If I want to back up my Light Blue data, what should I back up?

First of all, don’t forget that if you’re using our online services, we’ve got a copy of your data, so if your computer goes bang you still get it all back really easily. However, you should also take backups of your data yourself. 

If you want to manually take a backup of your data, then you’ll need to look in your computer’s file system.

There are various files in that folder. We’d recommend not taking a backup of your database file (in the ‘Current database’ folder) while Light Blue is open, as that can sometimes lead to corruption; instead, take a copy of the ‘Database backups’ folder. We take a copy of your data file once a day when Light Blue is opened for the first time, and store the most recent ones in that folder.

Mac, Light Blue 6.1.4 and above

Light Blue’s data folder is stored at ~/Library/Application Support/com.lightbluesoftware.lightblue/. There’s a shortcut to this folder in the app: just hold down the Alt key and look in the Help menu.

Windows

On Windows it’s c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Light Blue. You can find that by going to your user directory and typing the path into the address bar in Windows Explorer – the folder is not shown by default, but it will definitely be there. Alternatively, if you’re using Light Blue 5 or later, there’s a shortcut to this folder in the app: just hold down the Alt key and look in the Help menu.

Mac, Light Blue 6 – 6.1.3

The data folder is stored in your documents folder; it’s called ‘Light Blue Software’. There’s a shortcut to this folder in the app: just hold down the Alt key and look in the Help menu.

Mac, Light Blue 4 and 5

The data folder is stored at ~/Library/Application Support/Light Blue/. You can find that by going to Finder, holding down Alt, then going to the Go menu, hitting Library, and navigating to it. Alternatively, if you’re using Light Blue 5 or later, there’s a shortcut to this folder in the app: just hold down the Alt key and look in the Help menu.