Operating system
Android
Joplin version
3.6.21
Desktop version info
ANdroid Nothing 3a
Sync target
File system
Editor
Markdown Editor
What issue do you have?
Hi,
I'm trying to recover a very important note containing years of personal memories.
Environment:
Joplin version: 3.6.21
Device: Nothing Phone (3a)
Android: (I'll fill in the Android version if needed.)
What happened:
The note has existed for years.
I accidentally selected everything from the cursor to the beginning of the note and pressed Backspace.
Several pages were deleted.
I immediately pressed Undo once. It restored only part of the deleted text.
After that, Undo/Redo no longer worked.
Joplin auto-saved the note.
I did not have synchronization configured.
Note History was disabled, so "Previous versions" is empty.
I have not uninstalled Joplin or cleared its storage/cache.
What I've already checked:
Rich Text editor (no change).
Previous Versions (empty).
Synchronization was disabled.
No desktop sync or backups exist.
USB file transfer only shows normal storage, not the app database.
Question:
Is there any way to recover the older contents from Joplin's local SQLite database or another internal location on Android without root? Even an advanced method would be appreciated because this note contains years of memories.
Thank you.
As mentioned in the other thread:
Unfortunately I don't think there is any way you can recover the old contents without note history, unless you made manual backups, or sync with the desktop app as well and have the backup plugin enabled there.
Advanced methods of recovery are for deleted notes, but in this case you overwrote a note. In future, I'd recommend that you enable note history in Joplin with a minimum of 14 days retention. The note history has a mechanism that will protect against exactly what you did, for content which has not changed for over 7 days. I recommend a minimum 14 days retention, to provide leeway to recover lost content before your chance of recovering the content is removed too, due to the history expiring.
As a general advice though, you should really consider backing up data which is important to you, at least from time to time if not regularly.
I am sorry for your data loss. Please reinterpret it as a learned lesson so that it becomes the last data loss of your life.
You stored precious personal data in an app and you went out of your way to disable note history (enabled by default at 90 days iirc) which was your only backup as you did not synchronize with another device.
Why did you disable note history?
Synchronizing with another device eg your desktop as soon as you start inputting any precious data in the app would have been a simple natural data safety step. Why did you decide to put your precious data on a single device?
Please learn about best practice backup strategy eg 1-2-3.
Do you have backups set up for all your other precious data which was not stored in Joplin?
Again, sorry for your loss. I personally suffered a data loss in 2008 and since then I have been taking my data safety very seriously. Happy to discuss solutions.