Backups and Data Recovery

InboxZebra automatically backs up your data every day to protect against data loss, corruption, or accidental deletion. This guide explains how backups work and how to restore your data when needed.

How Automatic Backups Work

InboxZebra creates backups of your data automatically on a daily schedule:

What Gets Backed Up:

  • Email metadata (subjects, senders, dates, categories, labels)
  • Encrypted email bodies (AES-256-GCM encryption)
  • Task data and workflow states
  • Categories and category descriptions
  • Learning examples (sanitized email snippets)
  • Custom labels and their settings
  • Account metadata (email addresses, display names)
  • Custom instructions and LLM settings
  • Preferred senders and newsletter subscriptions

What Does NOT Get Backed Up:

  • OAuth access tokens (stored securely in macOS Keychain)
  • Temporary cache files
  • Application logs

Why OAuth tokens aren’t backed up: For security reasons, OAuth tokens remain in your Mac’s Keychain and are not exported. After restoring a backup, you’ll need to re-authenticate your email accounts (a quick 30-second process per account).

Backup Schedule and Retention

Automatic Backup Schedule

InboxZebra creates backups daily at midnight (12:00 AM) local time. The scheduler:

  • Runs automatically when the app is open
  • Accounts for Daylight Saving Time changes
  • Checks for missed backups on startup (creates one immediately if more than 24 hours have passed)

Note: Your Mac must be running with InboxZebra open for scheduled backups to occur. If your Mac is asleep at midnight, the backup will be created when you next open the app.

Retention Policy

InboxZebra uses a graduated retention policy to balance data protection with storage space:

Backup TypeRetentionDescription
DailyKeep last 5Most recent daily backups
WeeklyKeep last 3Daily backups promoted after 7 days
MonthlyKeep last 12Weekly backups promoted after 28 days
ManualKeep foreverUser-created backups (never auto-deleted)
EmergencyKeep foreverPre-restore safety checkpoints

How Promotion Works:

  • After 7 days, the oldest daily backup becomes a weekly backup
  • After 28 days, the oldest weekly backup becomes a monthly backup
  • This gives you up to 1 year of backup history while managing storage

Total Backups: Up to 20 automatic backups (5 daily + 3 weekly + 12 monthly) plus unlimited manual backups.

Where Backups Are Stored

All backups are stored locally on your Mac:

~/Library/Application Support/InboxZebra/Backups/
├── daily/          # Daily backups (keep 5)
├── weekly/         # Weekly backups (keep 3)
├── monthly/        # Monthly backups (keep 12)
├── manual/         # Manual backups (keep forever)
├── emergency/      # Pre-restore checkpoints (keep forever)
└── manifest.json   # Index of all backups

Backup File Format:

  • Extension: .izbackup (ZIP archive)
  • Naming: YYYY-MM-DD'T'HH-mm-ss-UUID.izbackup
  • Example: 2026-02-01T00-00-00-a1b2c3d4.izbackup

Security:

  • Files are stored with restricted permissions (600 - owner read/write only)
  • Email bodies encrypted with AES-256-GCM
  • SHA-256 hash verification ensures backup integrity

Creating Manual Backups

You can create manual backups anytime, in addition to automatic daily backups.

To create a manual backup:

  1. Open InboxZebra menu → Settings (or press Cmd+,)
  2. Click the Backups tab
  3. Click “Backup Now” button
  4. Wait for backup to complete (typically 10-30 seconds depending on data size)
  5. You’ll see a success message with the backup filename

When to create manual backups:

  • Before major operations (bulk email deletion, category changes)
  • Before updating InboxZebra to a new version
  • Before restoring from an old backup
  • When you want to preserve a specific state

Manual backups are never automatically deleted - you have full control over when to remove them.

Viewing Your Backups

InboxZebra provides two ways to view your backup history:

List View

Shows all backups in a sortable table:

  1. Open Settings → Backups
  2. Select List view (list icon)
  3. View backup details:
    • Type (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Manual/Emergency)
    • Created date and time
    • File size
    • Email count, task count, account count
    • App version that created the backup

Calendar View

Shows backups on a monthly calendar for easy date-based browsing:

  1. Open Settings → Backups
  2. Select Calendar view (calendar icon)
  3. Navigate months using arrow buttons
  4. Click any date with a dot indicator to see backups from that day
  5. Backups are color-coded by type:
    • Green: Daily
    • Blue: Weekly
    • Orange: Monthly
    • Purple: Manual
    • Red: Emergency

Restoring from Backup

Restoring a backup replaces your current data with the backup’s data. InboxZebra creates an emergency backup before restoring to protect your current state.

To restore from a backup:

  1. Open InboxZebra menu → Settings (Cmd+,)
  2. Click the Backups tab
  3. Find the backup you want to restore (use List or Calendar view)
  4. Click on the backup to view details
  5. Click “Restore from Backup” button
  6. Review the confirmation dialog:
    • Backup date and size
    • Data counts (emails, tasks, accounts)
    • Warning about current data being replaced
  7. Click “Restore” to confirm
  8. Wait for restore to complete (typically 30-60 seconds)
  9. Restart InboxZebra when prompted (required to reload database)
  10. After restart, re-authenticate your email accounts (Settings → Accounts)

What Happens During Restore:

  1. Safety checkpoint: InboxZebra creates an emergency backup of your current data
  2. Integrity check: Verifies backup file isn’t corrupted (SHA-256 hash)
  3. Extraction: Unpacks backup to temporary directory
  4. Settings restore: Applies categories, labels, custom instructions
  5. Database restore: Replaces email and task database files
  6. Verification: Confirms entity counts match backup metadata

If restore fails: InboxZebra automatically rolls back to the emergency backup created in step 1. Your current data is preserved.

After restore:

  • All email categories, labels, and tasks match the backup state
  • Learning examples restored
  • Settings and custom instructions restored
  • You must re-authenticate email accounts (OAuth tokens not backed up)

Exporting and Downloading Backups

You can export backups to external storage (USB drive, cloud storage, another Mac) for safekeeping.

To export a backup:

  1. Open Finder
  2. Press Cmd+Shift+G (Go to Folder)
  3. Paste: ~/Library/Application Support/InboxZebra/Backups/
  4. Navigate to the backup type folder (daily, weekly, monthly, manual, emergency)
  5. Copy .izbackup files to your desired location

Common export destinations:

  • External USB drive (for offline storage)
  • Cloud storage (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive)
  • Network drive (NAS, Time Machine backup)
  • Another Mac (for migration)

File naming: Backup files include a timestamp and UUID in the filename (e.g., 2026-02-01T00-00-00-a1b2c3d4.izbackup), making them easy to identify and organize.

Restoring on a Different Mac

You can restore InboxZebra backups on a different Mac to migrate your data or recover from hardware failure.

Prerequisites:

  • Install InboxZebra on the new Mac
  • Copy your backup file to the new Mac

Migration steps:

  1. Copy backup file:

    • Transfer your .izbackup file to the new Mac
    • Recommended: Copy to ~/Library/Application Support/InboxZebra/Backups/manual/

  2. Launch InboxZebra on new Mac:

    • Complete initial setup if needed
    • Connect at least one email account (can be disconnected later if you’re restoring different accounts)

  3. Restore the backup:

    • Open Settings → Backups
    • If you placed the file in the backups directory, it should appear in the list
    • If not, you may need to manually import (future feature - for now, place file in the correct directory and restart InboxZebra)
    • Select your backup and click “Restore from Backup”

  4. Restart InboxZebra:

    • Required to reload the restored database

  5. Re-authenticate accounts:

    • Open Settings → Accounts
    • Click on each account and re-authenticate with OAuth
    • This reconnects InboxZebra to your email providers

What transfers:

  • All categorized emails and task data
  • Categories, labels, and learning examples
  • Custom instructions and settings
  • Newsletter subscriptions and preferred senders

What doesn’t transfer:

  • OAuth tokens (you’ll re-authenticate)
  • Application logs
  • License key (transfer separately - see Subscription tab)

Managing Storage Space

Backups can consume significant disk space, especially if you have many emails. InboxZebra provides tools to monitor and manage storage.

Checking Storage Usage

View total storage used by all backups:

  1. Open Settings → Backups
  2. Look at the “Storage used” line near the top
  3. This shows the total size of all backup files combined

Typical storage usage:

  • 1,000 emails: ~50-100 MB per backup
  • 10,000 emails: ~500 MB - 1 GB per backup
  • 50,000 emails: ~2-5 GB per backup

Storage varies based on:

  • Email count and average email size
  • Number of attachments (attachment metadata is backed up, not full files)
  • Task count
  • ZIP compression ratio

Deleting Old Backups

Manual and emergency backups are never automatically deleted, but you can remove them to free space.

To delete a backup:

  1. Open Settings → Backups
  2. Find the backup in List or Calendar view
  3. Click on the backup to view details
  4. Click the trash icon or “Delete Backup” button
  5. Confirm deletion

What gets deleted:

  • The backup file (.izbackup)
  • Entry in the manifest

Cannot be undone: Deleted backups cannot be recovered. Export important backups before deleting.

Tip: Daily, weekly, and monthly backups are automatically managed by the retention policy - you typically only need to manually delete old manual or emergency backups.

Retention Policy Management

The automatic retention policy runs after each scheduled backup and keeps:

  • 5 most recent daily backups
  • 3 most recent weekly backups
  • 12 most recent monthly backups

This provides up to 1 year of backup history while limiting storage growth.

To adjust retention (advanced users): Currently, retention limits are fixed. Future versions may allow customization. If you need more frequent backups, use manual backups (never auto-deleted).

Storage Best Practices

Minimize backup size:

  • Regularly archive old emails directly in Gmail/Outlook (reduces database size)
  • Delete unneeded manual/emergency backups
  • Consider external storage for long-term backup retention

Ensure successful backups:

  • Keep at least 10 GB free disk space (for 2x database size during backup)
  • Don’t sleep your Mac at midnight if you want automatic backups
  • Check “Last backup” date periodically to ensure scheduler is working

Disaster recovery:

  • Export a monthly manual backup to external storage
  • Store backup files in cloud storage for off-site protection
  • Before major system updates, create a manual backup

Backup Security and Privacy

InboxZebra backups are designed with privacy and security in mind:

Encryption:

  • Email bodies encrypted with AES-256-GCM
  • Backups stored on your Mac only (never transmitted)
  • File permissions restrict access to your user account only

What’s in plain text:

  • Backup metadata (date, size, counts)
  • Email subjects, senders, dates (not encrypted)
  • Categories and labels
  • Learning examples (sanitized snippets)

OAuth tokens:

  • Not included in backups (remain in macOS Keychain)
  • Must re-authenticate after restore
  • Prevents token theft if backup file is compromised

Integrity verification:

  • SHA-256 hash calculated for each backup
  • Hash verified before restore to detect corruption
  • Prevents restoring corrupted or tampered backups

Troubleshooting

For backup-related issues, see the Troubleshooting Guide - Backup Issues section.

Common issues:

  • Backup creation fails
  • Restore fails
  • Storage space errors
  • Re-authentication after restore

FAQ

See FAQ - Backups for common questions:

  • How do I backup my data?
  • Can I restore on a different Mac?
  • How much space do backups use?
  • How do I disable automatic backups?

Next Steps:

  • Enable automatic backups in Settings → Backups
  • Create your first manual backup for safety
  • Set a reminder to review backups monthly
  • Export important backups to external storage

Your data is precious. InboxZebra’s backup system ensures you never lose your email organization work!