one back and merges it, so restoring never loses what you wrote since.
2. Settings — Transfer to another device saves one file with your WebDAV, catalog, feed, mail, bookshelf and site addresses and passwords. Secrets ride encrypted under a passphrase you choose. The same file is read by the Boox, so one export sets up every device.
3. Names and structure — what your documents are called (handwritten titles included), your board names, which documents you deleted, and how the Directory is arranged. It does not save the writing itself; the ink lives in the day pages. Importing merges, and names on this device win.

Restoring on a new device

1. Install the app.
2. Import the settings file. When the app asks for the passphrase, the passwords land too; without it, everything except the secrets is applied and you can add passwords by hand.
3. Run Sync now. The day tree comes down from your server.
4. Import names and structure if you kept one.

If you had no server, restore the ledger file instead of step 3.

Sync is the everyday backup

With sync pointed at a WebDAV server you own, the tree is mirrored continuously. Running Drive as well is allowed — same files, two places — and the merger keeps them agreeing. Anything that backs up that server, or that Drive, backs up your ledger.

Restoring without the app

The remote tree is readable by hand. A day is one file you can open in a text editor; a restore is a file copy, not an import wizard. Apply this test to anything that holds years of your life: if the maker vanished tonight, what would you still have in the morning? Here it is a folder of dated files and your media, on your disk.

What is not in the backup

• Downloaded podcast and video episodes — a cache, re-fetchable.
• The comic balloon index — rebuilt on open.
• Widget snapshots.
• Notebook pins, which are per device for now.

Re-importing your own file

Importing a backup this device made reports “nothing new”. That is the right answer, not a failure.

Books

Books live in the app’s Documents folder and, if you use it, on the library hub. Back up either.