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In case of hardware failure or other error, it is a good idea to periodically back up your data. It’s best to have your backups kept separately from your main database, e.g. on a USB key, portable hard drive or a separate computer. This will prevent you from losing both your database and your backups in the event of a failure.

Backing up Data Manually

To back up your data:

1. Click the inFlow Menu button, go to General and then select Backup Data.
2. In the dialog that pops up, choose a location in which to save the backup file.
3. Click Save.

The backed up data will be in the form of a file with an .IFI extension containing the entire contents of your inFlow Inventory database.

Restoring Data Manually

In the event of an error, you can restore your database from a backup. This should be done with caution, since all changes made after the backup (such as new orders or customer information) will be lost.

To restore your data from a backup:

1. Click the inFlow Menu button, go to General and then select Restore Data.
2. Proceed through the warning that pops up.
3. Select the backup file to restore from.
4. Click Open.

inFlow Inventory will then restart with the restored data.

Reset All Data

This will back up your database and then reset it to be blank, deleting all existing data.

To Reset All Data:

1. Click the inFlow Menu button, go to General and then select Reset All data.
2. Proceed through the warning that pops up.
3. In the dialog that pops up, choose a location in which to save the backup file.
4. Click Save.

inFlow Inventory will then restart with the blank data.

Click here for more info.

Automatically Backing up Data

inFlow can also automatically back up your data. You can set this up from Company Settings, under Auto Backup. You can set how often you want to backup and how long to keep the old backup files. For example, inFlow defaults the settings to Backup every 1 day and Keep Backups for 30 days. inFlow will check if it needs to do an automatic backup every time you close inFlow, or every two hours when inFlow is running .

These automatically created backups will be shown under Current Backups on the settings page. To restore your data to one of these backups, click the Restore to the backup link next to it.

These backup files will be stored under the application data folder on the server computer. On Windows XP, this folder is usually C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\inFlow Inventory\Backup. On Windows Vista, this folder is usually C:\ProgramData\inFlow Inventory\Backup. For additional protection, you may wish to copy these automatic backups to another location, like a USB key.