Full backup and restore

A full backup puts everything in your Pennyweight workspace into one file you keep. If you ever need your data back, your AI can restore that file. You do both by asking your AI. For smaller exports, such as a CSV of transactions, see export your data.

Make a backup

1. Ask your AI for a full backup of your account.
2. Open the link as soon as your AI shows it. It lasts about 2 minutes. Your browser saves a JSON file.
3. Keep the file somewhere you trust. It isn't encrypted.

The backup holds your ledgers, accounts, transactions, rules, saved knowledge, budgets, alerts, statement files you uploaded for import, and your AI profile. It also records how many records it contains and a checksum of its contents. A backup either finishes complete or fails with an error; you never get a partial file. If your AI says the backup wasn't written because your saved AI profile can't be opened from this connection, reconnect Pennyweight in your AI app and ask for the backup again.

Your audit log stays out unless you ask for it. Say "include my audit log" and it's added to the file for your records. A restore doesn't load it back.

Restore a backup

1. Ask your AI to restore your account from your backup. For 48 hours after you make a backup, your AI can restore it by its reference, which Pennyweight hands your AI along with the download link. You don't pass the file along. This route takes backups up to 40 MB.
2. After 48 hours, the reference expires. Your AI can then restore only from the file's contents, sent in one request, and that works only for a small backup.
3. Your AI checks the backup first and shows what it would write: how many ledgers, accounts, transactions and other records. Nothing is saved yet.
4. Confirm. A large backup is written over several rounds; your AI keeps going until the restore reports it's done.
5. Reconnect your banks. Linked accounts come back with their history, but their live bank connections don't. See connect a US bank.

A restore runs in one of two ways:

• Into an empty workspace (the default). Pennyweight refuses if the workspace already has ledgers, accounts, transactions, knowledge, budgets, alerts or uploaded files, or if your account already has a saved AI profile. Transactions you've deleted don't count. Your AI profile belongs to your account, not the workspace, so clearing the workspace doesn't remove it; a merge replaces it with the backup's.
• Merge. Each record in the backup is written over any record with the same id. Records that aren't in the backup stay as they are. You can run a merge again safely.

What you'll see

For a backup, your AI gives you a download link and usually the number of records in the file. For a restore, your AI first shows the counts of what it would write and asks before saving. If your workspace already holds data, the preview says a restore into it would be refused, and your AI can offer a merge instead. When it's finished, it tells you how many records were restored and reminds you to reconnect your banks.

Good to know

• Only a Pennyweight backup restores. The file must be the JSON that a full backup produced, unchanged. Pennyweight checks the checksum and rejects an edited or cut-off file before it writes anything. An export from another app isn't a backup; your AI can import its transactions instead. See moving to Pennyweight.

• The download link expires after about 2 minutes. If the link stops working, ask for a new backup. See my export link expired.
• Some things aren't in a backup. Bank connections, demo ledgers, your list of past imports and deleted transactions are left out. A transaction you deleted before the backup won't come back from it; see delete and restore a transaction.
• Your AI profile is your AI's copy. The backup holds the profile your AI reads. Profile edits made only on the web may not be in it. See your AI profile.
• Size limits. A backup can be restored only if it holds 50,000 records or fewer. Restoring from the file itself, instead of the reference, also stops at about 6 MB, the most one request can carry.
• A paused restore can resume. Between rounds, the restore waits up to 60 minutes without activity. Ask your AI to continue with the same restore rather than start over.
• Backups work on a read-only ledger. After your trial, a ledger without its own subscription is read-only, and you can still back it up. A restore is refused only when a ledger the backup holds, or your default ledger, is read-only. See this ledger is read-only.