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Backup and restore

Keep an encrypted copy of your history in your iCloud, and bring it back on a new Mac.

Turn it on

In Homeling: Settings → Backup → Keep my history safe

  1. Choose it, at the end of setup (“Keep my history safe & get started”) or any time in Settings → Backup. Your Mac needs to be signed in to iCloud (System Settings → Apple Account).
  2. That's it. Every night, while your Mac is on power and idle, Homeling saves a backup to iCloud Drive, in a folder called Homeling Backup. Back Up Now does it at once. The last seven are kept.
Homeling's Backup settings: the last backup and its size, the backups kept in iCloud Drive, and a Back Up Now button.
Settings → Backup.

What's in a backup

Your conversations, the people Homeling knows, its memories, your settings, the activity log and files from chat. The AI models aren't included, because they download again.

Who can open it

Each backup is encrypted on your Mac before it's saved. The key is kept in your iCloud Keychain, so only you can open your backups, on any Mac signed in to the same Apple Account. Homeling never sees the key, and nothing is sent to us.

The key is the only way in: if it's gone (iCloud Keychain turned off and its data removed, or the key deleted), the backups can't be opened by anyone, including us.

Restore on a new Mac

  1. Sign in to the same Apple Account, with iCloud Keychain on.
  2. Install Homeling and open it. Setup says “I found a backup of your history from … in your iCloud Drive.” Click Restore from your backup (or Start fresh).
  3. Finish setup. Your conversations, people, memories, settings and files come back; the models download again for this Mac.

Settings → Backup also lists the backups you can restore, with Restore….

Delete your backups

Settings → Backup → Delete My Backups… removes them from iCloud Drive. Choose “Delete backups and the key” to forget the key as well.

If it doesn't back up

  • “Sign in to iCloud on this Mac”: System Settings → Apple Account, then try Back Up Now.
  • “iCloud Drive isn't available to this copy of Homeling”: some test builds can't use iCloud. Use the download from homeling.ai.
  • No backup last night: it waits until your Mac is on power and idle, while Homeling is running. Back Up Now works any time.