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Automatic Backups for Writers: Never Lose a Draft Again

Every writer has a story about the chapter that vanished. A laptop that died the week before a deadline, a file overwritten by an older copy, a folder that sync quietly deleted. The fix is boring and well known: keep more than one copy, keep one of them somewhere else, and make it happen without having to remember.

This post covers what a backup of a creative project should contain, how often it should run, and how the new automatic backups in Aevon 0.1.7 handle it for you.

A copy is not the same as a backup

Your projects in Aevon already sync to the cloud as you write. That protects you from a broken laptop, but sync copies mistakes too. If you delete a chapter by accident, the deletion syncs everywhere. A real backup is a snapshot from a point in time that you can go back to, kept separately from the live project.

The classic rule of thumb is three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one kept off site. For a writer that can be as simple as: the live project, a backup folder on your computer, and a backup in Google Drive, Dropbox or your own server.

What a useful backup contains

A backup is only as good as what you can do with it on a bad day. Three things matter:

  • The full project, so you can restore it exactly as it was: chapters, characters, locations, items, notes, timelines, plot boards, studio documents and settings.
  • Finished exports, so you can send a manuscript to an editor or agent even if you cannot open your writing app.
  • Readable copies, so the work survives any single program. Plain Markdown and JSON open anywhere, today and in twenty years.

Aevon backups include all three. Each project becomes one archive with the restorable data, compiled exports for its type (a novel gets DOCX, EPUB, PDF and Markdown; a screenplay gets PDF, Final Draft and Fountain; a comic gets its script, a PDF and a CBZ; a musical gets its libretto and vocal book; a game gets a design document), and a readable folder with every chapter and every world element as its own file.

How often to back up

Back up often enough that losing the time since the last backup would not hurt. For most writers that means several times a day while you are working, and less often when nothing changes.

Aevon backs up every 6 hours while it is open, and right away when you open it if a backup is overdue. Only projects that changed are backed up, with a full run once a week. Compiled exports are refreshed once a day, since they take longer to build. Aevon keeps the last 10 backups of each project and removes older ones, so the folder does not grow forever. You can change the frequency and the number kept in Settings.

Where your backups can go

You can use one destination or several at once:

  • This device. In the desktop app, backups go to Documents/Aevon Backups by default. On Android they are kept in the app's storage, and you can share any backup to Drive or Files. Both are on from the start.
  • A folder in your browser. On the web, pick a folder once and Aevon writes backups there automatically in browsers that support folder access.
  • Google Drive or Dropbox. Connect your account and Aevon writes to an "Aevon Backups" folder. Aevon only gets access to the files it creates. Even when Aevon is closed, the project data is backed up from our servers on schedule.
  • Your own storage. Bring an S3-compatible bucket (Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi or MinIO), an FTP or FTPS server, or an SFTP server. Credentials are encrypted and never sent back to your browser.

Restoring is part of the plan

A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan. In Settings > Backups you can open any archive, see what is inside and restore it as a new project. Restoring never overwrites your current work, so it is safe to try. It is worth doing once now, while nothing is wrong.

Set it up in two minutes

  1. Open Settings > Backups (new accounts see this step during onboarding).
  2. Check that a destination is active: on the desktop and Android apps it already is; on the web, choose a folder or connect a cloud account.
  3. Add a second destination somewhere else, such as Google Drive, Dropbox or your own server.
  4. Press Back up now once, then open the folder and look at what is there.

That is all. From now on, every draft has a safety net.

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