Exporting and backing up your log

Sync is not backup

Cloud sync solves one problem — the same data on several devices — and it solves it well. What it does not solve is history. If a record is deleted, corrupted, or overwritten by a bad merge, sync faithfully propagates that everywhere within seconds.

What a durable format looks like

• CSV — opens in any spreadsheet, readable by any clinician, trivially archivable. Best for handing a period of history to someone.
• JSON — preserves structure that CSV flattens, such as blend components and nested vial records. Best for a complete archive.
• PDF — fine for an appointment printout, useless as a data backup because nothing can be recomputed from it.
• Proprietary app formats — only useful while the app that wrote them still exists and still reads them.

A good export includes everything needed to reconstruct the record: compounds, vials with their concentrations and dates, every entry with its timestamp, and observations. An export missing vial concentrations cannot be interpreted, no matter how many entries it contains.

When to export

1. Before a phone upgrade or migration — the single most common moment for data loss.
2. Before a major app update, if the release notes mention data or schema changes.
3. Before a clinical appointment, exporting just the relevant period.
4. At the end of every cycle, as a natural archive point.
5. On a schedule — monthly is enough for most people, and a calendar reminder costs nothing.

Where to keep it

• Not only on the device that produced it. That defeats the purpose entirely.
• Somewhere you will still have access to in a year — an email to yourself is unglamorous and remarkably durable.
• With a filename that dates itself, so the newest copy is obvious without opening anything.
• Encrypted if it lives anywhere shared. This is health data, and it deserves the same care as a financial record.

Open one export, once, and check it contains what you expect. An untested backup is a belief, not a safeguard.

How PepCycle handles this

• Data is stored on-device and synced through your own iCloud — no PepCycle account, no PepCycle server holding your log.
• Full CSV and JSON export at any time, including vial concentrations and blend components rather than a flattened summary.
• Schema versioning so an app update migrates data rather than replacing it — the failure mode behind most "the update lost my history" reports.
• No lock-in: the export is complete enough to rebuild the record elsewhere, which is the only meaningful test of data ownership.

More on the underlying model in your data and privacy.