Backup Trash Revisions and Recovery

Backup, Trash, Revisions, and Recovery

Trash

Trash is soft deletion. Trashed clips are read-only: Bin assignment, notes, Transforms, OCR mutation, and drag targets are disabled until restore. Trash may be disabled as a feature; existing trashed data remains intact.

Restore one clip from its Trash actions, or use Settings → General → Trash → Restore Trashed Clips to return every trashed clip to History in one operation. The equivalent scriptable command is pasted clip restore-all [--json]. Restoring does not recreate category Bin assignments removed when clips entered Trash; retained tag associations remain intact.

Revision History

Revision History stores Versions created by content-changing actions, including enough organization context to undo a Transform-plus-Bin move. Pin, protection, and other lightweight attributes are not a total rewind log.

• Current represents the live clip, while Original is its protected baseline.
• Preview a historical Version before saving it as Current; cancelling the preview changes nothing.
• Restoring creates another historical Version so the action can be reversed.
• Historical Versions can be deleted after confirmation. Current and Original cannot be deleted from Version History; removing Original means deleting the Clip through the normal Trash workflow.
• Revision retention is configurable or unlimited. Original is retained outside the configured limit.
• Disabling Revision History preserves existing Versions but makes new edits irreversible.

The scriptable equivalents are pasted clip versions <id>, pasted clip restore-version <id> <version-id>, and pasted clip delete-version <id> <version-id> --yes.

Full backup and restore

Settings → Storage → Full Backup and Restore creates an exact recovery point: a validated, unencrypted SQLite snapshot of all durable state owned by Pasted, plus saved interface/window state. This includes clips in History and Trash, stored clipboard images, all Bins and ordering, revisions, Activity, settings and hotkeys, App Exclusion rules, Copy Queue state, Transforms, Operations, automations, execution history, OCR state, Extractor recipes and local authoring history, Classifiers, derived Analysis classifications, Content Types, and intelligence connection setup. Store the file on encrypted storage or place it in an encrypted archive when additional protection is needed.

Full Restore replaces the current state only after the selected backup passes format and SQLite integrity checks. Before replacement, Pasted creates another complete backup of the current state beside the active database. The CLI equivalents are pasted backup create <path.pastedbackup> and pasted backup restore <path.pastedbackup> --yes.

Copied screenshots and bitmap clips are stored in the database and are included. A copied file clip normally stores the original file’s path and metadata rather than another copy of the file, so the backup preserves that path but does not bundle the external file. API keys and passwords stay in Keychain, environment variables, or provider storage. Connection setup is restored and can use the same credential again when it is available. Derived preview caches are rebuilt when needed.

History and organization transfer

Settings → Storage → History and Organization exports portable JSON for merging clip history and organization into another installation. It includes clips, Trash state, stored images, all Bins and ordering, Transforms, Operations, OCR state, Content Types, and Classifiers. Import preflights the complete file, updates matches by stable identity or content hash, adds new items, and leaves unrelated data unchanged. Settings, Extractor configuration, derived Analysis classifications, Activity, revision snapshots, automations, intelligence connections, and credentials are not included.

Activity can be selected under Settings → Storage → Export. JSON and CSV both support a bounded, deduplicating round trip of inert audit records; CSV is also suitable for spreadsheet reporting. Import recognizes Activity exports automatically. Activity files do not contain clipboard contents, and importing one never replays the recorded actions. The current Activity retention limits still apply after import.

Transfer files include clips in History and Trash, notes, pins, explicit protection, clip hotkeys, Bins and ordering, inherited Bin-protection settings, custom Operations, manual and assisted Transforms, Bin bindings, and OCR lifecycle metadata.

Imports are bounded and transactional. Unsupported or malformed data is rejected; a failure partway through leaves the destination unchanged.

External clipboard-manager imports

The welcome flow and Settings → Storage → Import can merge bounded text history from Alfred, Pastebot, Pasta, Paste, CopyClip 2, Maccy, and Flycut. Pasted can inspect known local locations or use a selected source database. Preflight reports what can be read before mutation, duplicates are skipped, and a failed import leaves the existing library unchanged.

These migrations import supported text history rather than another application's complete settings or proprietary features. Use pasted import sources --json to inspect supported sources and detected locations, then pasted import <source> [path] --json for a scriptable import.

Factory Reset

Factory Reset removes local data and preferences after explicit confirmation, recreates the starter manual and Smart Bins, and relaunches. It is transactional: a database failure rolls back the reset rather than leaving partially cleared data.

Export before reset if any data matters.