Backups and restoring
A backup is one compressed .starkive file holding every workspace, every record, and every uploaded document and photo. You choose where it goes, and you can restore it on any Mac.
- For
- Back up the whole register to a file or iCloud, restore it, and export an audit evidence pack.
- Will not
- The automatic iCloud backup will not run without iCloud Drive, will not report failures, and keeps only the ten most recent snapshots.
- Writes
- Restoring replaces all current data and relaunches the app; it is confirmed first and cannot be undone.
What a backup contains
The whole system, not a subset. Every workspace database, the Attachments folder, and the audit trail that goes with them.
A backup is written by the same service that produces the archive, so what you get is the complete data directory in one file with a .starkive extension. There is no partial mode and no per-workspace option: the file is the system.
The screen is Backup & Restore, reached from Admin. It is a single scrolling column of cards, in this order: an introduction, iCloud backup, Back up now, Restore from a backup, and Audit Evidence Pack. A status banner appears under the cards after any action, green for success and amber for a failure.
Backing up to a file
One button, one save panel, one file. Nothing is uploaded.
Choose where it goes
Back Up Now… opens a save panel titled Save Starkive Manifest Backup. The filename is pre-filled as
Starkive Manifest Backup YYYY-MM-DD.starkive, and the extension is shown rather than hidden. Put it on a USB drive, in a synced folder, in a password manager, wherever your organisation keeps things it cannot lose.The database is checkpointed first
Before the archive is written, the database is checkpointed so the file on disk is consistent. You do not need to quit the app or stop working.
Read the banner
On success the banner reads Backup saved to “…”. with the filename. On failure it reads Backup failed: followed by the reason. The banner is the only confirmation, so it is worth glancing at before you close the window.
The card text says Nothing is uploaded. That is true of this button. The iCloud card below it is a separate, opt-in path, and the two do not share a destination.
Backing up to iCloud
A second, automatic path for people who would rather not remember. It keeps the last ten snapshots and prunes the rest.
When iCloud Drive is available, the card offers Back up to iCloud automatically (on quit and daily). Turning it on runs a backup immediately, and from then on a snapshot is taken when you quit the app and at most once every twenty hours while it is running. The throttle is deliberate: the interval is described as daily with slack, so a long session does not produce a snapshot every time you close a window.
The card shows Last iCloud backup: with the date and time once one has run. Back Up to iCloud Now forces one outside the schedule, and the button reads Backing up… while it works, with a spinner beside it.
Snapshots are written into a Backups folder inside the app’s iCloud Drive container, named StarkiveManifest-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.starkive. The ten most recent are kept and older ones are deleted automatically. iCloud uploads each file on its own, so a snapshot taken on one Mac appears on any other Mac signed into the same account.
If iCloud Drive is not available, the card does not offer the toggle at all. It shows a paragraph explaining that you need to sign in to iCloud and use a signed build with the iCloud capability enabled, and that automatic cloud backups turn on there once you do. There is no way to force it from this screen.
Restoring from a file
Destructive, confirmed, and followed by a restart. Read the confirmation before you click through it.
Choose the backup
Restore from Backup… opens an open panel titled Choose a Starkive Manifest Backup. Directories cannot be selected, and only one file at a time.
Read the confirmation
The file is inspected first, and an alert titled Restore this backup? appears with the date the backup was made and the app version that produced it. The body states that this replaces all current data, that Starkive Manifest will restart to finish, and that it cannot be undone. It also suggests backing up first, which is worth doing.
Confirm and let it restart
Restore & Restart performs the restore and relaunches the app. Cancel does nothing.
If the backup was made by a newer version of the app than the one you are running, the restore is refused before anything is written. The banner reads This backup was made by a newer version of Starkive Manifest (v… vs v…). Update Starkive Manifest first, then restore. Update, then try again.
If the relaunch does not take, the app stays open and shows an alert reading Restored, but this Mac couldn’t restart the app, with the instruction to quit and open it again. This is deliberate: the files under the app have already been replaced, and this window is the only thing left that can explain what happened. Do not force-quit before reading it.
Restoring from iCloud
The same restore, with the snapshot list in front of it.
Restore from iCloud… opens a sheet titled Restore from iCloud listing every snapshot found in the container, newest first. Each row shows the date and time and the file size. If nothing is found, no sheet opens and the banner reads No iCloud backups found yet.
Select a row and the footer button Restore & Restart becomes available. The footer also carries the warning that restoring replaces all current data and relaunches the app. Cancel closes the sheet.
A snapshot that exists only as an iCloud placeholder is downloaded first, with a twenty-five second window for the download to complete. If the file is already local, the restore starts immediately.
The audit evidence pack
Not a backup. A single .zip an auditor can open without Starkive Manifest installed.
Export Evidence Pack… builds a zip containing the full inventory, the complete audit trail, IMAC history, the overdue-verification and unacknowledged-assignment worklists, and every sanitisation certificate, with a summary mapping each item to its standard. The button reads Building… while it works, with a spinner beside it.
A save panel titled Save Audit Evidence Pack appears with a suggested filename. The pack is assembled off the main thread, so a large fleet does not block the window while it builds. On success the banner reads Evidence pack saved to “…”. with the filename.
The evidence pack is not restorable. It is a read-only export for somebody outside the organisation, and it is not a substitute for the .starkive file. Keep both.
What the automatic backup will not do
Three deliberate limits, worth knowing before you rely on it.
- It will not run without iCloud Drive. The automatic path checks availability first and returns silently if the container is not there. Nothing is written to a fallback location.
- It will not interrupt you on failure. The background backup is best-effort and swallows its errors. If you need to know a backup happened, use Back Up to iCloud Now or Back Up Now…, both of which report through the banner.
- It will not keep more than ten snapshots. The eleventh oldest is deleted as part of the same operation, so a snapshot you wanted to keep for a year needs to be copied out of the container.
For the register itself, and for what a restore brings back, see Assets.