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Backups

Citet projects are end-to-end encrypted. Backups keep them that way: Citet saves encrypted backups to the project owner's Google Drive on a schedule, also when nobody has the project open, and the owner can add readable ZIP backups made by their own browser.

Setting up backups

Connect Google Drive in Account → Citation and backup connections (or straight from a project). Then, as the project's owner, open Project settings → Backups, choose the Drive and when to back up: every night, or only when you click Back up now. Citet can only add and read files it created in your Drive. Backups go to the folder Citet backups, one folder per project.

Encrypted backups

An encrypted backup is one .citetbackup file holding everything Citet stores for the project, exactly as stored: still encrypted by the members' devices. That is the text of every file with its full edit history, the project's files and images, saved versions, comments, the citation library, the project's name and settings, and the records of who is a member and who may read the project. The file as a whole is encrypted once more so that Google sees none of it.

Every member at the time of the backup can open it with their own access; nobody else can, Citet and Google included. A backup made before someone joined does not open for them, and someone removed from the project still opens backups made while they were a member. When nothing changed since the last backup, a scheduled backup is skipped.

Readable ZIP backups

With Also save a readable ZIP every day turned on, the owner's browser saves a ZIP of the project's current source to the same Drive folder whenever the owner has the project open and the last ZIP is more than a day old. Save readable ZIP to Drive makes one at once. The ZIP is the same as Download source ZIP: every source file, image and other asset at its project path, with a manifest that lets Citet restore it. It contains no history, comments or member list, and anyone who can open your Drive can read it.

Restoring

In the project list choose New project → Restore backup and pick a .citetbackup or a backup ZIP. Your browser opens it with your own access:

• If you own the project and it was deleted, it comes back under its original link with its full history, versions, comments and members.
• Otherwise (the project still exists, or you are not its owner), the files at the time of the backup become a new project of yours.

The owner can also restore an encrypted backup as a copy straight from the list of recent backups in Project settings → Backups. Deleting a project does not delete its backups from Drive.

Keeping your own copy

Every member can choose Download source ZIP in Project settings → Backups (or General). The browser decrypts the project and builds the archive on your device.

History inside Citet

Every edit is kept, encrypted. Each successful build you start and each version you save appears in History, where you can compare versions and restore a file or the whole project. Restoring adds new edits; it never removes history. Deleted files stay in Recently deleted.