Backup and where your data lives
Everything FoxQuill knows is in one folder. Copy that folder and you have copied your work.
What is in it#
| Path | What it holds |
|---|---|
folio.db | The whole database: books, chapters, drafts, scenes, cards, notes, statistics, goals |
images/ | Every picture you have uploaded |
backups/ | The nightly copies |
Where the folder is#
Server mode, in Docker: the folder is the volume mounted at /data. On ZimaOS that is usually /DATA/AppData/folio. The DATA_DIR environment variable sets it.
Development: ./data next to the code.
Desktop mode, the installed app: the folder is inside your user data directory.
| System | Folder |
|---|---|
| Windows | %APPDATA%\\FoxQuill\\data |
| Linux | ~/.config/Folio/data |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/Folio/data |
FoxQuill never writes your work next to the program itself, so uninstalling or updating the app cannot touch it.
Backups FoxQuill makes on its own#
Once a day FoxQuill copies the database into backups/ as folio-YYYY-MM-DD.db. It keeps the last fourteen and deletes older ones. The copy is made with SQLite’s own VACUUM INTO, so it is a clean file even if you are writing at the time.
Scene history is separate and finer. FoxQuill saves a copy of a scene whenever it changes by more than fifty words, and keeps the last thirty per scene.
Backups you make#
Settings has a Backup section with two buttons.
Everything, as a zip. The database and every image, for every book. This is the one to keep.
This book only, as one JSON file. One book, in a readable format, with no images. Use it to move a book into another copy of FoxQuill. It carries drafts, cards, links, notes, sprints, statistics, and goals.
Restoring#
Server mode: stop the container, put folio.db back in the volume, start it again.
Desktop mode: close FoxQuill, put folio.db back in the folder above, open FoxQuill again.
To restore one book without touching the rest, import its JSON file. It always makes a new book and never writes over an existing one.