Back up and restore your VFxM data

New in 1.2.3

Backup and restore arrived in 1.2.3. If your copy is 1.2.2 or earlier there is no Backup section in Settings yet — see Update to a new version.

Settings → Backup has two buttons: Back up everything… and Restore from backup…. That is the whole feature. Backups are something you ask for: VFxM does not make them on a schedule and does not keep a list of the ones you have made — a backup is a file you own, saved where you chose to save it.

Make a backup

1. Open Settings (the gear on the top bar) and go to Backup.
2. Click Back up everything….
3. A Save dialog opens. Pick the folder you want, keep or change the name, and save.

The name VFxM offers is VFxM-Backup-YYYY-MM-DD.vfxmbak, dated with the day you make it. Everything goes into that single file, so moving a backup means moving one file — to another drive, another machine, or wherever you keep your project backups.

What is in it

Everything in your Virtue data folder:

• Settings
• Layouts and saved workspaces
• Shortcuts
• Favourites and banks
• Categories and your colour overrides
• Notes
• Ratings and plugin metadata
• FX snapshots
• Themes
• Hidden plugins and blocklists
• Thumbnails stored in that folder

What is not in it

• Your licence and trial files. A backup carries no licence or trial state, which is why it is safe to hand around — and why a machine you restore onto still activates on its own.
• The Backups folder itself, so a backup never contains older backups.
• Thumbnails kept outside the Virtue folder. The backup is of that folder; if you have pointed the thumbnail scanner at a location somewhere else, those image files are not in it.

Restore a backup

1. Open Settings → Backup and click Restore from backup….
2. Choose a .vfxmbak file in the file picker. VFxM does not keep a browsable history of past backups, so this is where you go and find the file you saved.
3. A confirmation dialog reads the backup and tells you when it was made, which version of VFxM made it, which platform, how many files it holds and how big it is. It also warns that this replaces your current VFxM data.
4. Check those details are the backup you meant, then click Restore Now.

A progress bar runs while the files are written, with Cancel available until the point of no return.

Restart REAPER afterwards

A restore is not finished until REAPER restarts. VFxM saves nothing between the restore and that restart, so quit REAPER and open it again before you carry on working — otherwise you are looking at restored files with the old session still in memory.

Your current data is copied first

Before anything is replaced, VFxM copies your current data into Virtue/Backups/PreRestore_<timestamp>/. If you restore the wrong file, the data you had a moment ago is still on disk in that folder.

Only the last two pre-restore copies are kept. A third restore removes the oldest. They are a short undo for a restore you regret on the spot, not an archive — for that, make your own backup and put it somewhere you look after. See File and folder locations for where the Virtue folder lives on each platform.

Which backups can be restored

• An older backup restores into a newer VFxM. A file made by 1.2.3 will restore in every version after it. This is a rule we hold ourselves to, not a side effect.
• A backup made by a newer VFxM is refused, and refused before anything is touched — your current data is left exactly as it was. If you meet this, update VFxM to at least the version that made the file and restore again.

Moving to another machine

Back up on the old machine, copy the one .vfxmbak file across, and restore on the new one. Your favourites, categories, notes, thumbnails, workspaces and shortcuts arrive as they were.

The licence is the one thing that does not travel in the file, because it is not in it. Activate the new machine normally — see Activate your licence, and Licensing issues if you have run out of seats.