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Using Owndom on more than one device

You can keep Owndom on a phone and a tablet, or on a new phone alongside the old one. It works, and people do it. But it works differently from what most apps have taught you to expect, and the difference is the reason this page exists.

This needs Premium

Backing up to your own cloud, and restoring from it, comes with Premium. On the free version the option is not there at all.

This is not sync

Restoring a backup replaces everything on that device. It does not merge. Anything you entered on the second device after the backup was made is gone. Two devices stay useful only if you always work on one of them, back it up, and then restore on the other. If you enter things on both and then restore, you lose one side of it.

Choose the cloud first

Both devices must use the same cloud account, so choose before you start.

Two devices of the same kind, two Androids or two iPhones: Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive all work. Between two iPhones, iCloud works too.

A phone and a tablet of different kinds, Android on one side and iPhone on the other: use Dropbox or OneDrive.

iCloud is not an option on Android at all. It uses the device's own Apple account, and Apple provides no way to reach it from an Android device.

On the first device

Open Settings, find the backup section, choose your cloud and sign in to it. Then make a backup.

Make it by hand before you switch devices. The automatic backup only runs when you open the app, at most once a day, and only if something has changed. It never runs while the app is closed. If you enter something and reach straight for the other device, the backup in the cloud is still the old one.

On the second device

Choose the same cloud, sign in to the same account, then use the restore option.

Before anything happens, a dialog tells you when the backup was made and how many attachments it holds, and then warns you that the data on this device will be replaced. Read the date. That date is the whole point: it is how you know whether the backup is newer than what is already on the device in your hands.

If the app says there is no backup, check that you are signed in. On a freshly installed phone the choice of cloud survives, but the sign-in does not, and a signed-out account looks the same as an empty one.

Two things that can stop you

Different app versions. A backup made by a newer version of Owndom is refused, with a message telling you to update first. If your two devices are not on the same version, update the one you are restoring onto before you start.

A backup that is older than you think. See the paragraph about making it by hand.

What the backup carries

The database and the attachments, documents and photos alike. Scheduled reminders are not carried; the app rebuilds them on the new device from your items.

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