Back up and restore your library

Everything you've built — the highlights, the words you've saved, the collections you've shaped to fit how you actually read — lives in one place. This is how you make a copy you can hold: your library, in a file you own, that no cloud has an opinion about.

ScrollWizard can write your entire reading world into a single file and read it back in. You don't need it often. But it's the kind of thing you're glad exists the day you switch phones, hand the app a fresh start, or just want a copy sitting safely in your own Files.

Where this lives

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (or tap the right-edge affordance) to open the panel stack, and choose Settings. Tap Export / Import Data to open the Data Management page. Everything in this guide lives there.

Make a backup

One tap, one file.

1. Open Data Management (Settings → Export / Import Data).
2. Tap to export.
3. ScrollWizard writes a single file called scrollwizard_backup.json and hands it to the system share sheet.

From the share sheet you can save it to Files, AirDrop it to your Mac, drop it in a notes app, email it to yourself — wherever you keep things you don't want to lose. It's a plain, timestamped JSON document (backup schema version 1). It's yours; put it somewhere you trust.

What's inside, and what's left out

The backup is your whole reading world, not just a list of books. Here's the shape of it:

The things left out are device-local on purpose. Your purchase, your privacy choice, and your setup flags belong to this install — they shouldn't ride along into a file you might edit by hand or move between devices. That's a deliberate boundary, and a quietly reassuring one: a hand-edited backup can't unlock a paid feature or flip your privacy settings. The backup carries your reading, not your permissions.

OPDS catalog passwords sit in the same protected place — the iOS Keychain — so they're never written into the file. After a restore, you simply re-enter them once and you're set.

The one thing that only lives in your backup

Here's the part worth reading slowly, because it's the whole reason this feature matters.

Almost everything in that table also travels through iCloud. Your books, positions, highlights, settings, collections — and the words you've saved — sync quietly in the background, so they already survive a reinstall on their own. You usually don't have to think about them.

One thing is different. It doesn't sync, and it has no iCloud copy:

• Your RSVP session history — your speed-reading record.

For that, a JSON backup is the only copy that exists. If you Delete All Data, or reinstall the app without restoring from a backup first, any RSVP history you haven't exported is gone for good — there's no cloud copy waiting to bring it back.

That's not a flaw to worry over; it's just the one place where the convenient automatic safety net doesn't reach. And the fix is the same simple file you already know how to make. Export a backup before any big change, and your speed-reading history is as safe as everything else.

Bring a backup back

Restoring is just as direct as making one.

1. On the Data Management page, tap Import Data (JSON).
2. Pick your .json file.
3. ScrollWizard validates it and asks how you'd like to bring it in.

You get two ways:

• Merge — adds the backup's records to what you already have. Where something matches, the imported copy wins; nothing you currently have is removed. This is the gentle, additive choice.
• Wipe & Replace — clears your current data first, then imports the backup. (The device-local settings above — your purchase, privacy choice, and flags — always survive, even a Replace.)

A couple of things worth knowing so nothing surprises you:

• A backup made by a newer version of ScrollWizard than the one you're running is politely refused — just update the app first, then import.
• Older backups import fine. Anything a newer app added that an old backup doesn't contain is simply skipped, never broken.

Before you wipe or reinstall

If you ever head to Data Management → Danger Zone → Delete All Data, that's a real reset. It returns the app to a freshly-installed state: it clears the local database, the iCloud copy (best-effort), your saved credentials, logs, and caches. It sits behind two confirmation dialogs, so you can't trip into it.

There's nothing scary about having a clean-slate button — it's genuinely useful. The only thing to do first is the easy one:

Export a backup before you Delete All Data, reinstall, or move to a new device. It takes one tap, and it's the only thing that protects your RSVP session history. With a backup in hand, a wipe is just a tidy fresh start instead of a loss.

A related, separate thing: Export Annotations

You may also spot an Export Annotations action. It's a different tool: it produces a clean, human-readable Markdown file of all your highlights and bookmarks — lovely for archiving or sharing, but it is not a backup and can't be imported back into the app. If that's what you're after, the Annotations & Highlights guide and the Export guide cover it properly.

That's the whole feature: one file, two ways to bring it back, and one small habit — export before you wipe — that keeps everything you've built genuinely yours. Make the copy, put it somewhere you trust, and read without keeping one eye on the exits.

Happy reading.