# Data safety (backup)

Preservation of genealogical data is of great importance. There are a number of ways to ensure this.

- First recommendation: always have copies of your data on several storage devices (your computer's hard drive, flash drive, external drive, cloud storage, home streamer). The more different storage locations - the better.
- Be sure to create backup copies of your working database as often as possible. To do this, either use the built-in functions of the program (Service\Options\Common, see below), or save each work session to a file with the addition of a number: "MyFamily_1", "MyFamily_2", "MyFamily_3", "MyFamily_...". This will allow you to work confidently and safely.
- The settings provide the following options: automatic saving at certain time intervals using a timer (only if the file has changed), creation of a backup copy of the previous file each time you save (*.ged.bak file in the same folder as the working file), creation of a separate copy of each previous file each time you save (*.NNN file with the version number in the "__history" subfolder).
- For best preservation, it is better to use a combination of methods. Having copies on different media is always important, regardless of anything else. Backup copies can be created both manually and automatically. It should be understood that the manual method provides greater control over the quality of copies - you decide when to put a milestone and switch to a new version of the file. With the automatic method, a new copy is created for each file save, which can sometimes be inconvenient.

Attention: Automatic backups only create copies of the database file (*.ged). No copies of the archive or storage are created.

See also: Options.