Backup & restore

Everything XTop stores is in one JSON file and one notes folder, so a backup is a small .zip you can put anywhere — including a folder your cloud app already syncs.

Open it from Settings → Backup.

What is in an archive

Each backup is a single file named xtop-backup-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.zip, holding:

xtop-db.json    collections, projects, aliases, commands, settings
notes/**             every markdown note

Manual and automatic

Pick a backup folder, then Back up now.

Or turn on automatic backup: every 6h / 12h / day / week, keeping the last 5–50 copies. Older ones are pruned for you.

The app checks 30 seconds after launch and every half hour after that, and only writes a new backup once the time you chose has really passed — so leaving the computer on for a week does not fill the folder with copies.

Cloud backup without an account

Set the backup folder to somewhere inside your OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox folder, and the sync app uploads it for you. No sign-in, no tokens, no API keys.

Restoring

Restore from the list of archives in the folder, or Restore from file… for one you brought from another machine.

Three things protect you:

1. It asks first, because restoring replaces the data you have now.
2. Your current data is saved first, into a before-restore folder inside the app data folder — so you can undo a restore you did by mistake.
3. A damaged file is rejected before anything is changed, and a .zip that is not an XTop backup is refused.

One small detail

Backups are sorted by the date in the file name, not by the file's modified date. Sync apps change the modified date of every file, so this is what stops the automatic clean-up from deleting the wrong ones.