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Ability to restore tasks data to a recent version (e.g. to recover from a bad sync or accidental deletion)

(closed account) says:
I don't mean this to sound as if it's a complaint, but in order to describe the idea, I need to explain why this idea's occurred to me.

Late yesterday afternoon, I looked at my tasks, and I noticed that there appeared to be a very huge chunk of them missing. I do not remember doing something so nonsensical as deleting them, but as they're not showing up in "completed", etc., it suggests to me that's what's happened, unless it's merely a system display bug of some odd sort.

I contacted RTM through their contact form, and sent several e-mails to them as well in the evening and morning. As of now, approximately 16 hours later, I've received no response.

Given the difference between RTM's home time zone and the North American and European climes where a lot of its users are, and given the no-doubt busy schedule of the RTM team, it might be useful to have this process automated.

Say, have a button in the Preferences marked "Revert to last saved state." Require the user to doubly confirm his or her intention, do whatever safety check is needed. And then, when this button is hit, have that user's setup reverted to whatever the system's last backup was.

Alternatively, RTM gives lots of ways of users to export their data out of RTM, but no way to import that data back in via the same formats. It might be nice for RTM to either accept imports in the same format that it exports in (ics, etc.), or to develop its own specialized backup file that it would accept in order to restore a user's account to a backed-up state.

These above tips would put the backup process under user control. I think that with allowing users to backup, it would be wisest to make it available to all users, but if need be, I imagine it would be a powerful attractant for the pro-user package.
Posted at 1:03pm on September 28, 2007
bzpilman says:
I would love to be able to backup my tasks myself, by exporting them as a more compatible format than iCal (in fact, a fully compatible format), and importing if there was need to. A great suggestion.
Posted 16 years ago
johnfoland says:
Yes, this would be excellent to have a fully compatible RTM brand import and export. This would be great for "duplicating" accounts as well!
Posted 16 years ago
bzpilman says:
Duplicating accounts.. always spot on, jonh!

I have a second test account (I often use it to test sharing capabilities) where I'm currently keeping examples I'm using in my RTM-GTD system explanation. It would be fantastical if I could actually make a file available in such a way that people could upload it to check sample entries for the system.

Aside from the obvious backing up that could be done in this way. At least as a pro feature, pretty please ? =D
Posted 16 years ago
aka178 says:
+1
I completely support previous posters
Posted 11 years ago
aka179 says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
jbbythebch says:
+1. Absolutely best possible missing feature to add.
Posted 10 years ago
robertm123 says:
100% agree RTM needs a user controlled backup and restore option.
Posted 6 years ago
azclaire says:
In the meantime, using the new desktop version of RTM gives you the opportunity to retrieve old data via your regular desktop backup process.
Posted 6 years ago
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