Hi
In OF1 it were possible to configure a backup of the OmniFocus DB when the application quits and also the option of 1 or 2 backups a day. I’ve been checking the backups in my backup folder and OF2 doesn’t auto backup upon quit and there doesn’t appear to be anywhere within ‘preferences’ that would allow me to configure this.
Is it possible to force a backup of the OF database upon quitting the application? If not, could this feature be re-added with a future update?
Regards
Phillip
You’re correct – OmniFocus 2 doesn’t currently make a backup when it quits. It does, however, automatically backup rather more frequently than OmniFocus 1 did. Is there a reason that you’d like a backup specifically on quit, as opposed to on a regular interval (say, once every couple hours)?
I filed a request for that feature to get put back in yesterday.
The main issue is that there is an assumption you are always connected. You can’t force a backup when you are disconnected from the network. Every two hours is not frequent enough if I’m doing a review on a coast-to-coast flight. I’ve done that before, and had OF blow up at the end of my session. After that I put a keyboard shortcut in place to back up the DB.
I was told about the export work around, but that’s not smooth and it’s one more thing I have to backup. Especially with the cleanup system put in place to limit my DB backups to 100 vs. me cleaning them out every month. Even having the sync command revert to a DB backup when the sync server is not available would be a good step forward.
I’m confused. Are you saying that you need more backups because you can’t sync?
I want more backups when I can’t sync, not because I can’t sync. But I’m sure anyone working on a local only copy would want more than once every two hours if they knew how much they could lose in a weekly review.
As an example, while I was on a plane doing a pretty deep dive review I made a number of changes as one does given that time to focus. I was used to it syncing in the background and didn’t think about it. Well it seems I made one change too many and the OF crashed, taking all my changes with it. A three hour review completely wiped out.
After that I build a keyboard shortcut, just like you would to save a doc I save my DB every few minutes. I don’t really care how many saves I do as I would clear them out at the end of the month.
Now with automatic deletion it’s even easier. Since I really am putting my whole life in this thing I can’t risk losing the data. I won’t use OF offline until they fix this issue, which cuts into some of the most productive time I have, when I’m offline and away from distractions.
I wonder if the “archive” function in the AppleScript library could do that?
Haven’t looked at that yet, the original advice I got from two folks at Omni was to export. I’m thinking the archive likely leverages that and they haven’t exposed the backup mechanism, you can’t even adjust the timer which would at least be a decent stop gap. My guess is this scenario slipped passed them when they were removing features from 1.0 as they are likely connected most of the time.
