.. _backups:

============
Backup files
============

Every time you make a change by:

- Editing or adding snippet.
- Renaming or adding a group.
- Modifying a groups keywords.
- Moving a snippet of group.

Clippets immediately write the change to the snippet file. There is no save
menu or button, the snippet file is always kept up to date.

Clippets also creates up to 10 backup files to give you a way to undo recent
changes. Assuming your snippet file is called ``marking.snip``, then the file
``marking.snip.bak1`` will contain the most recent backup and
``marking.snip.bak10`` will contain the oldest backup.

A future versions Clippets may include a mechanism to restore backups, but
for now the only way to do this is by copying or renaming one of the backups
over the main snippet file. You do not need to exit Clippets to do this.
Clippets will detect that the snippet file's time stamp has changed and prompt
you to load in the restored file.

.. figure:: basics/change-detect.svg

    Detection of the snippet file being changed.

This file change detection mechanism also means that you can choose to edit you
snippet file while Clippets is running and the load in the changes when
prompted. A read of :ref:`file_format` is recommended if you choose to do this.