Technical question about saving and backing up my Zettel

LAGIL

Hello everyone!

I'm just getting started. I like how quickly I can find things and the freedom I feel knowing I have ZK right here, right now.

I'm posting because I'm seeking to back up my ZK/notes.
Currently I have ZK in my hard drive on my mac--not in icloud.
Curious to learn how you back up your notes.

Thank you!

jeannelking

Mac laptop user here - I backup via Time Machine to an external hard drive as part of my entire computer's backup. Hopefully someone else will have a better answer. :^)

GeoEng51

@LAGIL said:
Hello everyone!

I'm just getting started. I like how quickly I can find things and the freedom I feel knowing I have ZK right here, right now.

I'm posting because I'm seeking to back up my ZK/notes.
Currently I have ZK in my hard drive on my mac--not in icloud.
Curious to learn how you back up your notes.

Thank you!

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I'm fairly new to Zettelkasten as well, working on a Mac laptop.

I started using The Archive with its default settings, which was to save all The Archive text files to a folder on my hard drive. After a while, I decided I'd like to access those files from several devices and was also concerned about backup of the files. So, I copied the folder on my hard drive to a folder on Dropbox, then used the "Switch Archives" command (from The Archive drop-down menu) to point to the new Dropbox folder.

Now The Archive uses the dropbox folder for all new Zettels or edits to existing Zettels. Since Dropbox is in the cloud, I can access those files from any device and the files are also securely backed up.

You could do the same with any cloud-based storage system to which you had access, including iCloud.

mrcmrc

One more option regarding the backup of your data (of all data, not just those of The Archive) in addition to those that have already been suggested to you (very valid) is to use a backup service like Backblaze.com. As a veteran of computer use and data management I can assure you that data security is never enough. The more systems you use, the more certain you are of not losing your data.

ctietze

• continuous Time Machine incremental backup
• weekly/bi-weekly mirroring to an external disk
• continuous encrypted cloud copies of nearly all my data to Wasabi cloud storage (people usually use Amazon AWS, this is a bit cheaper) -- this is not really a "backup" in the way that it's reliable and under your control, because it's in the cloud, but it's nice to have this for emergencies
• synchronization of my notes in particular via Dropbox

LAGIL

@GeoEng51 said:

@LAGIL said:
Hello everyone!

I'm just getting started. I like how quickly I can find things and the freedom I feel knowing I have ZK right here, right now.

I'm posting because I'm seeking to back up my ZK/notes.
Currently I have ZK in my hard drive on my mac--not in icloud.
Curious to learn how you back up your notes.

Thank you!

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I'm fairly new to Zettelkasten as well, working on a Mac laptop.

I started using The Archive with its default settings, which was to save all The Archive text files to a folder on my hard drive. After a while, I decided I'd like to access those files from several devices and was also concerned about backup of the files. So, I copied the folder on my hard drive to a folder on Dropbox, then used the "Switch Archives" command (from The Archive drop-down menu) to point to the new Dropbox folder.

Now The Archive uses the dropbox folder for all new Zettels or edits to existing Zettels. Since Dropbox is in the cloud, I can access those files from any device and the files are also securely backed up.

You could do the same with any cloud-based storage system to which you had access, including iCloud.

thoresson

Local backups to external hard drives that are rotated off-site and cloud backups to Wasabi using Arq.

Splattack

For my system I have two folders on Dropbox (works on my macOS, iPad, Android phone);

• notes/ (plain text files)
• notes_grafik/ (images)

On the other hand I back up my hardisk to an external disk. Whenever I buy an external disk I always buy in pair as to have my data in three places (disk, external backup, external backup-of-backup).

LAGIL

Big round of applause to each and all of you. I appreciate this knowledge, the diversity of approaches. Helpful.