Backup & Restore — your whole boat in one file

Write everything theONE knows about your boat to one file you keep, and bring it all back after a lost phone or a fresh install.

Backup & Restore writes the whole vessel to a single .theone-backup file — every record, document, setting and setup answer, plus the photos and voice memos attached to legs, jots, notes and playbook runs — and puts it all back on restore. It uses the same snapshot the app itself trusts to save your boat every day, so nothing in it is summarized or sampled. Your manuals ride along too — they are files, like the photos, so a 200-page service manual comes back on the new phone with every page.

Photos make the file large. That is the trade for a restore that actually gives you your boat back.

Vault passwords are deliberately kept out — they stay locked to this device, and you re-enter them on a new phone.

Owner only, since the file carries documents with personal info.

Steps

1. Create a backup

   ☰ Settings → Backup & Restore → Create backup now. The share sheet opens — AirDrop it to your computer or save it to Files / iCloud Drive. theONE keeps no copy of its own: the file waits in theONE's temporary folder only until theONE next starts. The screen remembers your last backup date, so you can see how stale your safety net is.

2. Guard the file

   The backup includes documents with personal info. One deliberate exception: Boat IT vault passwords stay locked in this device's Keychain and are never written into the file — you'll re-enter those on a new phone. The file is still sensitive; treat it like your wallet.

3. Restore — an exact return

   Settings → Backup & Restore → Restore from backup, then pick the file — or just tap a .theone-backup file in Files, Mail, or AirDrop and theONE opens it. You'll see whose boat it is, when it was saved, and what's inside, then confirm. Restore REPLACES everything on the vessel with the backup — no gaps, no duplicates. And before anything changes, theONE automatically saves the current boat to a pre-restore backup file and, when the restore is done, offers it to you — tap Keep the pre-restore copy and save it where you choose — so even a restore can be undone by restoring that file. theONE removes its own copy the next time it starts. If any attached file in the backup — a photo, a voice memo, a manual — could not be written to this device, the message says how many are missing rather than claiming every one. If the backup was written in place of your boat but theONE then couldn't open it, it does not say your boat was left as it was: it says the backup was set aside and theONE is read-only now, and offers Keep the pre-restore copy so you can restore your boat as it stood.

4. If theONE couldn't read your boat

   Rarely, theONE opens and can't read the boat it saved — a damaged file, or one written by a newer version of theONE. It never writes over that save: it keeps it as a copy, pauses saving and asks. Tap Restore or Export the Copy to put the copy back, or to send it off the phone through the share sheet — to Files, AirDrop or Mail. Putting it back asks first, and if theONE has saved anything since, that goes to a pre-restore backup file before anything changes. When the save was written by a newer theONE, the question says so — the boat was saved by a newer version of theONE — and asks you to update theONE, then put the copy back; it can't go back until you update. Export it meanwhile. Start Fresh begins a new log and keeps the copy; Continue Read-Only refuses every change while it lasts — nothing you do is taken and then lost — and a line across the top of every tab says "Read-only: changes are not kept"; tap it to see the kept copy and put it back. Where a screen says why a change was refused, it says theONE is read-only. It asks again the next time theONE opens. Every copy can be reached later too, by whoever uses this device: open Fleet (tap the boat's name under Mission Control) and a line under your boats shows the copies set aside. An owner also finds them in Backup & Restore, under Set aside. Putting a copy back or exporting it never removes it.

5. When to use Vessel Transfer instead

   Backup is for YOU — same boat, new phone, exact return. Selling the boat? Vessel Transfer is the right door: it curates what a new owner should receive and lets you hold back private records.

Related

• Vessel transfer — handing the boat to a new ownerExport the vessel's history, vendors, playbooks and documents into a file the next owner imports. Owner-only, one-way, and nothing on your side changes.
• Document Vault — manuals, warranties, registrationsWhere to put PDF manuals and how to scan paper documents.
• Boat IT — WiFi passwords and account loginsStore the boat's WiFi passwords, Starlink credentials, marina account logins, and other IT secrets in one private vault.
• Where your data lives — and the one thing that does leaveUntil you sign in, everything you enter stays on this device. Your position goes out to fetch weather, tides and charts, and to Apple to name the place you are. Here is exactly what leaves, and when.
• Manuals — the whole book in your pocket, always editableKeep every owner's, service and installation manual as a living PDF you can add pages to, reorder, search inside, and pin to the system it belongs to.

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