Backup and Restore

Deutsch: Sicherung und Wiederherstellung

AI Studio backs up all your data into one file and restores it, for example, on a new computer. Open "Settings" → "Data Backup & Restore"; the "Information" page has the same panel.

What a backup contains

• Your settings.
• Your chats, in their workspaces, and your temporary chats, together with what the chats received besides your messages, such as the content of attached files, tool results, and passages from data sources.
• Your own plugins.
• The indexes of your data sources and the transcripts of your recordings.
• Your visual briefings.

A backup leaves out:

• API keys, passwords, and tokens. They stay in the secure storage of your system; after a restore on another computer, you enter them again.
• The plugins and settings that your organization manages.
• The log files and Pandoc.

The backup file isn't encrypted. It holds your chats and the text of your documents, so keep it as safe as your data.

Backing up

1. Open the tab "Back up", and click "Back up data".
2. Choose where to save the file. AI Studio suggests a name such as ai-studio-backup-2026-10-31.mwbackup.

The backup goes on when you leave the page, and "Cancel" stops it without leaving a file behind. Start it when no answer or transcript is being written. USB sticks formatted with FAT32 take no files beyond 4 GB; for a large backup, choose another drive.

AI Studio doesn't back up by itself. Back up regularly, or use a backup tool of your own; see below.

Restoring

Open the tab "Restore", click "Choose backup", and select the file. AI Studio shows when and with which version it was made, and which workspaces and chats it holds. Then choose:

• "Replace all data": replaces your settings, chats, plugins, and the indexes of your data sources with those of the backup. Whatever you changed since the backup was made is lost. AI Studio asks you to confirm and then restarts: click "Restart now", or "Discard the restore".
• "Add chats only": adds the chats of the backup to yours, and nothing else changes. Under "When a chat already exists", choose "Keep the existing chat" or "Add it as an additional chat". Stay on the page until it is done.

After a full restore, AI Studio reports what is left to do on this computer, for example, entering the API key of a provider again, or choosing a folder of a data source that doesn't exist here. The plugins and settings of your organization stay as they are.

A backup made with a newer version of AI Studio can't be restored; update AI Studio first.

With a backup tool of your own

If you back up your computer with a tool such as Time Machine, Restic, or Borg, include the folders of AI Studio. "Information" → "Your Data Folders" shows them, explains what belongs into a backup and what can be left out, and opens them in your file manager.

	Data folder	Configuration folder
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\com.github.mindwork-ai.ai-studio\data\	%APPDATA%\com.github.mindwork-ai.ai-studio\
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/com.github.mindwork-ai.ai-studio/data/	~/Library/Application Support/com.github.mindwork-ai.ai-studio/
Linux	~/.local/share/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/data/	~/.config/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/
Linux, Flatpak	~/.var/app/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/data/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/data/	~/.var/app/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/config/org.mindworkai.AIStudio/

Back up the indexes of your data sources only while AI Studio is closed. Your API keys aren't in these folders.

Your organization may not allow backups or restores. Then the buttons show a lock.

Where to go next

• Privacy and Security
• Settings