Backup and moving computer

Everything is one SQLite file. radiowriter --where prints it.

Copying that file is a complete backup and a complete move — but it carries your settings too, your email and any API keys included. For anything you might hand to somebody else, use the export instead.

⇅ Export and backup

In the sidebar. Two formats, and they are two different things.

.nbib — the articles

PubMed's own MEDLINE export. This app reads it back, and so do Zotero, EndNote and Mendeley. Export everything, only the flagged, only what is still to read, or one reading list.

It contains the articles and nothing else. What you marked read, what you flagged, which list something is in, your drafts — MEDLINE has no fields for any of that, and writing them in would mean producing a file that calls itself MEDLINE without being it.

It contains other people's email addresses

PubMed's affiliation lines usually carry the corresponding author's email. An export of a couple of thousand records contains a few hundred of them. They are public in PubMed, but republishing the file in bulk is a different act from having it. Think before putting one in a repository.

.json — the whole archive

Articles with their state, reading lists, drafts with their bibliography, the search history, the citations already resolved. This is the one for moving to another computer.

Settings are deliberately left out. A backup file travels — a Dropbox, a memory stick, an attachment — and an email address and API keys inside it would be a leak waiting to happen. Typing them again takes a minute.

Journal metrics are left out for a different reason: they rebuild from the SCImago file in a second, and carrying thirty thousand rows that regenerate themselves is just weight.

Restoring

Drop the .json into Restore a backup. Nothing is overwritten: what is already there stays, and only what is missing is added. An article, a list or a draft that already exists is skipped, and the count tells you how many.

Which means restoring the same backup twice does nothing the second time, and restoring an old backup onto a working archive cannot destroy the work in it.

Moving to a new computer, step by step

1. On the old one: ⇅ Export and backup → Full backup (.json)
2. On the new one: uv tool install radiowriter, then radiowriter
3. Give it your email at the first-run screen
4. Drop the SCImago CSV into the folder radiowriter --where prints
5. ⇅ Export and backup → Restore a backup, choose the file, restore
6. Re-enter your NCBI key and LibKey ID under ⚙️ Settings if you use them