Where your work lives

Your work is stored in a few layers that work together, so you do not lose progress and you stay in control.

Saved to the cloud

When you are signed in, your projects save to your account automatically. The design itself and its media are stored under your workspace, scoped to you. You can open your work from any device by signing in.

Autosave and version history

While you edit, the editor autosaves as you go: a debounced save fires within a couple of seconds after you stop making changes, and a background tick also runs roughly every thirty seconds regardless, so a mistake or a closed tab costs you at most a few seconds of work. It keeps a rolling history of up to the last fifty versions you can restore from if something goes wrong, old versions age out once that cap is reached, so version history is for recent recovery, not a permanent archive. A project also keeps named versions, created automatically at meaningful save points and any time you explicitly save, that you can roll back to from its detail view. See Version history.

A save that looks wrong is refused, not accepted

If an autosave would collapse a project down to far less content than its last good save, for example from a stalled load mid-edit, the editor holds off and asks you to confirm rather than silently overwriting good work with a near-empty one.

The project file

You can export a whole project as a .cardcraft file, a single archive that describes all of its parts, groups, tags, and settings. This is a portable backup you can store yourself or reopen later. Importing a .cardcraft file brings the whole project back.

The archive references media, it does not embed it

A .cardcraft export bundles your project's structure, pages, groups, tags, and settings, but images, video, and audio inside it are referenced rather than packed into the file. Keep your media library intact alongside a .cardcraft backup if you plan to reopen it somewhere your account's media is not available.

This project file is different from a rendered export. Rendered output (PNG, PDF, and so on) always targets a single part. See Projects and parts and Supported formats.

Working without signing in

The editor still opens and autosaves without an account, but only to that browser's own local storage, nothing syncs to the cloud, nothing is reachable from another device, and it disappears if that browser's storage is cleared. Sign in as soon as you're serious about keeping something, cloud save and version history only apply to a signed-in session.

Your media

Images, video, and audio you upload live in your media library and can be reused across every project, not just the one you uploaded them into. If you prefer, you can connect a local folder so files are mirrored to your own machine as you work, on top of cloud storage rather than instead of it. This needs a Chromium-based browser. See Storage and integrations and System requirements.

Own your work

You can always export your projects and media. Nothing keeps your work locked inside the app.

The two producers of a project file

A project archive can come from two places that both use the same extension: exporting from the editor's file menu, which packages structure and metadata into a single downloadable archive, and a connected local folder's own automatic mirror, which writes a plain backup copy of each project alongside its cover image as you work. Both are .cardcraft files, but they're written by different code paths for different purposes, one is a deliberate export, the other is a standing background backup.

Step by step: connecting a local folder as a second backup

1. Open Storage and integrations from the workspace and choose to connect a local folder.
2. Pick a folder on your own machine in the browser's folder picker, and grant it read-write access when prompted. This needs a Chromium-based browser, see System requirements.
3. The app creates a small structure inside it for your media and your works, and from then on mirrors uploads and project backups into it automatically, on top of cloud storage rather than instead of it.
4. Only changed media is written on each pass, so reconnecting the same folder later does not re-copy everything from scratch.
5. If your device's disk fills up, the app detects it and stops writing to that folder rather than failing silently, free up space or disconnect the folder to resume.

Step by step: recovering from a bad edit or a lost tab

1. Open the project and look for a version history entry point in the editor's top bar, or open the project's detail view from the works hub and its Versions tab.
2. Browse the list of recent autosaves and any named versions, each with a timestamp.
3. Pick the version just before things went wrong and restore it. This replaces the current state with that version's content, so make sure you're choosing the right one.
4. If you don't see the version you expect, remember the rolling history only keeps the last fifty saves, very old states age out and are not recoverable from version history once that cap is passed. A .cardcraft archive you exported earlier is your only recovery path beyond that window.

Common tasks

Export a full backup of a project. From the editor's file menu, export a .cardcraft archive. Store it wherever you keep backups, it's a portable file you can reopen later, on this account or another.

Reopen a project from a backup file. Import a .cardcraft, .ccproj, or plain JSON project file back into the app, this restores the whole project, its parts, groups, tags, and settings. See Project file and import.

Work on a design before you've signed in. Just start, the editor works without an account and autosaves to that browser's own local storage. Sign in as soon as you want it to survive a cleared browser or to be reachable from another device, signing in does not automatically pull in what you made beforehand as a separate step, so don't wait too long if the work matters.

Free up cloud storage without deleting anything. Connect a local folder and let new uploads route there instead, or move existing media out of the cloud copy once you've confirmed it's mirrored locally. See Storage and quotas.

Troubleshooting

• The local folder option is missing or grayed out. It relies on the File System Access capability, which only Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge) implement. Firefox and Safari cannot offer it, switch browsers for that feature specifically. See System requirements.
• You reopened a .cardcraft archive and the media is missing or broken. The archive references your media rather than embedding it, if you're opening it somewhere your account's media library isn't reachable, the media links won't resolve. Keep your media library intact, or make sure you're signed into the same account, when reopening a backup.
• An autosave seems to have been skipped. If your last edit would have collapsed the project down to far less content than its last good save, the editor holds that save back and asks you to confirm instead of silently overwriting good work, check for a confirmation prompt rather than assuming autosave failed.
• Work made before signing in is nowhere to be found. It only ever lived in that specific browser's local storage. A different browser, a different device, or a cleared site data setting will not have it, and there is no server-side copy to recover it from.

Related

• Version history
• Project file and import
• Storage and integrations
• Storage and quotas