Backups

Once a day, while it runs, Periskopos copies its whole registry (apps, connections, accounts, settings and history: your checks, 30 days of them unless you keep more, and a year of daily uptime) into backups/ beside the database, using SQLite’s own copy, which is safe while the app is writing. The last 7 are kept, named by when they were made (periskopos-2026-10-18T093000Z.db, in UTC).

Settings → Data → Backups shows when the last one was made, has Back up now, and opens the folder:

Installed, Windows	%APPDATA%\periskopos\data\backups
Installed, macOS	~/Library/Application Support/periskopos/data/backups
Installed, Linux	~/.config/periskopos/data/backups
Run from a checkout	data/backups

Keys are never in a backup: they live only in the keys file, and stay out of the backups by design.

Tip

The backups folder is on the same disk as the database, so copy it somewhere else now and then (another disk, a synced folder) for a backup that outlives the disk.

Restoring a backup

1. Quit Periskopos: right-click its tray icon → Quit Periskopos (closing the window only hides it).
2. In the data folder (the backups folder’s parent), move periskopos.db aside, with periskopos.db-wal and periskopos.db-shm if they’re there. Keep them until the restore works.
3. Copy the backup you want into the data folder and rename it periskopos.db.
4. Start Periskopos. Your apps and their history are as they were when the backup was made; keys come from the keys file as before.

To take your setup to another computer, or add it to a Periskopos already in use, see Moving to another computer.

If it won’t start

If the database can’t be opened or brought up to date when Periskopos starts (a damaged file, a file that isn’t a database, or a backup from a newer version), it doesn’t start on an empty registry: it stops and says why, with where the backups are. Nothing is changed, so restore a backup as above, or update Periskopos for a newer one’s.