Backup Not Work - 3:04:45 PM, Sunday, January 13, 2019

Gort Newton

3:04:45 PM, Sunday, January 13, 2019

Problem:
Not backup either simple or verbose. When closing tab for that .txt file, message comes on screen ‘save file c:…’ YES, NO, CANCEL. Backups auto not happening. Tried changing times. Using Win 10 and Notepad 7.5.8, 64 bit.

PeterJones

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/15739/faq-desk-request-for-help-without-sufficient-information-to-help-you

What are your backup settings? What was your response to the prompt? What was your expected behavior? What actually happened?

Meta Chuh

@Gort-Newton

if your notepad++ backup settings look more or less like on this screenshot:

Imgur

maybe a little explanation on how it works with these settings will help:
notepad++ makes a backup of all files that are not saved, every 7 seconds to %AppData%\Notepad++\backup like seen in this screenshot:

Imgur

as soon as you save the file, the temporary auto backup will be removed from there (removed from %AppData%\Notepad++\backup, as it was saved already to it’s original location), and the previous version of this file will be saved to where the original file is located, but with an additional file extension .bak (eg. the previous version of myfile.txt will then be called myfile.txt.bak)

note: if your computer crashed before you could save any data, your unsaved files will be here: %AppData%\Notepad++\backup

if you chose verbose backup, there will be a new folder at your file’s location called nppBackup.
you will find all previous versions of your files there, meaning every time you save a file, the respective previous version will be saved there, with an additional time stamp appended to your file name. this type of backup helps if you have to revert to an older state and want to be able to open any past saved state until you find the “last working” version of it. (but this versioning consumes a lot of storage through time)

screenshot of a nppBackup folder with verbose backup (versioning) enabled:
Imgur

Alan Kilborn

@Meta-Chuh

THis is a really nice piece of info on the backup functionality. I learned some things.

Alan Kilborn

Cross-link to more related info here: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/17114/what-happens-to-backup-when-more-than-one-files-of-same-name-different-folders-are-open