Backup & Recovery

A project is a folder, but a safe backup includes its hidden .scholardo/ state as well as documents and drafts. A local backup is not cloud sync and does not protect against losing the disk that holds both copies.

Create and inspect a backup

Open your project and Settings → Backup. Review the backup configuration and saved archives. Use Back up now to create an archive before a major change; use the backup-folder control to locate it and confirm it exists.

Restore into a new folder

Use Restore… or select a saved backup. Restoration creates a new folder instead of overwriting the current project. Open that restored copy and verify its documents, drafts, annotations and references before relying on it. Keep the original until you have checked the result.

What needs separate protection

Linked external sources are outside the project and need their own backup. Keep a separate copy on another disk or your chosen backup system if hardware loss matters. Copy the complete project, not only the visible library folder.

Avoid editing the same annotation files simultaneously on multiple computers. See the multi-device annotation caveat.

For storage locations, see Projects & Files. For license expiry, which is different from data loss, see License Activation.