Backups + recovery

Three layers of protection against losing your data.

The short version

Recently Deleted: anything you delete sits in trash for 30 days. One tap to restore.
Snapshots: the app auto-snapshots its entire state every day or so, keeping 7 days of history. Restore from a snapshot if something went badly wrong.
Backup files: you can export a single .purl file with everything in it, save it to Drive / email it to yourself / share it however. The path for moving to a new device or keeping an off-device safety copy.

All three live under More → Data: Recover (the first two), Backup (the third).

Recently Deleted

When you delete a yarn, equipment item, project, or pattern, it doesn't actually go away. It goes into trash for 30 days. During that window you can restore it with a tap.

More → Data → Recover shows everything in the trash, newest first, alongside a timeline of what you've recently added or imported (so you can see both directions of what you've done lately).

Tap Restore on a trash entry → the record comes back, files and all. The action is logged in the timeline so you can see when you restored.

After 30 days, trash entries are purged automatically; the files they referenced get unlinked at the same time.

Snapshots

Periodically (automatically, in the background, no setup) Purl saves a snapshot of its entire state. Every yarn, every pattern, every project, every photo reference, every preference.

7 days of snapshots are kept; older ones are pruned. They live inside Purl's own storage, not anywhere you have to manage.

To use one: More → Data → Recover → scroll to Snapshots at the bottom → tap a date. The diff view shows what's in the snapshot that isn't in your current state. Pick what to restore (per category, or per item).

Useful for the "I imported a bad backup over my data" or "I deleted ten yarns thinking they were duplicates" cases, where the per-item trash isn't enough.

The catch: snapshots are local-only. A factory reset of your phone wipes them too. For off-device safety, use Backup files.

Backup files (.purl)

More → Data → Backup opens the picker. Tick the categories you want to include (Projects / Yarn / Patterns / Equipment / etc.). Small things like settings, the colour palette, your fibre list, your barcode templates, and your activity log always come along automatically (they're shared across the app and you'd always want them).

Tap Export → the system share sheet opens → save to Drive / email to yourself / save to Files / send via WhatsApp / wherever.

The output is a single .purl file. The file size is roughly your total stored data. For a year of active use, expect tens or hundreds of MB depending on how many PDFs you've imported.

Importing a backup

Two paths:

From inside the app: More → Data → Backup → Import tab. Pick the .purl file.
From your file manager: tap a .purl file directly. Purl opens straight to the import screen with the file pre-loaded.

The import shows a preview (what's inside, how old, what app version produced it). Pick the merge strategy per category:

Add: merges (keep yours + theirs).
Replace: overwrites (only the imported records remain for that category).
Skip: leaves that category alone.

Sharing patterns + templates separately

Two smaller file formats for sharing just one thing:

.purlp: a single hand-written pattern. Useful for "I made this beanie pattern, here you go." Share from the pattern's detail screen. Tapping a .purlp in a file manager opens Purl with the pattern added.
.purlt: your barcode template library. Useful for bootstrapping a friend's stash. They don't have to scan every yarn themselves. Share from Barcode templates → the share icon in the header. Tapping a .purlt in a file manager opens Purl with the merge preview.

These are tiny JSON files (typically KB, not MB) and don't include your yarn, projects, or photos. Just the named thing.

Moving to a new device

On the old device: More → Data → Backup → Export. Tick everything. Save the .purl file somewhere accessible (Drive, email, USB transfer).
Install Purl on the new device.
Open the .purl file from the new device's file manager (or import via the Backup screen). Use Replace for every category: the new device is empty.

That's it. PDFs, photos, drawings, sticky notes, dye lots, counters: everything travels.