Export backups daily

[licaon-kter]

Since #26 got closed, I still wish for this though, not sure why a just straight forward "export full backup daily" can't be implemented at least.

I use Syncthing but as a means for backup only, not for external editing.

[sciamano]

you could achieve that by using https://github.com/jensstein/oandbackup for daily backup and then get files out ouf the device by Syncthing

[licaon-kter]

Why would I bother with that if I have root?

No, root is a precious rare thing these days, I don't have root, and since the app can already save files, I wish for a daily file save in /sdcard/Android/data/appname/files folder, yeah the same folder the app opens up when asked to import a backup.

[iSoron]

I am okay with exporting a daily backup to the SD card. In fact, I think it could be even enabled by default. Most of the code for this feature is already there (see ListHabitsController.java), but in addition to saving the file externally, we would also need to (1) automatically delete old backup files, and (2) add an option to disable these daily backups.

[licaon-kter]

Yeah, maybe add just a counter "keep last X days" or something, where 0 means disabled.

[filmerjarred]

+1 this would make integrating with services like exist.io x10 easier

[jacobmoe]

Does it make sense for this feature to include an option for a daily CSV export to Google Drive (or whatever)?

[deutrino]

I believe newish versions of Android may make exporting to various cloud storage services easier than it used to be, but I personally hope that if periodic backup does get implemented, there is an option to do so locally to the file system 🙂

[morrel]

Automatic or scheduled CSV/Spreadsheet exports would also be highly valued!

[amitkot]

I might be able to help with developing an MVP of this feature.

I was thinking along the lines of two options:

1. If this is something we thing many people would like - saving a number of daily backups (say 3) to a readable path on the sdcard.
2. If this is something only pro-users might be interested in - exposing a Tasker task for exporting the data, this way the users can decide for themselves where to save, and also trigger the action.

The second option will probably be the easiest and fastest to develop.

The first option, if developed, should maybe be kept as simple as possible. I was thinking of a simple trigger, maybe app stop, that would run a task that in turn would:

• Dump the db on external storage
• Check if there are more than 3 such dump files and delete oldest files.

Would be interested to hear (a) if option 2 would be considered and (b) what do you think about the design suggested for option 1.

[sciamano]

Hi, just my personal opinion: i think the apps should not reinvent the wheel again and again :)
so in that case i'm for option 2 and against 1 (that way it will also keep the required permission low)
And a backup really make sense only if users managed to get it out of the phone e.g. into some cloud.
Then the cloud will take care about keeping some previous versiont etc. and you do not have deal with 3 dump files (and it may happen that the number 3 does not fit all the users...)

[gingerling]

Hi, I would really appreciate this feature, or a paid service from the app devs. I rely so heavily on this app now, it's been a big gsme changer for me managing my health conditions - since I started using it with widgets, it's been just amazing. But, I'm really worried about the backup situation (and my phone isn't rooted)

[r4taw2mg]

I'd be happy, if the current backup functions (full and csv) could just be automated to do their jobs once a day. I too use syncthing to copy those to a non-mobile space. Today I have to do this manually with a high risk of forgetting.

[trmendes]

Same thing here. Using syncthing to backup my android and it would be nice to have automatic daily backups on my Habits \o/

[rick-nu]

I just lost one and a half year of data. It was my fault not for thinking of making a manual backup for before re-installing my phone, yet automated daily backups would have saved me.

It would be super awesome if this feature can make it into the app!

[lerra]

@BrighTide any plans to merge it? :-)

[filmerjarred]

@lerra ha no sorry, I don't really know Java or the project. This was just a hack to get it working for me that others might be able to use 😅

[iSoron]

This has been fixed in dc0b8de. The app will now automatically save a backup file to the SD card whenever the main activity is launched, assuming that no backup was generated within the last 24 hours. If there is already a very recent backup (<24 hours), the app should skip the auto backup.

To avoid cluttering, the app will only keep a few files in the backup folder (currently 5 old backups + the newest one). All the other files in the backup folder should get automatically deleted. If you want to keep very old backup files for some reason, you will need to keep your own copy elsewhere.

This feature should become available in Loop 2.0.

[mshuflin]

Is there a default path for this backup? Is it the db file or csv file that is automatically stored? I can't seem to find either

[ropery]

I agree with @felixwiemuth below that this feature should be documented in the App.
I would also suggest adding a link to open the backup location in a file manager (at lease initially, before maybe introducing configurations for custom backup location & number of backups to keep later on), allowing the user to navigate there quickly & copy any .db file elsewhere they want to preserve before auto-deletion.

[steel-steven-87]

@iSoron I'm confused by the answer. What is the location of the backup and can it be changed? I would like to choose a path which gets synchronized by a cloud provider app.

[holocronweaver]

Based on the code linked, I found the backup location at Android/data/org.isoron.uhabits.database/files/Backups, which is definitely not ideal for syncing.

[jonathan-s]

@iSoron when trying to reach that folder I get the message to protect your privacy please choose another folder. So being able to set the backup location would make things a lot easier.

[mahdi1234]

Backup seems to work fine, one great addition would be user defined folder to place it to e.g. into my already existing nextcloud sync folder, not to need additional tool to copy it over. Also automatic export to csv would be great.

[lerra]

I believe it will stop working in android 11 with the new app storage permission if you ask the app to write outside its own folder

…

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020, 21:51 mahdi1234, ***@***.***> wrote: Backup seems to work fine, one great addition would be user defined folder to place it to e.g. into my already existing nextcloud sync folder, not to need additional tool to copy it over. Also automatic backup of csv would be great. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits/issues/178#issuecomment-748523234>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEJZPFWFW3WVAGSTVA6UORLSVUG6VANCNFSM4CQFROBA> .

[licaon-kter]

For F-Droid, the app can ask for the extended storage permission, and continue to write.

[felixwiemuth]

What is the status of this feature, especially in Android 11? It seems to be right that this is not working anymore, I can't find any automatically generated backups (and the feature is not documented either).

To get it to work with the new storage framework it would probably be enough (and also best) to let the user choose a backup location.

My suggestions:

• Let user choose backup directory.
• Let the minimum time between backups be configurable; maybe some users also want a backup after every change (or when leaving the app / it gets suspended or after a certain delay after the last change), to increase safety even more.
• Let the user define the number of backups to keep (those using synchronization/backup apps that do versioning - like synchting - probably only want one file).

Most of these things are luckily only a setting for an existing variable and should thus be easy to implement.

Looking forward to a working auto backup which would close an important gap in this otherwise great app!

[licaon-kter]

`/storage/Android/data/org.isoron.uhabits/files/Backups/` is the path

[licaon-kter]

There's also the issue of app uninstall, which will remove that folder.

[RabidTunes]

I would also like to have this feature seems like a very good one. Great app by the way, it's absolutely fantastic :)

[NateEag]

I'm another delighted user who would really appreciate having the CSV auto-exported alongside the app DB.

Might a pull request adding the CSV to the auto-export be accepted?

[iSoron]

@NateEag Yes, a PR would be welcome. Note that we already auto-export a full backup daily. We could do something very similar for the CSV.

[kuba-orlik]

@iSoron

Note that we already auto-export a full backup daily

Awesome! How do I enable that? I can't find this in settings

EDIT: Ah, it's automatically enabled and stored in /storage/Android/data/org.isoron.uhabits/files/Backups/

[NateEag]

great, thanks @iSoron !

Handling it similarly to the existing auto-backup sounds great.

I likely won't take time to look at this soon, but I've put a note in my todo list to take a stab at it in March.

[ColdHotman]

I've put a note in my todo list to take a stab at it in March.

That sounds great! Do you think it's possible to auto-export to a single CSV? I would absolutely love to have a single file with all the habits instead of two files per habit. That's a lot of files to manually import. 😅

[NateEag]

I obviously did not get to this in March - I've been really busy of late.

I'm hoping I will find some time over the summer to take a stab at it.

@ColdHotman I'm not sure if a single CSV will be realistic - I'll keep it in mind when I manage to take time to look at this.

[steel-steven-87]

I think the app needs this feature badly. The user should be able to select a location to automatically back up the data every day. That way the user would have the choice to use any cloud storage app to sync the folder to the cloud.

[andreas1107]

I was also searching for how to do this - a backup that isn't uploaded somewhere isn't really a backup. It's a locally stored database copy.

[NateEag]

FWIW, I use SyncThing to auto-sync the auto-backups to my laptop whenever the phone and laptop are on the same wireless network. I also have some janky scripts to auto-commit-and-push the updated repos after sync (a simpler but less granular approach would be a cron job that auto-commits-and-pushes daily or hourly).

That strategy works okay for any app that supports an auto-backup, and I use it with several of them.

[TheAmogh]

I don't have permissions to access the backup folder /storage/Android/data/org.isoron.uhabits/files/Backups/. I thought recent Android versions don't allow read permissions to the app data directories. How is SyncThing able to access this location?

[NateEag]

@TheAmogh Sorry I missed this question for so long.

Looks like I was mistaken - I'd been syncing manual backups, not the automated ones.

I'd fallen out of using this app for a lot of 2023, and I got the way I'd had it set up confused with how I have several other apps configured. My apologies.

[Pacman99]

The current auto backup feature isn't particularly useful because no backup app can access it (like nextcloud or syncthing). It would be great if the path where auto backups went was customizable or stored externally.