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Your data folder

Keep a copy of everything you log as ordinary files on your computer — how to set it up, back it up, edit entries in Obsidian, and move the folder later.

Everything you log lives in your account, but it doesn't have to only live there. The desktop app can keep a copy of all of it in a folder you choose, as ordinary files you own: one text file per entry, a spreadsheet per collection, and a database file you can back up.

Nothing about it is locked to Kaizendex. You can open the files in any editor, copy them to a USB stick, or read them in ten years without our app.

Setting it up

The first time you open the desktop app after signing in, it offers to pick a folder. If you said Not now, you can set it up whenever you like:

  1. Open Settings — the gear icon next to your name at the bottom of the sidebar.
  2. Choose Data & sync.
  3. Under Data folder, choose Choose a folder… and pick where you want it.

Pick an empty folder, or one Kaizendex already uses. If you pick a folder that has other things in it, Kaizendex refuses and tells you why — it will never move or delete files it didn't put there.

From then on the folder updates itself. You don't need to press anything.

What's in the folder

Kaizendex/
  database/
    kaizendex.sqlite
  collections/
    Workout/
      entries/
        2026-06-24-morning-0192f3a1.md
      _table.csv
      _table.json
    Sleep/
      ...

One text file per entry. The block at the top, between the --- lines, holds the entry's properties. Everything below it is the entry's notes.

A spreadsheet per collection. _table.csv and _table.json hold the same entries as one table, handy for Excel, Numbers, or a script. These two are copies — editing them changes nothing, and they get overwritten next time the folder updates.

A database file. database/kaizendex.sqlite is a complete copy of your data in one file. This is the one to back up.

Editing entries in Obsidian (or any editor)

The entry files aren't read-only. Open one in Obsidian, iA Writer, VS Code, or TextEdit, change something, save — and the change flows back into Kaizendex within a second or two.

A few things worth knowing:

  • Deleting a file does not delete the entry. It'll simply reappear next time the folder updates. Delete entries in the app.
  • If Kaizendex can't read your edit — a typo in the property block, say — nothing is saved and you get a message saying what went wrong. Your file is left exactly as you wrote it.
  • The spreadsheets aren't editable. Change the .md file instead.

Backing it up, and using Dropbox or iCloud

You can put the folder inside Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, or anywhere else that syncs — that's exactly what it's for.

This is safe because the database file in your folder is a copy, taken at a moment when nothing was mid-write. The live database the app is actually using stays somewhere else. Cloud services are notorious for corrupting a database that's being written to while they upload it; keeping the working copy out of your synced folder is what makes this fine.

Moving the folder

Choose Move it somewhere else… in Settings → Data & sync and pick the new location. Kaizendex moves everything across, checks that every file arrived intact, and only then clears the old folder out. If anything goes wrong at any point, nothing is deleted and your data stays where it was.

Anything in the old folder that Kaizendex didn't put there is left alone, and the old folder itself is kept if your own files are still in it.

Turning it off

Stop using a folder stops Kaizendex maintaining it. The files already on your disk stay exactly where they are — turning this off never deletes anything.

In a browser instead

The web app can't keep a folder on your computer up to date — browsers deliberately can't do that. What it can do is hand you the same set of files whenever you want them:

Open Settings → Data & sync and choose Download my data (.zip).

The zip holds the same entry files and spreadsheets, built right there on your device — nothing is uploaded anywhere to make it. It doesn't include the database file, because creating one needs a real database on disk that a browser doesn't have. For that, and for a folder that stays current on its own, use the desktop app.

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