Writer Journal Official

Data backup and restore

Writer Journal introduces 2 types of local data backup mechanisms. Namely Manual backup and Auto backup, you can either backup your documents manually or setup an auto backup schedule to let Writer Journal backup your data periodically.

Google drive sync feature has been requested many times, we are working hard to implement this feature and hopefully will be available in some future release!

Manual data backup

Please follow the following steps to backup your documents and export it as a single .wjb backup file.(See the screenshots)

Navigate to Data backup page
Under the manual backup tab, click Backup to start the backup procedure
Select your destination folder and give your backup file a name and click Save button

Note that you can also choose Google drive folder to save the backup file directly to your Google drive account. This way you can also restore it from another device very easily. (See the screenshots)

Manual data restore

Please follow the steps below to manually restore your exported backup.

Go to Data backup page
Click restore button under Manual tab
Click OK to start selecting your backup file
Select your backup .wjb file and wait until Writer Journal restore your data

Auto backup and restore

Please follow the following steps to setup an auto backup schedule. (See the screenshots)

Navigate to Settings page
Click Home folder if you haven't yet specified a home folder for Writer Journal
Select a folder for Writer Journal to use as a home folder, your auto backup files will be stored there, these files will not get deleted even if you accidentally deleted the app
Now still in Settings page, click Auto backup and select an appropriate auto backup interval, I selected hourly
Congratulations, you have successfully setup an auto backup schedule
Navigate to Data backup page
Under the Auto backup tab, you will find your auto backup files appear there once it started to backup your documents. The first backup file will appear after an hour in this example
You can click restore button to restore all of your documents
Click OK to start the restore process

Warning ⚠️, restore will delete all of your current documents and folders, always make sure you have backup your data before any restore process.

I lost all of my data, what should I do, please help!

Although such an event is extremely rare, users may lose their entire data out of accident, like damage to their device, or forget to enable Auto backup schedule. Followings are specific steps to recover any lost data.

If your entire documents and folders are gone for any unexpected reason, there are 3 ways to recover your data in WriterJournal app.

1.If you had backed up your data through manual backup mechanism before your data got deleted, you can manually restore your data by navigating to: Side Navigation menu -> Data backup -> Under Manual Backup tab -> Select Restore Data-> Select “OK” -> Find and select your backed up data file (WriterJournal data backup file has .wjb file extenstion)

2.If you have never backed up your data manually, or your manually backed up file is too old and doesn’t contain the desired content, your second option will be Auto backup schedule. If you had selected a “Home Folder” for WriterJournal to use when you first launch the app, Auto Backup schedule will be automatically enabled for you, otherwise, you will have to manually enable it in the Settings page or under the Auto Backup Tab in the Data backup page. If you had enabled Auto backup Schedule before your data got deleted, you can recover your older backup files in the Auto backup page. Make sure to recover to the latest uncorrupted backup file so that you can recover most of your writings.

3.If you have neither manually backed up your data nor enabled auto backup schedule before your data got deleted, WriterJournal offers you a last option to recover your data, that’s called Emergency Backup Mechanism, If your auto backup schedule is off, WriterJournal will automatically enable Emergency Backup Mechanism to periodically back up your data at the following location:

Storage/Download/WriterJournal/EmergencyBackup/

All you need to do is navigating to Data backup page -> Under Manual Tab -> Select Restore -> Click “OK” -> Select a latest or a backup file that contains your desired content at that location. (Search In the EmergencyBackup folder)

I changed my device, how can I move my data from my previous device to the new device?

All you need to do is to get the latest WriterJournal backup file, and transfer it to your new device. There are 2 ways to do that:

By using the Google Drive Space (If you don’t have Google Drive, you can jump right into the second option). On your old device, launch WJ and navigate to Data Backup page -> Under Manual Tab -> Select “Backup Data” -> Select “Backup data to Google Drive” -> Select your desired folder -> Name your backup file or leave it as default -> Select “Save”.

Now you have successfully backed up your entire data and exported the backup file to your selected folder. Now, on your new device, launch WJ and navigate to Data Backup page -> Under Manual Tab -> Select “Restore Data” -> Select “OK” -> Select “Restore data from Google Drive” -> Select the backup file you exported in the previous steps -> Wait until it completes.

Congratulations, you have successfully transferred your data from your previous device to your new device. (See the screenshots)

By manually transferring the backup file to your new device, On your old device, launch WJ and navigate to Data Backup page -> Under Manual Tab -> Select “Backup Data” -> Select “Backup data” -> Select your desired folder -> Name your backup file or leave it as default -> Select “Save”.

Now you have successfully backed up your entire data and exported the backup file to your selected folder. All you need to do is to manually transfer this backup.wjb file to your new device by any means available to you. After you have transferred this backup file to your new device, launch WJ on your new device and navigate to Data Backup page -> Under Manual Tab -> Select “Restore Data” -> Select “OK” -> Select “Restore data” -> Select the backup file you transferred from your previous device in the previous steps -> Wait until it completes.

Congratulations, you have successfully transferred your data from your previous device to your new device. (If you had uninstalled the app from your older device before transferring the data, please go to the section named “I lost all of my data, what should I do, please help!”)