Backup & Recovery
Protect your library and recover from a lost device or password.
A single copy of anything is fragile. Storage fails, devices get lost, phones get reset.
What to back up
| What | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your content | content/ (Mac) · RTW folder (Android) |
Large, slow to re-download, and some sources change or disappear |
| Configuration | state/conf/ |
Password hash and HTTPS certificate — optional, both can be recreated |
The application itself doesn’t need a backup: it can always be reinstalled from GitHub.
How
- Simplest: copy the content folder to an external drive or another computer.
- Mac to Android (or back):
rtw pushcopies the Mac’s content to a connected Android device over USB, skipping files that are already there. - Two libraries: keeping a second device with the same content is a backup you can also use.
Large Kiwix files come with published checksums. rtw fetch wikipedia checks them automatically; after copying a ZIM by hand you can compare it with the .sha256 file on download.kiwix.org.
Recovery
- Forgot the admin password: run
rtw passwdon the device. No data is lost. - Broken install: run the installer again (
rtw setupon a Mac, the bootstrap command on Android). It never deletes content. - Lost device: install RTW on a new one and copy your content backup into its content folder.