Joplin Backup Well Not Import

Operating system

Windows

Joplin version

3.5.13

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.5.13 (prod, win32)

Device: win32, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
Client ID: b92a7bea58ec43f183751c8b09aafe9a
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 49
Keychain Supported: Yes
Alternative instance ID: -

Revision: 0c1511f

Backup: 1.5.1
Extra Markdown editor settings: 1.11.0
Freehand Drawing: 4.2.0
Rich Markdown: 0.16.2
Text Colorize: 1.2.5

Sync target

Nextcloud

What issue do you have?

Well, I sync'd my Joplin desktop to Nextcloud and right before my eyes, all my files on my Joplin desktop disappeared. Rather than copying up to the server, everything was deleted. Gut wrench time.

To make it worse, my backup's will not open, or be restored. all_notebooks.jex.7z

What am I misunderstanding and can I get my files back?

Backups should be .jex, not .jex.7z. Does the import work if you simply remove the .7z extension? If it doesn't work, how did the file get this extension?

What is the size of that 7z file? Zero or non zero? Matches your usual content size?

What happens when you attempt to manually uncompress your 7z file in your usual file explorer?

The 7z extension is not usual here, you have likely customized the settings of the backup plugin at some point. Please go check those and share them here. Maybe you have enabled password protection and/or archiving and/or compression.

Thank you for your help! Late last night I was able to unzip the file and then it could import. I’ll share more on that in a second. However, I am getting an error during synchronization.

“Created remote items: 1.

Deleted remote items: 1.

Completed: 03/08/2026 8:32 AM (4s)

Last error: Error: PUT .resource/1be6a19200194865a04e33fbea422a37: (Exception Sabre\DAV\Exception\Forbidden) (403): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <d:error xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:s=" sabre/dav "> <s:exception>Sabre\DAV\Exception\Forbidden</s:exception> <s:message/> </d:error>”

Do I need to delete everything on both ends and re-import?

On my Backup plugin settings, Create Archive is set to “No.” “Compression level is set to “Copy (no compression). Single JEX file is checked. Each backup is in a numeric folder with two compressed folders inside. all_notebooks.jex.7z and profile.7z. No idea what the profile.7z is and does. They are password protected. These are created when I run Create Backup.

Happy to hear you recovered your backup! If you enabled password protection it would explain the 7z compression.

For your sync issue I recommend this guide to start over: How to fix synchronisation issues and start over

Well, even with no files in the Joplin desktop or Nextcloud server, I get an error below. Maybe I need to setup the Joplin server instead? But I think it needs HTTPS and all that it involves.

Completed: 03/08/2026 7:15 PM (3s)

Last error: Error: Could not upgrade from version 0 to version 1: PUT .sync/version.txt: (Exception Sabre\DAV\Exception\Forbidden) (403): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <d:error xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:s=" sabre/dav "> <s:exception>Sabre\DAV\Exception\Forbidden</s:exception> <s:message/> </d:error>

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with Nextcloud thus I hope another user can help you here.

Thank you. What I ended up doing was deleting the Joplin folder again. Then everything out of the Joplin desktop app. Re-created the Joplin folder on the Unraid server hosting Nextcloud. Then re-imported my backup. This time I choose the option in the backup to “re-upload local data to sync target.” (I should have done that all along). It worked.

On my android apps, found it was easier to just delete them, re-install them, and re-sync.

Everything good and dandy again!

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