Backup & restore

Everything APRS Connect knows (messages, stations, packets, settings) lives in a database on your phone, and the app is fully usable with no connection. Backups are local for the same reason: a plain file you can save, share, inspect, and bring back.

Exporting a backup

Settings → Backup exports a JSON backup with four sections, each individually selectable:

Settings covers your callsign, path, beacons, connections, and map layers. This also holds your APRS OTA options and the positions saved with each op you hosted, so your op maps come back on a new phone.
Conversations has the messages you sent and received, with delivery state, read state, and whether you stopped a message before it went out, plus thread names and archive state. Your APRS OTA ops are rebuilt from these.
Blocked callsigns holds the block list and your notes on it.
Your coverage map lists the places you have reached a digipeater, for the coverage layer. Other stations' coverage is not saved; that half fills in again on its own from live traffic, and yours does not.

Save it with SAVE TO A FOLDER, or SEND TO ANOTHER APP through the phone's share sheet: cloud storage, email, or any other app. The file is plain JSON you can read and even edit before importing, and there are no passwords in it.

The backup deliberately excludes the packet log and station history, because both rebuild from live traffic and the raw feed is large. Your own coverage is in it for the opposite reason: rebuilding it would mean driving the roads again. The packet log has its own capture-file export, one tap away via PACKET LOG EXPORT on the same screen.

If your trial or subscription has ended

Your data is still yours. Nothing is deleted when a trial or subscription runs out, and nothing goes off the air: the app keeps working over APRS-IS, and only the Pro features switch off. This Backup screen, the export, and the import all work with or without Pro.

Importing: merge or restore

CHOOSE A BACKUP FILE on the same screen, then pick how to apply it:

Merge adds what is missing and deletes nothing. Safe to run twice: importing the same file again changes nothing. This is the default, and the right choice for combining two phones' history or topping a phone up after a gap.
Restore replaces settings and conversations with the file. Anything changed since the backup is lost, and the confirm button says so in red: REPLACE EVERYTHING, against merge's MERGE INTO THIS PHONE.

Neither one puts anything on the air. After a restore, a message that was still queued or waiting for an acknowledgement when the backup was made shows as Not delivered, restored from a backup and not sent since. Retransmit sends it again as a new message, if it is still worth sending. A merge keeps the other phone's messages as that phone's, and this phone never sends them by itself.

Channels (radio pairings and audio routing) and the outgoing message counter are device-specific settings. They are held in their own section and skipped unless you switch Include device settings on. The screen is plain about when that is right: for restoring the same phone, not copying to a new one.

The import preview

Nothing is applied on file selection. First you get a preview showing when the file was exported and how long ago, which app version wrote it, and exactly what it contains: how many settings, messages, threads, and blocked callsigns. Entries that cannot be applied are listed individually, each with the reason it will be skipped. A file that cannot be imported at all is refused whole rather than half-applied. The app says "This file cannot be imported" and lists every problem.

Blocking stations

Settings → Blocked manages the block list, which you can also reach from any conversation. Blocking is per-SSID and takes your own notes. Messages from a blocked station never become a conversation, never notify you, and are never acknowledged, so the sender sees their messages fail rather than being quietly ignored.

The screen is equally explicit about what blocking does not do: it does not stop reception. A blocked station is still on the air, so its packets still appear in your packet log and on the map. Nothing about your block list is sent anywhere or shared with anyone, but it does travel in your backup.

Exporting station tracks

Any station's page, including your own, offers Export track as GPX or KML, turning its position history into a file that mapping software and Google Earth can open. One honest detail both formats state in their own description: the times are when your station received each packet, not the sender's clock, because a delayed packet arriving late could otherwise run a timeline backwards.

Clearing data

Deleting is deliberately harder than exporting. Clearing the packet log or the map cache takes a second tap on a Confirm button that says exactly what will go, such as how many packets will be deleted. To remove everything the app holds on Android, use Clear storage for the app in the system's App info screen. On an iPhone, delete the app. Export a backup first if you want any of it back.

Last updated 29 September 2026