Managing Backups

Users can back up the data of AI Studio into a single .mwbackup file, for example, to move to a new computer, and restore it there. Instead of replacing all their data, they can also add only the chats of a backup. This page shows what a backup contains, how a restore works, and how you control both.

Allowing or locking backups

Setting	Effect
DataApp.AllowUserToBackUpData	false keeps users from writing a backup. The button stays visible but is disabled.
DataApp.AllowUserToRestoreData	false keeps users from restoring a backup and from adding the chats of one. The buttons stay visible but are disabled.

Both are true by default. A backup holds the chats, the text of indexed documents, and indexed mails in a single file. The file isn't encrypted, and it can leave the computer on any USB stick or cloud drive. Where that mustn't happen, set DataApp.AllowUserToBackUpData to false.

What a backup contains

• the settings, without the objects your configurations manage;
• the chats in workspaces and the disappearing chats, with their transcripts;
• the user's own plugins, such as assistants they built;
• the tokenizers chosen for providers;
• the projects of the Visual Briefing Assistant;
• the local index of data sources and mailboxes with its embeddings, so that nothing has to be embedded again. Indexing pauses while a backup copies it.

What stays out:

• Secrets. API keys, passwords, and tokens stay in the credential store of the operating system. After a restore on another computer, AI Studio lists what needs a key again. The secrets of your configurations come back with your configurations.
• The plugins of your organization: everything below .config and .config-tests, and every plugin marked with DEPLOYED_USING_CONFIG_SERVER = true. Your deployment brings them back. A plugin that your device management placed without that marker counts as the user's own.
• Files outside the folders of AI Studio, such as attached documents, the folders of local data sources, or a bundle of root certificates. A backup keeps only their locations, and after a restore, AI Studio lists what it can't find.
• The plugins that come with AI Studio, Pandoc, log files, and temporary files.

Your configurations in a backup

AI Studio leaves out every object that a configuration manages: providers, profiles, chat templates, data sources, and document analysis policies. On a device that receives your configurations, they come back from there, with their keys, and nothing appears twice.

A setting that your configuration locks stays in the backup, together with the configuration that locked it. After a restore, AI Studio treats it like the setting of a withdrawn configuration until your configuration locks it again. On a device that receives your configurations, the setting ends up as you configured it.

How a restore works

A restore replaces the data of the user and needs a restart, because AI Studio can't replace files it has open:

1. AI Studio checks the backup. It refuses a backup made by a newer version, and one whose files don't match its list of contents.
2. It unpacks the backup into folders named .restore-pending, which needs free space for the unpacked backup on top of the current data, and asks the user to restart now or to discard the restore.
3. At the next start, before it opens any of its files, it moves the current data aside into .restore-previous and the restored data into its place.
4. If a step fails, it moves everything back, and the user keeps their data as it was.
5. Once the restored settings are loaded, it deletes the old data, reports the outcome, and lists what's left to do, such as entering API keys again.

When a restore fails, the log file events.log in the data folder says why, in the entries from the source Restore.

Backing up with your own tools

If you back up the user profiles of your devices anyway, the "Information" page helps: its panel "Your Data Folders" shows where the data folders are and which of their contents belong in a backup. This works even when you lock the backups of AI Studio.

• Copy the local index below databases/ only while AI Studio is closed. While it runs, these files change, and on Windows, they are locked.
• Secrets aren't in these folders; they stay in the credential store.
• On macOS, the data folder lies within the settings folder.
• Plugins that your device management placed outside .config can't be told apart from the user's own by their path. The panel lists those marked with DEPLOYED_USING_CONFIG_SERVER = true, so you can leave them out.
• AI Studio v26.10.1 and later store the paths to their own files relative to the data folder. A copy taken after such a version ran also works under another user name or on another computer.

The data folders of each operating system are listed on Deploying on Windows, Deploying on Linux, and Deploying on macOS.

Where to go next

• Labeling and Usage Statistics
• Enterprise IT