(Archived) Backup Restore Tip

[werpnst8 9]

I recently had to restore my EN notes from a local backup and discovered that I would do things a little differently in the future. I do a full backup of all my notebooks and save the .enex file somewhere else for safekeeping. The other day I decided to reorganize my Notebook/Tag structure (tried to consolidate notebooks to avoid having a few too many) and accidentally deleted a notebook that still contained some notes. Since those notes do not end up in the TRASH folder, I had no way to recover them, nor did I have any way of knowing which notes they were.

 

Fortunately, I had a local backup that I used to import all my notes back into my EN account. The notes were too many (2000+) so they went into a local notebook and I then had to determine which ones were accidentally deleted.

 

In the process, I realized that the import preserves the tags, the created date, and the modified date, but does NOT preserve the notebook name. So a little tricky to determine which notes were in the notebook in question. Though tags are not specific to notebooks, I tend to use the same ones with the same notebooks, so I did some searches on those tags I could remember and I think I'm back in business.

 

What I would do differently:

 

1. Be more careful about deleting notebooks.

2. Do my local backups BY NOTEBOOK rather than have one giant backup file.

3. (slightly unrelated) Occasionaly, move my trash files into a searchable TRASH notebook, back it up, then delete the notebook again.  

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I recently had to restore my EN notes from a local backup and discovered that I would do things a little differently in the future. I do a full backup of all my notebooks and save the .enex file somewhere else for safekeeping. The other day I decided to reorganize my Notebook/Tag structure (tried to consolidate notebooks to avoid having a few too many) and accidentally deleted a notebook that still contained some notes. Since those notes do not end up in the TRASH folder, I had no way to recover them, nor did I have any way of knowing which notes they were.

 

Fortunately, I had a local backup that I used to import all my notes back into my EN account. The notes were too many (2000+) so they went into a local notebook and I then had to determine which ones were accidentally deleted.

 

In the process, I realized that the import preserves the tags, the created date, and the modified date, but does NOT preserve the notebook name. So a little tricky to determine which notes were in the notebook in question. Though tags are not specific to notebooks, I tend to use the same ones with the same notebooks, so I did some searches on those tags I could remember and I think I'm back in business.

 

What I would do differently:

 

1. Be more careful about deleting notebooks.

2. Do my local backups BY NOTEBOOK rather than have one giant backup file.

3. (slightly unrelated) Occasionaly, move my trash files into a searchable TRASH notebook, back it up, then delete the notebook again.  

 

Why are you using enex files as your backup method?  If you'd backed up your exb file, you could have restored your database including dates & notebooks.

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/37093-extract-single-pdf-note-from-enex-file/?p=200903

 

There is plenty of discussion on backing up/restoring using the exb file.  Please search the board if you need more info.

 

Moved to the Windows section, since it was tagged with Windows.

[Guest mrossk]

I would recommend you to simply backup the database file (after closing Evernote).

 

This ist the fastest way, the most secure way (exporting to .enex sometimes does not export all notes) and you are in the most flexible situation when restoring.

 

To restore, go offline(!) and replace your current database with the old database (after moving it somewhere else) and then you have all possibilities to access and recover (export) any sort of your old data. Also your notebooks are there as they have been before.

 

After exporting your needed notes, switch back to your current database and import this notes.

 

Marcel.

[werpnst8 9]

Thanks for the info.

 

I did search the boards and other webpages quite a bit but never saw anything about EXB files (I didn't know to search "BACKUP EXB"),  only .enex files. And I called support and put in a ticket nearly 24 hours ago, but they never said a word about that. I got tired of searching and searching, and I knew that I had the .enex file from last week sitting in my desktop, so I went with that. I'll do the EXB method in the future

 

thanks.

 

 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I didn't know to search "BACKUP EXB".

The initial search terms would be backup or backup/restore.