Import default notes folder from Boostnote Legacy

[derekantrican]

The old version of Boostnote (before the major overhaul) stored notes in %userprofile%\Boostnote. I'm not sure where the new version stores them, but the new version should check that directory for notes upon installation and "upgrade them" (whether that's just copying them to the new directory or actually doing some sort of upgrade). It's frustrating to go from the old version to the new version and suddenly your notes are all gone

[arcturus140]

I like this idea.

[Ahmed-E-86]

Any news about this feature?

[Flexo013]

This is feature is planned within the next month.

[Rokt33r]

We need to wait until the current importing flow is stable enough. I'll come back to this issue around the end of this month.

[jonnyeom]

Is there a new way to import notes? or is everyone just importing them one by one?

[Komediruzecki]

Hi, jonnyeom,

If you installed latest boost note local desktop app from separate repository, you can only import the storage from boost note next (this is a bug, it was fixed but need to be released).

So the workaround would be to install previous version from this repository and import from Preferences (import legacy tutorial: https://medium.com/boostnote/how-to-migrate-data-from-old-boostnote-efd8a5c7aa7d)

After that you will have file system storage you can move to latest boost note local app installed from here: https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local/releases/tag/v0.21.1

[Rokt33r]

@jonnyeom We have discarded the migration feature from our app completely. Currently, there is no easy way to migrate data from the legacy app to the new local app. We will prepare a migration script soon though. If you're urgent, you could try to migrate from v0.20.2 which probably still has the migration feature from the legacy app. https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next/releases/tag/v0.20.2 Once migration is done, you can delete the app and install the local app from here. https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local/releases
But it could be a bit difficult. If you need help, please join our slack and ping me(@Rokt33r) so I can help you directly.

[Ahmed-E-86]

Migrating from local to cloud does not work.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi,

If you want to migrate to the cloud, you need to transfer your legacy storage to the new application (version prior to the latest, 0.19 or 0.20), there you can create local file system storage and in Preferences, you can import legacy notes into boost note next application.

Once you have that (or already had) you can migrate to the cloud in the same version of the application, again, from preferences.
You need to first create a cloud space, connect some account to it and then migrate from local space to cloud space.

If you have any questions or need further details, please let me know.

Once you migrated your data to cloud space, you can remove the local file system storage space from the application, update to the latest version and use only cloud space.

[Ahmed-E-86]

I did all of that with version 0.20.2, and migration from local to cloud ended up with an empty cloud storage.

[Ahmed-E-86]

I managed to migrate manually from local storage to cloud storage by exporting local folders as MDs, then importing MDs to cloud storage, and some files are damaged during doing that. Anyway, I do not like what you did with the application, it is not fun to use anymore. I will just dedicate my time instead to migrate to another alternative.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi, Ahmed-E-86,

If you need further assistance, please let me know.

Can you explain how are the notes damaged when importing from markdown? I guess attachments won't be valid, but the notes should be fine.

I cannot really help you with the situation where you ended with your cloud storage empty, but I can think of few things which could go wrong:

1. Did you follow all the migration steps, chose your cloud storage and particular folder, and migrate from file system storage which is filled with some notes/data?
2. What happened during the migration process, did you see notes transferring to the cloud and progress bar?
3. Are you sure you are logged in to the same cloud account and space to which you transferred the notes?

Please let me know more details about the process, because it should all work pretty nicely, if you encounter any specific issues and you can put some screenshots and exact steps you did to achieve it, It would be very helpful for me to resolve the problem.

If you want faster assistance, you can contact me on our slack: https://join.slack.com/t/boostnote-group/shared_invite/zt-cun7pas3-WwkaezxHBB1lCbUHrwQLXw

[Ahmed-E-86]

Can you explain how are the notes damaged when importing from markdown? I guess attachments won't be valid, but the notes should be fine.

There are no attachments. I end up with this error:

On no! An error occured while parsing the document!

1. Did you follow all the migration steps, chose your cloud storage and particular folder, and migrate from file system storage which is filled with some notes/data?

I migrated from legacy to local, which worked fine, then I chose to migrate data to cloud as you can see in the following picture, but it did not work at all

2. What happened during the migration process, did you see notes transferring to the cloud and progress bar?

Nothing happened, I just end up with an empty cloud storage with only a Readme folder.

3. Are you sure you are logged in to the same cloud account and space to which you transferred the notes?

Yes.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi,

For the problem of importing markdown files directly, you can send me the example document which gave you the error, it will help me reproduce the error.

As for the screenshot you are sending, this is part of the process to migrate your notes to the cloud.

What you need to do is:

1. Click on start migration
2. On the next screen select destination cloud space and desired folder, click Next
3. On the next screen click Start Migration
4. Wait for the migration to finish
5. Inspect documents that didn't migrate (probably they did migrate but the app lists some docs anyways)
6. Click on Finish
7. Go to your destination cloud space and try looking at your imported/migrated notes

Here is a short video showing the migration process:

2021-08-24.20-39-29.mp4

This should be the process in the latest/newest version of the boost note application, if you are using the previous version and accessing the migration form from Preferences (as seen from your image), you can still do it, just click on Start migration and you will be sent to the 2. step.

If you have any more questions, please let me know, am I understanding your procedure correctly or you already did all the above steps?

[Ahmed-E-86]

The migration to cloud works with the latest version of BoostNote.next, but it missed out 75% of the imported files, and a few files are corrupted. Here is one of the corrupted files during import:
Jekyll.md

Edit:
I found the missed files, but they are imported to the main folder, even after trying to import them folder by folder as MDs.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi,

Thank you very much for the file, I managed to reproduce it with a small example:

We'll check this and see why would this corrupted the preview and consequently the migration.

As for importing folder by folder as MDs, I suppose you are selecting the folder items and selecting the destination folder on this import screen? (see image)

In this case, it seems to work fine for me, after selecting the destination folder and clicking import I select file(s) and it imports them correctly - even the corrupted one.

The files you are importing from the migration screen also have a destination 'folder' In the form (see video above), and so if you want to import all the files from file system storage you need to select which cloud folder they all will be imported to. Later you can reorder them easily by drag and drop in cloud space.

[tomkri3]

Hi, jonnyeom,

If you installed latest boost note local desktop app from separate repository, you can only import the storage from boost note next (this is a bug, it was fixed but need to be released).

So the workaround would be to install previous version from this repository and import from Preferences (import legacy tutorial: https://medium.com/boostnote/how-to-migrate-data-from-old-boostnote-efd8a5c7aa7d)

After that you will have file system storage you can move to latest boost note local app installed from here: https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local/releases/tag/v0.21.1

Thanks that worked for me