Backup and recovery

• The people you meet and the names you use for them, the trust in their devices, and your connections’ delivery tokens.
• One-to-one conversations, updates, moments, circles, plans, and notes.

Photos and groups are not included in the backup. A backup is only for an account that is born and has at least two guardians who have accepted.

• The backup is locked on your phone with a new key each time, before it is sent to the server.
• Its key is split for your guardians: each piece is sealed for the phone of one guardian. Two pieces are enough to open it on your new phone, one is not.
• The server stores the backup and those key pieces in locked form, and cannot open either of them. The backup uses your account’s media space, but is never deleted because of the quota.
• Each backup replaces the one before. Content you delete is still in the latest backup until the next backup is made.

Two of your guardians who collude, with a modified app, can open your backup without a recovery. For that reason, choose guardians you truly trust (see Guardians).

1. In the menu, open Settings, then Backup in the Account recovery section.
2. Press Turn on backup.

From then on the backup is made again when the app is opened, at most once a day. Back up now makes one right away. Turn off backup deletes the backup on the server; if your phone is lost after that, your new phone starts with no history.

1. On the new phone, install Patepang, choose Recover account on the Welcome screen, then agree to the terms.
2. Meet your first guardian. They open Guardians, then Help recover for you. Scan their code with your new phone, then shake both phones together.
3. Do the same with your second guardian. The same guardian is not counted twice.
4. After the second tempel, the recovery starts. The screen gives the earliest time your account moves, at least 48 hours later; the server can be a few hours late.
5. Once the recovery has run, your new phone says Your account is now on this phone and restores your backup. Then make a PIN for that phone.

While the recovery screen is open, the new phone checks your account every minute; Check now checks it right away. Recovery needs the internet. Once it has started, a recovery can only be cancelled from the old phone. The backup setting is not recovered, so turn the backup on again on your new phone.

During the wait, your old phone, if you still have it, shows Your account is being recovered on another phone when Patepang is opened there, and the people who have done a tempel with you are told.

• If it is not you, press See recovery, then Cancel recovery. A cancelled proposal cannot be used again, and your account stays on your old phone.
• If it is you, It’s me, let it run only calms the words on that phone; the recovery goes on.
• When the recovery runs, all your old devices leave the account, and the old phone deletes the Patepang data on it when it connects again. If you want to keep a copy from the old phone, make an export first.

A recovery also ends without moving the account if your account changes first, for example through the emergency lock or the dead lock from the old phone. To try again, two guardians need to do a tempel with your new phone again.

Your PIN is not stored anywhere and is never sent, so nobody can send it to you again. If you have truly forgotten it, while your account has two guardians who have accepted and the dead lock is off: delete Patepang from that phone, install it again, then choose Recover account. Two of your guardians do a tempel with that phone, and at the earliest 48 hours later your account moves there; an active backup comes back with it.

Linking a second phone to the same account is not available. To move to a new phone, also use Recover account with two of your guardians.

• Without a backup, your account can still be recovered with two guardians, but your new phone starts with no history: the people you meet, the names you gave them, conversations, updates, moments, and notes do not come back. You can still meet the people you met again.
• Even with a backup, photos and groups do not come back.
• Without two guardians who have accepted, or with the dead lock on, an account whose phones are all lost cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. That account is deleted after 12 months of inactivity.
• An export file is a copy for reading. Patepang does not put it back into your account.