Projects

Backup

Learn about the mechanisms that ToonSquid provides to keep your valuable work safe.

Autosave#

ToonSquid automatically saves your projects at regular intervals while you are working on them. Your project is also saved each time you go back to the project library or close the app.

Backup#

As with any other of your important data, you should always keep a copy of your ToonSquid projects somewhere else so that you can recover your work in case something unexpected happens to the main project file that you are working on.

This could for example be caused by your iPad running out of storage, the operating system quitting the app without a warning, your iPad turning off due to an empty battery, a yet undiscovered bug in the app or if you made a mistake such as drawing over the wrong layer or accidentally deleted a layer with lots of important drawings without noticing the error until after you already closed the project.

Backup Process#

Fortunately, ToonSquid makes the backup process easy for you: By default - after every 20 minutes of working on a project - an alert will pop up on screen to give you the option to quickly create a backup of that project with a single button tap. You can also go to the settings to change the interval of this reminder or to create a new backup immediately.

This will store a full copy of your current project in a separate folder under On My iPad > ToonSquid > Backup. In this directory you will find one folder for each one of your projects which contains all of the backups for that project. Each backup file is numbered increasingly (i.e. Backup 1.tsproj, Backup 2.tsproj …).

By default, ToonSquid keeps the latest two backups for each project and deletes older ones automatically every time a new backup is created in order to limit how much storage space these backups use on your iPad. You can also change this number in the settings.

In addition to these short-term backups, the oldest of which is automatically deleted, ToonSquid also keeps one backup file for up to one day before it is replaced with the latest state of the project. This ensures that even if your project partially corrupts without you noticing and you then overwrite the short-term backups with new backups, you are still likely to be left with an older backup to hopefully restore your animation from. This file is named Backup LT.tsproj.

Importing a Backup#

In order to import a project backup, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Import button.
2. Go to On My iPad > ToonSquid > Backup.
3. Find the folder that starts with the name of your project.
4. Select one of the backups in that folder.

What to do in case of a possibly corrupted project?#

1. Do not create new backups of this project, since they will replace your old backups that hopefully contain the undamaged state of the project.
2. Import the latest backup as described here.
3. Just to be sure, copy those backup files from the backup folder onto a separate device (e.g. a desktop computer or USB stick).
4. Notify contact@toonsquid.com and include the corrupted project file if possible so that the underlying reason can be investigated. Finding and fixing bugs related to potential data loss has a very high priority!

File Export#

Projects, brushes and color palettes all have in-app export options that generate easily shareable files. Follow the links above to learn where you can find those options. Always use these built-in ways to back up your data outside of your iPad whenever possible.

All of these files are automatically included in a full backup of your iPad.

Direct Data Access#

In addition to the options presented above, ToonSquid also gives you direct access to all your valuable data (projects, brushes, color palettes, fonts) for easy backup and data recovery purposes in cases of emergency.

You can find all of this data in the Files app of your iPad under

On my iPad > ToonSquid

Warning

Only use the in-app approaches to exporting these files from ToonSquid whenever possible. This access is only for emergency scenarios in case you cannot open the app for whatever reason and are preparing to reinstall it. This way you won't lose any of your valuable data after re-installing.
Only use this for backing up your files, never delete or edit or otherwise modify any of the files in the "Projects", "Brushes" and "Palettes" folders.

You can copy the entire contents of these folders and then paste them to the same location on a different iPad or the same iPad after deleting and re-installing the app.