Mock LocationBackups in Mock Location: how to get favorites and history back
Favorites and history are what you would hate to lose: dozens of named points collected over months. That is why Mock Location saves backups of them by itself, without a “Create backup” button, and for signed-in users also uploads them to the website's cloud. Below is how to find a backup and get places back from it, how storage works and what to do if you restored the wrong thing.
Open the backups section
The gear in the bottom-right corner of the map → “Backups”. The section is available on any plan. If there are no backups yet, the first one appears by itself after any change to favorites or history.
Find the backup you need
Each row shows the date, the reason and the contents: “Automatic”, “Before clearing”, “Before restore”, “Before sync”, “From file” or “From website”, plus the number of places in favorites and entries in history. The cloud icon shows where the backup is: on the phone and in the cloud, only in the cloud (made on another phone or before reinstalling) or only on the phone.
Restore the backup
Tap the row and confirm “Yes, restore”. Favorites and history are replaced with the backup's contents. The app first downloads a cloud backup — this needs internet. If you are signed in, the restored lists go to the server right away and appear on the website.
If you restored the wrong one, undo it
Before replacing anything, the app saves the current lists as a “Before restore” backup. Find it at the top of the list and restore it — everything returns to the state before the first restore.
Save a backup to a file if needed
The “Download to file” icon in a backup's row saves it wherever you choose. To bring the file back, tap “From file” at the top of the section: the backup appears in the list, and you restore it with the same tap on the row. Loading a file does not replace anything by itself.
Restore a backup from the website if your phone is not at hand
Your account on the website → “Backups” → “Restore”. Favorites and history in the account are replaced with the backup, the current state is first saved as a “Before restore” backup, and the phone receives the new lists on sync. There you can also download a backup as a file or delete it.
When backups are created
A few seconds after any change to the lists — an edit, a deletion, data received from the server. Frequent edits do not multiply backups: if the latest automatic backup is less than 15 minutes old, it is updated. Identical content is not saved twice.
Separately, the app saves a backup before actions whose data cannot be brought back: before “Clear”, before restoring another backup and before replacing the phone's data with data from the cloud when you sign in.
How many backups are kept
Automatic backups are thinned out by date: the last six remain, the latest one for each of the last seven days with changes, one for each of four weeks and one for each of six months. Days and months without changes take up no slots — a month of inactivity will not push out old backups.
“Before an action” backups (up to five) and those loaded from a file (up to ten) are kept separately, and automatic backups do not push them out. The same rules apply in the cloud.
Cloud or phone
If you are signed in, every backup is uploaded to the website right after it is created; without a network — at the next opportunity: when you sign in, when internet returns or when you open the list of backups. So backups survive losing, replacing or resetting the phone — just sign in to the same account.
Without signing in, backups live only on the phone and are lost when the app is uninstalled. If they matter, save the backup you need to a file.
Limits when restoring
Restoring follows the same rules as adding places normally: your plan's limits and the 1,000-place ceiling. If a backup has more entries than your plan allows, the app restores as many as fit and tells you so. Restoring does not touch entries locked by your plan.
Deleting backups
A single backup is deleted with the trash icon in its row, all at once — with the “Delete all” button. Deleting erases backups both on the phone and in the cloud, so the app asks for confirmation. If the cloud is unavailable at that moment, “Delete all” deletes nothing — otherwise the backups would come back from the cloud at the next sync. Favorites and history themselves do not change when backups are deleted.