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Sync & backup

The simple version

Your vault is just a folder of files — your notes plus your photos. There's no database to corrupt and nothing proprietary to get stuck in, so anything that already backs up or syncs folders will look after your genealogy too. StemmaFiles also saves each note in one clean step, so a sync tool never catches a file half-written.

Built in: automatic snapshots

If you have git installed, StemmaFiles quietly photographs your whole vault as you go — when you close it, and before anything that rewrites a lot of notes (like re-importing or merging). The History panel lets you look back through those snapshots and roll any of them back. No git? Then instead of overwriting, the app tucks the old notes into a dated .stemmafiles-backup/ folder inside your vault, so nothing is ever truly gone.

Want a free copy that lives off your computer? Set up a private git remote once and push to it now and then — or just use one of the sync tools below.

Using two computers

  • Syncthing (our pick — private and direct, computer to computer): share the vault folder between machines and the app picks up incoming changes live.
  • Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive: drop the vault into the synced folder. Same idea, works fine.
  • One computer at a time. Editing the same person on two machines at the exact same moment can leave you with "conflicted copy" files, just like with any synced folder. The normal rhythm — edit here, let it sync, edit there — is perfectly safe, and the automatic snapshots are a second net underneath.

On your phone or tablet

Because your vault follows the conventions of note apps like Obsidian, you can open it in one on your phone (through their sync, or any file sync you already use) to read — and lightly tweak — your notes while you're out. Back at the computer, StemmaFiles picks up whatever you changed.

Getting things back

  • Snapshots: the History panel (or git checkout if you're handy) brings back any earlier version.
  • The .stemmafiles-backup/ folder: dated, plain-file copies of anything a rewrite removed — just copy them back where they belong.
  • A GEDCOM export (Settings → Data) is a portable backup that any genealogy program on earth can read, independent of StemmaFiles entirely.