Back up and restore

Sternway takes snapshots of your data on its own before anything that could take data away (an update, a sync, an import that replaces, a restore, logging out) and once a day when something changed. You can also take one yourself, restore any of them, and export an encrypted backup file that opens on any device. Why and how this works: How Sternway keeps your data safe.

Take a snapshot

Settings › Backups › Back up now. A snapshot holds every vault on this device: hosts, groups, identities, keys with their private parts, certificates, saved passwords, snippets, known hosts, port forwarding rules, synced settings and history. A snapshot you take yourself is never deleted automatically. Session recordings are not part of a snapshot.

A snapshot is kept on this device only, encrypted with this profile’s key. It does not help if the device is lost: for that, export a backup file or use sync.

Restore a snapshot

1. Settings › Backups, choose a snapshot and Restore.
2. Sternway shows what would change: how many items come back, go back to how they were, and are removed because they were added since.
3. Confirm. Sternway first takes a “Before a restore” snapshot, so restoring that one undoes it.

With sync on, the restored state is sent to your other devices like any other edit.

Export an encrypted backup file

A .sternwaybackup file opens on any device with the password you set, independent of any account, server or device key. Keep one somewhere safe, away from the devices it protects.

• From a snapshot: Settings › Backups, a snapshot, Export. Set a Backup password of at least 8 characters. The desktop app writes the file where you choose; the phone hands it to the share sheet.
• From what you have now (desktop): Settings › Import / Export › Export encrypted backup, with a Backup password.

The password cannot be recovered: without it the file cannot be opened. Anyone with the file and the password has all your keys.

Restore from a backup file

• Desktop: Settings › Import / Export, type the Password of the backup to restore, then Restore from backup and choose the file.
• Phone: Settings › Backups › Restore from a backup file, choose the file and type its password.

Items that are already on the device are replaced with the file’s version; nothing else is removed. Sternway takes a “Before an import” snapshot first.

Export hosts for another tool (desktop)

Settings › Import / Export also writes:

• Export ssh_config: your hosts as an OpenSSH config file.
• Export CSV: a spreadsheet of your hosts. It holds their saved passwords in plain text; Sternway says so before it writes the file. A cell a spreadsheet would run as a formula is written as text.

A team whose policy blocks exports without encryption keeps its hosts out of these files.

The question a sync asks

If a sync would remove more than 20 items at once, or 5 or more of one kind when that is over half of what you have of it, Sternway removes nothing, takes a snapshot and asks. Keep my local data (the default) keeps everything and sends the items back to the server, so your other devices get them again. Remove them here too applies the removals; the snapshot is in Settings › Backups if you change your mind.

Where snapshots are

• Desktop: snapshots/ in the profile folder (~/.config/@sternway/desktop on Linux, %APPDATA%\@sternway\desktop on Windows), one file each.
• Android: in the app’s private storage, which no other app can read. It is not included in Google’s backups or device-to-device transfers, so uninstalling the app or clearing its storage deletes the snapshots too. To move to a new phone, use sync or a backup file (Move to a new device).