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Backup and Restore

As contact info is valuable asset of yours, you may want to backup the data regularly, at least weekly. Computer may malfunction, and data may be corrupted or deleted accidentally. You want to bear the loss to minimum in case of disaster.

Open Contacts provides convenient methods of backing up. It is important that you store at least one copy of the backup data outside your computer, for example, in a CDR or external hard disk. In addition, if you need to move your data between your desktop PC and laptop, between PCs at home and at work, or archive and optimize your database, all you need is to backup and then restore.

By default, Open Contacts uses "default.FDB" in the Data directory. You may simply copy the file to an external media to backup, after closing Open Contacts.

The recommended method of backing up the database is to use the built-in backup function of Open Contacts. In the Tools menu, run the Backup command, and save the backup file of the database to a local drive or an external media.

In general, the size of the backup file is around 1/10 of the database file.

As the backup file created by Open Contacts is so small, it is handy to store the file in your Web virtual harddisk, or your Webmail account, so you can retrieve the file anywhere.

To use the backup file, simply restore it into the database file.

Remark:

If you use Open Contacts in client/server mode and the database file is accessed through Firebird database server on the server machine, you need to go to the server machine to do the backup or restore job. Please read the user manual of Firebird for more details.

Note:

When restoring the database from a backup copy, please make sure there is no other application locking the database file.

Hint:

From time to time, the size of the database will keep growing even if some contacts were deleted. It is recommended that the backup job is done regularly and the restore is done occasionally. When you restore database using the backed up copy, the size of the database will be packed. Please keep your backed up copies in external media, ideally in external locations. To enhance data security, you may encrypt the backup copies using whatever encryption programs you like.