Backups, cloud and export
Your ledger lives on your phone. That is good for privacy and bad for phones that end up in a river, so there are three ways to make it survivable.
Free: a backup file
From Settings, Manage data, you can create a backup file of everything: transactions, accounts, categories, budgets, savings pockets and the links between them.
The file is compressed and carries a checksum that is verified when you import it, so a truncated download fails loudly instead of restoring half your history.
Save it wherever you keep things, or send it to yourself. Google Drive is built in: the same file, uploaded to your own Drive.
On Android the app reminds you periodically to make one, because a backup nobody ever takes is not a backup.
Pro: AI Money Cloud
With Pro and the cloud switch on, every change is uploaded as it happens and your devices stay in sync. Install the app on a new phone, sign in, and your ledger is there.
Two honest details:
- The upload window is the last two years. Older transactions stay on the device that recorded them and in your backup files. Opening balances are always uploaded, so an old account never arrives on a new phone showing zero.
- If Pro lapses, your cloud copy is retained for a while and then removed. Your local ledger is never touched.
Restoring, and the rule that governs it
Restoring merges, it never replaces. Transactions are matched by identity and by content, so importing the same backup twice does not duplicate your history, and a restore never deletes something that only exists on the phone.
Categories are matched across languages: a backup made with the app in English restores into the Spanish equivalents rather than creating a parallel set. Only genuinely new categories are created.
Export
Separately from backups, Reports can export XLSX, CSV or PDF for a date range, optionally including your accounts, budgets and savings. That is the format for your accountant or your own spreadsheet, not for restoring.
A backup is for the app. An export is for humans.
Changing phones, the short version
- Make a backup file, or turn on cloud sync if you have Pro.
- Install the app on the new phone and sign in with the same method.
- Restore the file, or wait for the sync.
- Check a couple of balances against the old phone before you wipe it.