Walkthrough: Back up & restore your data

Your care log lives on your device, protected by your iPhone's own encryption and lock — not on a company server. That keeps it private, and it also means a backup is yours to make and keep. A CareHaven backup is a single encrypted file, locked with a password only you know. Nothing inside it can be read without that password, not even by us.

This walkthrough shows you how to let backups happen on their own, how to make one by hand before a big change, what is inside the file, how to bring everything back on a new device, and how to keep the one thing that matters most safe: your backup password. Available

Tip: A backup is only as good as the password you can still remember. There is no way to recover a backup if the password is lost. Write it down somewhere safe before you go any further.

Before you start: set your backup password

Every backup is locked with a password you choose. You set it once, and CareHaven uses it each time it creates or restores a backup.

1. Tap the menu icon (three lines, top left) to open the hamburger menu.
2. Tap Settings, then Sync & Backup.
3. Tap the auto-backup row (it shows Set up auto-backup if you haven't set a password yet, or your current schedule if you have).
4. Enter a password in the field and save it.

The password is held securely on your device. It is never sent anywhere, and we cannot see it or reset it. If you ever lose it, the backups locked with it cannot be opened.

Keep the password somewhere outside the app, in a place you trust. A password manager, a note in a locked drawer, or with a co-caregiver who will be there in an emergency. If you lose the device and the password at the same time, the backup cannot help you.

Let backups happen automatically

CareHaven can keep a fresh backup for you on a schedule, so you do not have to remember. Each backup is a single encrypted file (a .chbak file) protected with strong AES-256-GCM encryption, so it stays unreadable to anyone without your password — including us.

1. Tap the menu icon (top left) → Settings → Sync & Backup.
2. Tap the auto-backup row (Set up auto-backup, or your current schedule name if one is already set).
3. Set a backup password if you haven't yet, choose a frequency and destination (iCloud Drive, On this device, or a custom folder), then tap Done.
4. CareHaven writes a new encrypted backup on the schedule you chose, locked with your password.

A new backup also gets written quietly when you open the app, so a recent copy is usually waiting without you doing anything. If you have not made a backup in a while, the Home screen gently reminds you with a small banner. Available

This automatic, on-a-schedule backup is one of two kinds CareHaven makes. The automatic one runs on its own so you never have to think about it; the by-hand one (further down) is the deliberate copy you make right before a big change. They serve different needs, and it is worth using both.

Tip: Point automatic backups at cloud storage you can reach from any device, so if your phone is lost or broken your most recent backup is already somewhere you can get to it. Better still, keep two copies in two places: one on iCloud Drive and one on an external drive (plug it in through Files over USB-C). A cloud-only copy is one failure away from full loss if your iCloud is ever compromised; an external-only copy is one disaster away. Two places, and a single mishap never wipes you out.

Make a backup by hand

It is worth making one yourself before anything big: a new phone, a major iOS update, or any change you might want to undo later.

1. Tap the menu icon (top left) → Settings → Sync & Backup.
2. Tap Export Encrypted Backup.
3. Enter your backup password when asked.
4. CareHaven builds a single encrypted file and opens the standard iOS share sheet.
5. Send the file wherever you want it: save it to iCloud Drive or Files, email it to yourself, AirDrop it to your Mac, or hand it to a co-caregiver.

The file holds everything for every person you care for, all of it scrambled. Without the password, it is unreadable. The next section lists what that includes.

Tip: Keep more than one copy in more than one place. One in cloud storage and one somewhere physical (like an external drive plugged in through Files) means a single mishap never wipes you out.

What travels in a backup

A backup carries your logged records, not a summary of them. What you have entered for every person you care for goes into the file and comes back out of it — the appointments, goals, to-dos, and plans as much as the daily logs. A couple of things stay out by design: your Care Stance setting lives only on this device (see Support for special needs), and shared to-do lists travel through sharing rather than through this file (see Shared care to-do lists). Some of what a backup does cover: Available

• The daily log and the charts behind it. Feedings, sleep, behavior, potty, regulation check-ins, diary entries, routines and every step inside them, custom trackers, the full cycle history, and your growth chart — height and head circumference along with weight.
• The medical record in full. Every detail of every medication, immunizations, lab results, the questions you saved for the next visit, the medication changes you recorded, and the baselines you wrote down for what is typical.
• The people and the paperwork. Contact cards, and your files — documents, visit recordings, and scans — which arrive as files you can open, the same as before.
• The reflective side. Your wins, your burnout check-ins, the items on your Share the Load list, and your break plans.
• The family picture. Siblings and their check-ins, sensory-diet logs, pumping sessions, and the care profile you built for each person.

Small things hold too. If you logged two entries in the same minute — two doses, two feedings — both of them come back, not one.

Restore on a new device

Your backups move freely between iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Setting up a new device, or recovering after a reset, is the same simple flow.

1. Install CareHaven on the new device.
2. Get your backup file onto that device (download it from cloud storage, or open the email or message you sent it in).
3. On the first-run screen, tap Restore a backup — or, if you already have CareHaven open, tap the menu icon (top left) → Settings → Sync & Backup → Import Backup.
4. Choose your backup file.
5. Enter your backup password.
6. CareHaven unlocks the file and brings everything back: people, daily logs, medical records, contacts, your files, and the rest of the record described in What travels in a backup.

When the restore finishes, you will see a quick confirmation of what came in, so you can be sure it all arrived.

If you are not certain the restore finished, you can bring the same file in again. Restoring the same backup twice does not double anything up — you end up with one copy of each entry, not two.

If you already have some data on the new device, CareHaven asks whether to combine the two or replace what is there. Changed your mind right after a restore? There is a short window to undo it, so a restore is never a one-way door.

After a restore: entries that need a second look

Now and then an entry points at something the backup did not include — a log tied to a tracker, a medication, or a food that is not in that particular file. Those entries stay. CareHaven gathers them into their own clearly labeled section after the restore instead of letting them slip out of sight, so you can see exactly what came through.

Nothing in that section is removed for you, and there is no rush. Read through it when you have a minute so you know what is there — every entry is still your own record, exactly as you wrote it, and it stays visible in that section.

If the password is the problem

The most common backup trouble is a forgotten password, because the password is the only key.

• We cannot recover, reset, or bypass a backup password. This is the same protection that keeps a thief from reading your file.
• If a restore says the password is wrong, check for typos and that you are using the password from when that file was made (not a newer one, if you changed it).
• Going forward, store the password the moment you set it, and update your saved copy whenever you change it.

More help with backups and other snags lives in Troubleshooting.

Emergency snapshots — a frozen copy if data ever goes unreadable

This is a safety net for your data — not a medical card. On the rare chance that CareHaven opens and finds its own local database damaged or unreadable (for example, after an update that didn't finish cleanly), it does not just start over. First it sets aside a frozen copy of your whole store before it resets, so nothing is quietly lost. That frozen copy is called an emergency snapshot. Available

You can find and manage these snapshots here:

1. Tap the menu icon (top left) → Settings → Privacy → Emergency snapshots.
2. Each snapshot shows when it was saved and how big it is.
3. Share a snapshot using the standard share sheet — Mail, Messages, AirDrop, or Files — for example to send to support if you ever need help recovering.
4. Once you have confirmed your data is back, you can delete old snapshots to free up space.

Good to know: An emergency snapshot is a raw copy of the database, so the app cannot open it in place the way it opens a regular backup. It is also separate from your encrypted .chbak backups — keeping your own .chbak backups is still the reliable way to bring your data back. If what you need is an emergency card a first responder can read, that is the Care Card, not a snapshot.

Related

• Privacy & security (in depth) — how your data stays on your device and what encryption protects
• Sharing care with others (sync) — keeping data current across your own devices and with co-caregivers
• Across your Apple devices — using CareHaven on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• Setting up for the first time — getting started on a new device