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45 Guides Available Quick Start Guide
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Backup & Restore

Guide 37: Backup & Restore

Protect your financial data

Why Backup?

Your OtterLedger file contains irreplaceable data:

  • Years of transaction history
  • Account configurations
  • Custom categories and rules
  • Reports and preferences

Manual Backup

Creating a Backup

  1. File → Backup → Create Backup
  2. Choose backup location
  3. Name the backup (date auto-suggested)
  4. Optionally add a description explaining why you're creating this backup (e.g., "Before year-end close" or "Before deleting old accounts")
  5. Click Save

Backup File

  • Format: .olbak (OtterLedger Backup)
  • Contains: Complete database + settings
  • Compressed for smaller size

Backup Description

Manual backups support a free-text description field. Descriptions appear in the backup list alongside the file name, date, and file size. This makes it easy to identify backups created for specific reasons when browsing the restore screen.

Tip: Always add a description before major changes such as bulk-deleting transactions, restructuring your account hierarchy, or closing out a fiscal year.

Automatic Backups

Settings

Menu → Settings → Backup

See also: Guide 35: General Settings for a full overview of the Settings panel.

Option Description
Enable auto-backup Turn on/off automatic backups
Frequency Daily, Weekly, or Monthly
Location Folder where backups are saved
Retention period How many days of backups to keep (see below)

Retention Period Options

The retention setting controls how long old backups are kept before they are automatically deleted.

Option Backups Kept For
7 days One week
14 days Two weeks
30 days One month (default)
60 days Two months
90 days Three months

Tip: If you sync your backup folder to the cloud, longer retention periods provide a safety net against delayed corruption or ransomware that may not be noticed immediately. 60 or 90 days is recommended for business users.

Best Practice

  • Enable automatic backups
  • Use a cloud-synced folder (OneDrive, Dropbox)
  • Set retention to 30 days or longer

Pre-Migration Backups

OtterLedger automatically creates a backup before every database migration (schema upgrade). This happens when the application is updated and the database structure needs to change.

What This Means

  • No action is required from you
  • The backup is created before any schema changes are applied
  • The backup description includes metadata such as the migration name being applied and the timestamp, for example: Pre-migration: AddMortgagePaymentFields (2026-02-25 14:30)

Viewing Pre-Migration Backups

Pre-migration backups appear in the backup list alongside your manual and automatic backups. They are labelled clearly so you can distinguish them from routine backups.

Why This Matters

If a migration fails or introduces unexpected behavior, you can restore from the pre-migration backup to return to the exact state your database was in before the upgrade.

Tip: Pre-migration backups are subject to the same retention period as automatic backups. If you are about to install a major update, consider creating an additional manual backup with a descriptive note and storing it outside your normal backup folder.

Backup List

The backup list (visible in Settings → Backup and on the Restore screen) shows the following columns for each backup:

Column Description
File name The backup filename (includes date stamp)
Created Date and time the backup was created
Size File size (e.g., 1.4 MB)
Description Optional note added when the backup was created, or automatic metadata for pre-migration backups

Restoring from Backup

Restore Steps

  1. File → Backup → Restore
  2. Navigate to backup file
  3. Select backup to restore (review description, date, and size before choosing)
  4. Choose location for restored file
  5. Click Restore

Notes

  • Original file is not overwritten
  • Creates new file from backup
  • Review restored data before continuing

Cloud Backup Tips

  1. Set backup folder to cloud service
  2. Backups auto-sync to cloud
  3. Accessible from anywhere

Services

  • OneDrive
  • Google Drive
  • Dropbox
  • iCloud Drive

Disaster Recovery

If Something Goes Wrong

  1. Don't panic - You have backups
  2. Close OtterLedger
  3. Locate most recent backup (check description and size to identify the right one)
  4. Restore to new location
  5. Verify data integrity

Prevention

  • Test restore periodically
  • Keep backups in multiple locations
  • Export key reports regularly

Tips

  • Backup before major changes — and add a description so you remember why
  • Test restore process annually
  • Store one backup off-site
  • Include in your regular backup routine
  • Pre-migration backups are created automatically — no action needed before updates

See also: Guide 35: General Settings