Support

If you have been using Time Machine to back up your Mac regularly, you can recover your EasyBooks data.

Some applications work from a single file, for example Word or Pages. You can open the document itself, which in fact starts the application first, then asks it to open the file. Other applications such as Notes, Mail and Safari don't use this model. Instead, you start the application and your data is there where you left off.

EasyBooks falls into this second type of application. There isn't a single file in use, but rather a set of files which can be in use at the same time when the application is running. The backup process built into EasyBooks takes these separate data files and produces a single backup file that can be used to restore data on another machine (both Mac and iOS).

A common question from people who only have a Time Machine backup is how they can recover their data. In this case you don't have a single backup file. It is perhaps at this point worth pointing out the benefits of using our Online Sync service!

The location EasyBooks uses to store your data files depends on whether you downloaded from the Mac App Store or from the website:

• The Mac App Store edition uses the location:

  ~/Library/containers/uk.co.geode.easybooks/Data/Library/Application Support/EasyBooks

• The website edition uses the location:

  ~/Library/Application Support/EasyBooks

You can view these folders using the Finder app. Open Finder and use the menu bar under Go > Go to Folder. Paste in the full location above including the "~" symbol.

Note: Be careful not to make any changes to these files while EasyBooks is running, it isn't designed to watch for external modification and you may lose data. Quit EasyBooks first.

If you have either of these stored in a Time Machine backup, restore the whole folder back to its original location. Then make sure you have the correct edition of EasyBooks, in other words stick with the Mac App Store edition or the web site edition depending on which one you were last using. Note that you can move from the Mac App Store edition to the web site edition but doing so does not change the folder location: the web site edition is capable of looking in both locations for its data.

In addition to the 'working files' that make up your database, EasyBooks also creates local backup files of your businesses. These should not be relied upon for backup purposes, because they only exist on the device itself. A good backup strategy is to backup regularly, store the file off site and to confirm it contains your data by restoring it to another machine.

However, if you have lost data, you might find an automatic backup exists and is newer than your last Time Machine backup. To find out, refer to "Restoring from an Automatic Backup".