[GNC] Backup

[Stephen]

James, you're getting some good advice in the responses you've received 
so far. May I add that it might be useful to review the Gnucash Tutorial 
and Concepts Guide regarding types of files Gnucash makes/uses. This is 
in Chapter 2 (Ver 4 Tutorial) called Backing Up and Recovering Data. 
There is a section specifically about backups but this is about saving 
the most recent user file saved going back in time and it uses a date to 
show when it was made. It is useful as an operational tool if you need 
to go backwards to a point in time but it is NOT a backup of your 
computer files to a separate location. In other words, if you only have 
1 copy of your file then you do NOT have a secure backup.

There is a lot of information about backing up computer files and 
methods to do it. If I may suggest it, go back to basics and get a good 
grounding in how backing up works. It can seem complicated but it 
doesn't have to be. Search for backing up and I suggest look at askleo 
(dot) com articles. I am in no way associated with askleo -- just a fan. 
It is critical to get a good handle on backing up your computer files.

Best wishes.

On 6/28/2023 3:35 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
> On 2023-06-28 13:21, David Carlson wrote:
>> James,
>>
>> When your computer fails, your data will be gone unless you, by your own
>> volition, have made a special plan to back up your data to a safe and
>> proper external location.  Nobody here can tell you if you made a proper
>> choice.  That also goes for all the other data on your computer.
> ...> There is no backup in GnuCash.
>
> And let us be clear, it's not GnuCash's job to do a backup against the
> possibility of a computer failure. It's not the job of _any_ application
> program to do that. Making backups is a specialized system function.
> Windows itself has a backup program, though I've not heard good things
> and have never used it, and there are several good third-party backup
> programs.
>
> One thing is key: if you "back up" to another location on your computer,
> you have not done a real backup. A real backup is to another device like
> an external hard drive, one which is connected to your computer while
> you are making a backup, then immediately disconnected till next backup
> time. Why is it critical to back up to a different device? Because if
> your computer crashes, and your backup is on your computer, you won't
> have access to your backup.
>
> Many people back up to "the cloud". I will say it's better than nothing,
> but there are potential privacy and security problems with copying your
> sensitive data to what is, after all, just some big corporation's computer.
>
> P.S. You mentioned a "backup" by Libre Office. All that does is copy
> your documents somewhere in a folder below AppData. For the usefulness
> of this, see "if your computer crashes", two paragraphs up.
>
> Stan Brown
> Tehachapi, CA, USA
> https://BrownMath.com
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