Backup
A backup of your library any computer can open.
The app keeps a copy of your whole library in a folder you chose: PDFs and EPUBs plus the tablet’s own files. No format of ours, no archives — it opens in any program, even if Slate Drive is long gone from your Mac.
Only what changed gets rewritten. Time Machine keeps the version history.
the folder is yours — the app doesn’t take it over
What’s in the folder
Two folders and one text file
Documents/
Your library in readable form: notebooks as PDFs, books as books. It opens without Slate Drive.
Raw/
The tablet’s files as they are — in case you ever need the original rather than the drawn version.
README.txt
Written once and never touched again: what this folder is and how it’s put together.
Where it lives
You choose the folder — on an internal disk or an external one, any folder you like. The app remembers the choice and never steps outside it.
One rule
Don’t touch what hasn’t changed
everything else follows from it
A file that’s been touched gets saved again by Time Machine and takes up room in the history. So a document that didn’t change is never rewritten. A dull technical decision, but it’s the one that saves your disk.
After the first pass, only what’s new
The rest sits exactly as it was, with the same dates.
A rename is a move
The bytes are the same, so there’s nothing to download again: the file moves under its new name.
Interrupting is fine
Closing the lid in the middle of the first pass is fine. The next one picks up where it stopped.
A backup, not an archive
What’s deleted on the tablet leaves the copy too
worth reading in full
The backup answers one question
“What’s in the library right now.” Delete a document on the tablet and the next pass removes it here as well.
History answers a different one
“What was there before.” Time Machine keeps that: in its snapshots a deleted document stays.
A plain recommendation: if the folder isn’t covered by Time Machine or something like it, what you have is a copy, not insurance against an accidental delete. The app has no restore window of its own.
FAQ
Questions about the backup
- I deleted a document on the tablet — does it stay in the backup?
- No, the next pass removes it here too. To get deleted things back, the folder has to be covered by Time Machine.
- Is this the same as “keep offline”?
- No. Offline is about the drive in Finder: pinned documents open with no network. The backup is a separate folder holding the whole library as ordinary files.
- Do I need Time Machine?
- For the copy itself, no. For version history, yes: restoring is its job, not the app’s.
- How much space does it take?
- About as much as the library itself. After the first pass it barely grows: only what changed is rewritten.
- What if I unplug the external disk mid-pass?
- The pass stops and what was written stays. When the disk comes back, the app writes the rest.