How to Back Up a Private Diary Without the Cloud

A diary that stays on your phone has one weak point that no lock can fix: the phone itself. Phones get lost, dropped in water or stolen, or they simply stop turning on. If the diary lives only there, it goes with the phone.

A backup is the answer. For a private diary, it has to meet two conditions at once: it has to exist somewhere other than the phone, and it must not turn your diary into something anyone can read. This guide covers how to get both, and where to keep the copy.

What a good diary backup looks like

It contains everything: entries, attachments and, ideally, earlier versions of edited entries.
It is encrypted, so the file is useless to whoever finds it.
It opens with something you keep separately from the file, such as a code.
It is recent. A backup from last spring does not contain this summer.
You have checked that it can be restored.

An export to a document is not a backup in this sense. Exports are made to be read, so they are usually not encrypted, and they may leave out things a restore needs. Keep both if you like, but do not count on an export to bring the diary back.

The recovery code is half of the backup

An encrypted backup without its code is a sealed box with no key. Treat the code with the same care as the file, but do not store the two together. If both sit in the same folder, anyone who finds the folder has everything.

Good places for the code:

On paper, wherever you keep important documents at home.
In a password manager you already trust, if you use one.

Places to avoid: a photo of the code in the phone’s gallery, a note in the same folder as the backup file, a message to yourself.

Where to keep the backup file

Because the file is encrypted, you have more choice than you would with a diary in plain text.

A computer. Copy the file across by cable. It is simple, and the file stays in your hands.
An external drive or a memory card. A good second copy. Keep it somewhere other than where the phone usually is.
A folder you already sync. If a storage app syncs that folder, the encrypted file goes wherever that app sends it. The provider then holds a file it cannot open without the code. Whether that is acceptable is your decision. The file is only as exposed as the code is.

A reasonable rule for anything you care about: more than one copy, in more than one place.

How often to back up

Often enough that losing everything since the last backup would not hurt much. For some people that means weekly, for others monthly. The easiest approach is a schedule that runs without you having to remember it, plus a manual backup before anything risky: a system update, a repair, a move to a new phone.

Check that it restores

A backup you have never restored is a hope rather than a plan. Once in a while, and certainly the first time, confirm that the file opens with your code. If you have a spare device, restoring on it is the most direct test.

In TAEONIA

TAEONIA has no server and no cloud of its own, so there is no copy with us. You make the copies, and only you can open them.

Manual backups are free, as often as you like. A backup is one file with the whole diary, including earlier versions of entries.
The file is encrypted with a 25-character recovery code that is shown once. Write it down and keep it apart from the file. Without the code, the backup cannot be opened, and the code cannot be reset.
Automatic backups are part of TAEONIA Horizon. You choose a folder and a schedule: daily, every three days, weekly or monthly. You keep the latest one, three or five backups, and each backup is verified before it counts as written. Horizon can also remind you when your last backup is getting old.
Restoring is free, including backups made while you had Horizon. On a new device, install the app and choose “I have a copy” on the first screen.
You can also add entries from a backup to the ones already in the diary.

Horizon can be tried free for 14 days. Nothing is charged when the trial ends, and nothing renews by itself.

If the folder you choose for automatic backups is synced by another app, the encrypted file goes wherever that app sends it. TAEONIA itself sends nothing anywhere.

Exports to Markdown, Word or PDF are separate from backups, and they are not encrypted. Outside the app, a file like that is protected only by wherever you keep it.

If there is no backup

If the phone is lost or broken and there is no backup, a diary that keeps nothing on a server cannot be restored. That applies to TAEONIA too. The PIN and the recovery code cannot be reset, not by you and not by us.

The first backup is worth making while everything still works. When you change phones, the same backup is how the diary moves: see how to move your diary to a new phone.

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