Backup, sync and changing phone
Where your data really lives, how to save a copy, how to restore it and what the backup password means.
Where your data actually lives
On your phone. Every pet, every vaccine and every photo is written to the phone first, which is why the app works with no connection and why signing out deletes nothing.
On Premium there is also a copy on our servers, kept in step automatically. That copy is what lets you open the app on another phone and find everything already there.
On Free and Standard there is no copy anywhere but the phone. If you lose it, drop it in the sea or reset it, the history is gone — unless you exported a backup file. That is what the next section is for.
Saving a backup file (any plan)
Settings → Download my backup. The app builds a single file with all your records and your photos, and hands it to the phone's share sheet: send it to Drive, to your email, to your computer, wherever you keep things you do not want to lose.
Photos travel inside on purpose. A medical history can be asked of the vet again; the photo of a pet that has died cannot.
Restoring it
Settings → Restore from a file, and pick the file. It works on a new phone, after a reinstall, or on the same phone after a mistake. Backups saved by older versions of the app still restore.
The backup password
In Settings you can set a password for your backups. With one set, the file is encrypted on your phone before it goes anywhere, and nobody can read it without the password — not whoever finds the file, not us.
This is why it is optional and off by default: real encryption needs a key we never see. If you forget the password, the backup cannot be recovered by anybody, including us. Write it down somewhere that is not the phone.
Sync and cloud backup (Premium)
Premium syncs by itself: changes go up, changes made on your other phone come down, and a full backup is uploaded after each sync. There is no button to press, and that is deliberate — a button invites tapping it over and over without knowing it is already done.
Each account keeps its most recent cloud backup. A newer one replaces the previous one instead of piling up: every backup is a complete copy of everything, so keeping thirty of them fills the storage without protecting you any better.
If two phones edited the same thing
The most recent change wins, field for field being no exception: the whole record is taken from whichever phone edited it last. In practice this only comes up if you edit the same pet on two phones while one of them is offline.
Changing phone
On Premium: sign in on the new phone and use "Restore everything from the server". There is also a transfer code in Settings for moving from the old phone to the new one.
On Free and Standard: download the backup on the old phone before you get rid of it, and restore it from the file on the new one. Do it before wiping the old phone, not after.
If you stop paying for Premium
Nothing on your phone is touched, ever. The copy on our servers is kept for 60 more days in case you come back, and we email you before it goes. See plans.