Backup Database

[Frank]

I would like to get the possibility to export all categories with file assignment and Attributes with the Values and Filesassignment during a regular Backup.

Because if a database got broken I have a backup but if even the backup is damaged than I still have all assignments I made within Imatch out and I am able to build up easily a new Database.

The export format is just plain txt-files. XML is also plain text. And those files are solid.

Currently I do these two steps manually.

--> Category Export
--> Edit Attribute Set / Export csv file...

Is this possible as an option.

I have never had a crash but who knows ...

Frank

[Mario]

The best safety mechanism are daily backups, and to keep these daily backups for several weeks at least.
Losing a database not only will lose your categories, but also unwritten metadata, Attributes, the contents of 'manual' collections etc.

It's much better to have the entire database in working condition. Much easier than re-creating a database from scratch and then importing a category schema.

Modern 'imager' backup tools only backup changed sectors in differential or incremental backups. This means that even for an IMatch database that has a size of 5 or 10 GB, the daily backup volume may be only 10 or 20 MB. This means you can hold dozens if not hundreds of backups of a database even on a small USB stick. Or upload several weeks of database versions to a cloud space. These backup applications can backup 'open' files, run (once set up) entirely automatic and in the background.

I personally use Macrium Reflect, which allows me to do incremental backups several times a day, weekly and monthly backups, file-based (full) backups of important files to my cloud space. I would not even think about trying to backup individual parts of IMatch databases when it's so much easier and consistent to backup the whole thing.

And of course it secures all my data, not just my IMatch database.