How do I backup my Banktivity data?

Currently there is not a backup feature within Banktivity itself.  We do recommend using a backup system like Time Machine for backup purposes.

While we think it is great idea to have regular online backups, we don’t recommend putting your live document in a shared drive. This includes online backup services like Carbonite, CrashPlan, SugarSync, etc…  Online backup services like these have been known to cause data corruption in Banktivity Document (data) files.  If you would like to save a copy of your Banktivity Document file online for backup purposes, we would recommend using Banktivity’s Cloud Sync feature. Or backup a non-live document to your cloud service of choice.

You could also create manual backup files of your main Banktivity Document file using the following steps:

  • Locate your main Banktivity Document file on your Mac
  • Control-Click on your main Banktivity Document file then choose “Compress ____” (your Banktivity Document file name will appear)
  • This will create a .zip file containing a copy of your current Banktivity Document file.
  • You can then move the .zip backup file to an external drive/folder. (You can also edit the file name to include the date of the backup if you like.)

You could also try using Automator to set up automatic backups for your Banktivity Document file:

  • Launch the Application “Automator” (located inside the Applications folder)
  • When prompted choose “Calendar Alarm” as the template for the workflow
  • Select “Files and Folders” from the first column, the “Library” column.
  • In the second column from the left, the “Actions” column, select and drag to the large canvas on the right “Get Specified Finder Items” to begin building the workflow.
  • Click the “Add” button at the bottom of the “Get Specified Finder Items” on the canvas and navigate to your Banktivity document file.
  • Drag “Create Archive” from the Files and Folders actions to the canvas.
  • Drag  “Rename Finder Items” from the Files and Folders action to the canvas. This will add “Copy Finder Items” and “Date and Time” actions (which is what you really want) so you will need to delete the “Copy Finder Items” action.
  • Choose “Save from the file menu (go to File> Save). This will launch Calendar and create an event which you can edit – to set the time to run the script to create the backup. You can also set the repeat interval in Calendar so Automator runs the script on a repeating basis.

**Please remember to always open Banktivity using your main iBank Document file. You should only open your Banktivity backup files in case of emergency (like hard drive failure or data corruption).**