How to back up your digital journal and keep it readable

Most of us write down our thoughts or personal notes on a phone or laptop. While it is convenient day-to-day, leaving those files unattended can sometimes make them hard to retrieve or open years later.

Phones can be damaged or lost, apps can stop being maintained, and passwords can be forgotten. There is no single, indestructible digital backup method, but a few simple habits can reduce the risk of losing all your records if something goes wrong in one place.

In the Personal Digital Preservation Guide by the Library of Congress, the advice for everyday users is straightforward: identify what is important, organize those files, keep a copy somewhere else, and occasionally open them to check if they still work.

If you have digital writing you want to keep safe over time, here are a few practical habits you can follow.

1. Identify what you care about most

Not every note or draft needs to be backed up with the same level of effort. Start by picking out the writing you would mind losing most, such as important private letters, meaningful life logs, or long essays you put care into.

Focusing your initial efforts on these irreplaceable entries makes exporting and saving them much easier to manage.

2. Don’t confuse “cloud sync” with a backup

Many apps offer cloud synchronization: editing a line on your phone updates it across your other devices as well.

However, sync is not the same as a backup. If you accidentally delete a paragraph on your phone, that change usually syncs to other devices too; whether there is a trash bin or version history depends on the specific service. If you are temporarily locked out of your account, synced files may also become unreachable for a while.

A safer approach is to manually export your important writing as files and store them in a separate location. For example:

• Keep the original on your phone, and save an exported file on your computer;
• Keep a copy on your laptop, and place a duplicate on an external drive;
• Keep a local file, and upload another copy to a personal cloud storage you use.

Storing copies in separate locations lowers the risk of losing access to your files.

3. Keep both native files and universally readable formats

Different file formats serve different purposes:

• Native or dedicated formats: May preserve complete structural details, interactive features, or layout styles, making it easy to re-import them back into the app later;
• PDF, images, or plain text (TXT): While lacking specialized app features, these are usually much easier to open with other software. Even if the original app stops being maintained years down the road, most computers or phones can read the text and photos directly.

For particularly meaningful entries, it is good practice to save a widely readable file (like a PDF) alongside any app-specific export.

4. Give files clear, recognizable names

File names don’t need to be complicated, but you should be able to tell what is inside when looking at them years later.

Including a date and a brief topic works well, such as: 2026-08-24-letter-to-my-future-self.pdf.

If you protect your files with a password, make sure to manage that password separately using a reliable password manager or system you use regularly. Never leave the password in a text file in the same unencrypted folder.

5. Open and check a few files before switching devices

Seeing a file sitting in a folder doesn’t guarantee it will open smoothly years later. Format shifts, file corruption, or permission issues only reveal themselves when you actually try to open the file.

Before upgrading your phone, reinstalling your operating system, or cleaning out an old device, spend a few minutes spot-checking your exported files:

• Double-click to make sure they open properly;
• Check if text and images are intact;
• Try opening the file on a different device to see if it reads correctly.

Once you confirm that the new environment and backup files open smoothly, you can proceed to clear out your old device.

Saving entries in Inks

If you use Inks, completed letters can be exported as MBX files.

An MBX file is a self-contained archive that stores your text, writing timeline, photos, doodles, and the stationery and fonts used at the time. Even if a specific stationery style or font is removed from the app’s library in the future, importing your saved MBX file back into Inks will still render the letter as it originally looked.

Exporting, however, is just the first step. We recommend copying your exported MBX files along with PDF or image copies to your cloud drive or computer, and opening one to verify that it works.