Backing up and restoring your Chord file

Chord snapshots your book automatically, and a snapshot can always be restored.

Last updated October 23, 2026

Your database is the only copy of record, so Chord keeps a rolling set of snapshots for each profile and takes extra ones before anything risky.

Automatic snapshots

Chord takes consistent snapshots of the whole book (a proper SQLite copy, never a raw file copy) and prunes them on a fixed schedule:

When	Kept
Before a schema migration of an existing book	last 3
Before a destructive change (restore, account delete that moves postings, import undo)	last 5
On launch	one per day for 7 days, then one per week for 4 weeks

A pre-migration snapshot fails closed: if it can't be taken, the database does not open rather than migrating without a backup.

Back up now

Open Settings ▸ Data and choose Back Up Now to take a snapshot on demand. To keep a copy outside Chord entirely, use Export… to write a .chordbackup file — see Importing, exporting, and backups.

Restore a snapshot

Each snapshot row in Settings ▸ Data has a Restore action. Restoring replaces the current profile's book with that snapshot — it is a recovery operation, not an import. Chord snapshots the current live book first, then swaps the restored copy in atomically, and puts the safety snapshot back if anything fails.

Where snapshots live

Snapshots are stored outside your profile folders, so deleting a profile doesn't take its backups with it. In Finder, choose Go ▸ Go to Folder… and open:

~/Library/Application Support/Chord/Backups/

Each profile has its own subfolder. Snapshot file names carry the kind (auto, pre-migration, pre-destructive) and a UTC timestamp. Use Restore in Settings ▸ Data rather than copying files in by hand: a live database is split across several files, and a plain copy taken while Chord is running can be unusable.

Snapshots live on the same Mac as your book, so they protect against mistakes and bad migrations, not against losing the machine. For that, keep an exported .chordbackup somewhere else.

Troubleshooting

Chord won't open after an update. It may have refused to migrate without a backup. Re-launch; if it still won't open, contact support — don't delete the database.
I restored the wrong snapshot. The pre-destructive snapshot taken during the restore is still there; restore that one.
I want a copy off this Mac. Use Export… and keep the .chordbackup in iCloud Drive or on an external disk.

Still stuck?

Email [email protected] with your macOS version and what you were doing.