Backup and restore

What it is

Dive Kit stores everything on your device and nothing on a server. That keeps the app fast and private, and it means there is no account to log in to on a new phone. Backup is how you move your data anyway.

A backup is a single file. Saving one writes your settings, profile, certifications, gear, saved deco plans and checklists into that file and hands it to the normal iOS or Android share sheet, so you can put it in Files, iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, or send it to yourself. Restoring reads that file back and replaces what is on the device.

This is a snapshot, not sync. The two devices never talk to each other, and a backup only holds what you had at the moment it was saved. Save a fresh one when something changes that you would hate to lose.

On iPhone and iPad you can let Dive Kit keep that snapshot current for you, in your own iCloud Drive. It still is not sync, and the other device still only gets the data when you restore. See Automatic iCloud backup below.

You find it in Manage → Settings → Backup.

Save a backup

The date of your last saved backup shows under the button, so you can see at a glance how stale it is.

Certification card photos and your profile photo travel inside the file, so a photo-heavy library makes a bigger file. Above about 8 MB the app tells you the size and asks whether to continue. Above 25 MB it refuses, because a file that large is unreliable to pass through the share sheet. If you hit that, remove a few card photos and save again.

Restore a backup

Restoring is how you set up a new phone, or recover after a reinstall.

If something goes wrong partway through, Dive Kit puts the device back the way it was and tells you nothing was changed. It saves a copy of your current data before it starts, precisely so that it can. In the rare case where putting it back also fails, the app offers to restore that saved copy for you, so you never have to go looking for a file.

The same offer appears if a restore is cut short for a reason the app cannot report at the time, such as the phone shutting Dive Kit down mid-restore to free memory. Open Settings then Backup, and a warning at the top of the screen says a restore did not finish, with a “Put my data back” button that restores the copy saved before it started.

Restoring never changes whether automatic iCloud backup is on for the device you are restoring onto. It does not switch it on because the backup came from a device that had it on, and it does not switch it off either. That stays a per-device choice, because two devices backing up to the same place overwrite each other.

Automatic iCloud backup

On iPhone and iPad, Dive Kit can keep a backup up to date for you. Open Manage → Settings → Backup and switch on Back up to iCloud. The first backup is written straight away, so you can watch the “Last backed up” line change and know it worked.

Dive Kit also offers this during first-run setup, on the Back up to iCloud screen just before the safety disclaimer. If you already have a Dive Kit backup in iCloud, that screen finds it and offers to restore it, naming the day it was saved. Setting up a new iPhone or iPad is the easiest time to take that offer, because there is nothing on the device yet to replace.

After that it looks after itself. When you change something, Dive Kit waits a minute in case you are still working, then writes a fresh backup. It writes at most once every 15 minutes, and it writes when the app goes into the background. If that write cannot finish, because your phone cut the app off or you were out of signal, Dive Kit remembers that the change is still waiting and picks it up the next time you open the app, so closing the app does not lose your last edit. If what it would write is identical to what is already there, it leaves it alone rather than spending your data on an upload that changes nothing.

If a backup fails several times in a row, Dive Kit stops trying and says so on the Backup screen. That happens when something will not fix itself, most often a backup grown too large to upload. Switch Back up to iCloud off and on again once you have dealt with it, and automatic backups resume.

It keeps one file, divekit-backup.json, in your own iCloud Drive. You can see it in the Files app under iCloud Drive → Dive Kit. Each backup replaces the one before it, so there is one current backup rather than a history. If you want a copy kept aside, save a backup file by hand and put it somewhere else.

To bring that backup onto another iPhone or iPad, sign in to the same iCloud account, open the Backup screen and tap Restore from iCloud. It asks the same question and does the same thing as restoring from a file.

When Dive Kit says iCloud Drive is unavailable

Almost always this means iCloud Drive itself is switched off, or this device is signed out of iCloud. Dive Kit cannot tell the two apart, so it names both.

To fix it, open the Settings app, tap your name at the top, then iCloud, then iCloud Drive, and make sure Dive Kit is allowed in the list of apps. The Open Settings button in Dive Kit takes you to Dive Kit’s own page in Settings, which is as deep as iOS lets an app send you, so go back to the top level from there.

Come back to the Backup screen afterwards and Dive Kit re-checks on its own. You do not need to leave the screen and open it again.

If a backup fails for any other reason, nothing is lost: the change stays queued and Dive Kit tries again after your next edit.

Android does not have this. On Android, save a backup file and put it wherever you keep your files.

What is in the file

Included	Notes
Settings and units	Every preference, including your deco planner defaults
Profile	Details and your profile photo
Certifications	Every card, with the front and back photos
Gear	Gear items and their servicing history
Saved deco plans	Including your saved gas presets
Checklists	Your checklists and how far through them you are

Not included	Why
Your subscription	It belongs to your App Store or Google Play account, not to the app. On the new device, use Restore purchases on the Subscription screen.
Dive logs	Dive Kit does not store dive logs yet. When it does, they will be added here.

Why a file and not cloud sync

Real sync means an account, a server, and rules for what happens when you edit the same plan on two devices. Dive Kit has none of those by design, and adding them would change what the app is. A file you control does the job that actually hurts today: a lost phone, a broken phone, a reinstall, or moving to a new one.

The tradeoff is that a backup is only as current as the last time you saved one, and that keeping two devices in step means saving on one and restoring on the other, which wipes what was on it. Backup is for moving and recovering, not for working on an iPhone and an iPad at the same time.

Automatic iCloud backup removes the “remember to save one” part of that on Apple devices. It does not remove the rest: it is still one backup, and the other device still only sees it when you restore.

When a file is refused

Dive Kit would rather refuse a file than half-restore your device, so it checks before it writes.

What it says	What happened
That is not a Dive Kit backup file	You picked something else, or a file that was never a backup
The file is damaged, or it is not a backup file	The text could not be read as a backup
Made by a newer version of Dive Kit	The backup came from a newer app than the one you are holding, so it may hold data this one does not understand. Update this device, then try again.
Incomplete or changed after it was saved	The file was truncated in transfer, or edited. Save a fresh backup on the original device and use that one.

A backup from an older version of Dive Kit is fine. The app updates it as it restores, the same way it updates your data when you install an app update.

Good habits

• Save a backup after adding certifications or photos, and before switching phones.
• Keep the file somewhere that itself gets backed up, such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox, rather than only in the device’s local Files.
• Keep the last two, not just the newest. A backup you have never tested is a guess, and the second-newest is what saves you if the newest turns out to be missing something.
• Delete old backups you no longer need. They hold your personal details in plain text.