Backups and restoring

You can take a copy of a whole workspace whenever you like. The more useful question is whether that copy would bring the workspace back — and this application will find out for you, by actually doing it.

Taking a copy

Settings → Export writes the whole workspace to a single zip: every note of every kind, folders and their nesting, attachments, templates, properties and conversations. It works even when a workspace is frozen for being over its note limit — a workspace nobody can edit must still be one you can take with you.

Every file inside carries a SHA-256 of its own contents, so a damaged archive is refused before anything is restored rather than halfway through.

Finding out whether it works

An export produces a file. It does not tell you whether that file would bring your workspace back, and a backup nobody has ever restored is a hope rather than a backup.

So Settings → Backups offers a rehearsal. It exports the workspace, restores the archive into a throwaway copy, counts what came back against what went in, tells you where they differ, and destroys the copy. Your workspace is read and never written, and the copy belongs to nobody — it cannot be opened, listed or reached while it exists, and it does not exist for long.

What you get is a table: every kind of thing a workspace holds, what went in, and what came back. If they all match, it says so. If they do not, it names what is missing.

One number that moves on purpose

The total characters of writing can change without anything being lost. A restore rewrites every link to an attachment, and the new address is a different length from the old one. The page says so beside that row. What would be a real loss — a note coming back empty — is counted separately, because no amount of link rewriting empties a note.

Putting one back

Settings → Import takes an archive. You can merge it into a workspace or replace what is there. It runs as one transaction: it either finishes or nothing in your workspace changes, and a damaged file is refused before any of it begins.

What a backup does not carry

Who was in the workspace — membership is an invitation, not a file
API keys, webhook secrets and share links — a credential that travelled in a backup would be a credential in everybody's downloads folder
Which notes were deleted — the bin is emptied by the trip, not carried through it
When things were read, and by whom
Saved searches, which belong to a person rather than to the workspace
Repeating tasks and reminders — not yet
Who wrote each note. Restored notes are attributed to whoever restored them; a comment keeps its author's name as text, so a conversation still reads correctly

The full list, with what is checked and how, is in the project's fidelity matrix — a document a test keeps honest, so a claim in it cannot outlive the behaviour it describes.

What is not built

Scheduled backups. Deliberately not yet: a schedule quietly producing archives nobody has ever restored is the exact thing rehearsals exist to end. When they arrive, they will arrive after verification has been used in anger.
Backups to your own storage. Export downloads a file; where it goes afterwards is yours.

Notes Text in Markdown, with its own history and a way to add to it in one line.
Checklists A tree of things to tick off, typed without the mouse.
Maps The same tree, drawn — and drawn by the server, so it prints and exports.
Boards Columns and cards, with a log of what moved where and when.
Notes and folders The tree down the left: folders, sharing, and moving things about.
Markdown Everything the text understands, with every example rendered by the real thing.
Diagrams Flowcharts, sequences and the rest — drawn from text, in any note.
Comments Say something about a sentence, without writing it into the note.
Mentions and your inbox Write somebody's name, and where it reaches them.
Saved views A search you keep, as a folder that is a question.
Keeping things for later Save it now, decide where it belongs later.
Webhooks Tell another system when something happens here, instead of it asking.
Repeating tasks and reminders A card or a row that comes back — monthly, or a few days after you finish.
Note properties A review date, a status, where it came from — as fields, not as words in a title.
Writing that has not been saved Every box keeps what you type until the server has it — on this device, and never called saved.