FlowJoe keeps two different safety nets, and it helps to know which one you want:
  • Restore points let you deliberately jump back to how your Flow looked at an earlier moment. This is the one you reach for after a change you regret.
  • The Local Recovery Copy is an automatic backup that exists only in Workspace Folder mode, for when the folder itself becomes unreachable.

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Restore points

A restore point keeps a copy of your whole Flow — tree, notes, tags, summaries — as it was at a moment in time.

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Opening History

Click History in the app rail down the side of the window. History lists your saved versions from the last 30 days, newest first and grouped by day (Today, Yesterday, then the date). Each row shows the time (hover it for the exact date and time), what happened, and who did it — You, Joe, a Scheduled task, a Connected app, or Automatic. Several quick changes by the same person are shown as one row, with the number of changes. Rows with a stored summary or a retained older copy say what changed in plain words — for example “Renamed ‘Research’ → ‘Notes’ · Added 2 images to ‘Moodboard’”. Click Show what changed on a row to see the full list. Older rows whose copies were compacted away keep their general saved label. A change inside a password-protected private node is never named — it only ever counts as “1 private node changed”. The newest row is marked Current version. Restore points appear inline, on the version they belong to, with their name. Restore points from more than 30 days ago are listed at the bottom under Older restore points. History updates by itself while it is open.

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Making one

Three kinds of restore point exist, and you control each independently. Automatic ones are named Automatic restore point, and ones you create or mark are named Restore point — each shows beside its time. Click Rename on a restore point to give it your own name: a restore point with a name is kept until you remove it, however many new ones are made. Remove restore point stops keeping it (the version itself stays in History while it is recent). Restore point settings at the top of History opens Settings → Data → Restore Points. There, Save restore points automatically turns automatic ones on or off, and Save one automatically sets how often — from Every 15 minutes to Once a day. Timed restore points are taken when your Flow is saved, not by a clock running in the background — if you are not editing, nothing accumulates.

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How many are kept

In Settings → Data → Restore Points, each kind has its own limit:
  • How many timed ones to keep
  • How many to keep from before a restore
  • How many you saved yourself to keep
Set any of these to 0 to keep none of that kind. The card shows the running total — “Keeping up to 25 in total, plus any restore points you have renamed.” When a limit is reached, the oldest of that kind drops off; when that happens because you created or marked one, History tells you. Restore points you have renamed don’t count toward these limits and are never removed automatically. A restore point keeps the images and files it contains on disk until the restore point itself is removed, even if you delete them from the gallery — lowering the restore-point limits in Settings frees those sooner. Recently deleted images and files that aren’t in a restore point are also kept for a while (roughly your last 20 saves, a fixed window the restore-point limits don’t change) so Undo can bring them back. Once nothing can bring a file back, its space is freed the next time FlowJoe starts. Delete all restore points clears them for the current Flow. Your Flow itself is not changed.

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Going back

Click Restore on any row to go back to that version — a restore point, or any of your recent saves. Older versions that are not restore points are greyed and say Too old to restore: FlowJoe keeps a full copy of roughly your last 20 saves, plus every restore point. FlowJoe asks you to confirm, then replaces your Flow with that version. Before it does, it saves your current version as a restore point — including any edit you made a moment ago — so nothing is lost.
A restore point includes your whole Flow, galleries too, so restoring puts images, files, links and slot notes back as they were — including one you mark on an older version. A restore point made before this update, still sitting in a Flow you haven’t touched since, is the one exception and holds only the tree and text.
After a restore, a message appears with Go back to where I was, and History shows the same button at the top for as long as your Flow is still at the restored version. Click it to return to the version you had just before restoring. Going back is itself saved as a restore point, so you can change your mind again. That earlier version is also in History as a restore point named Before restoring ”…” (if you set How many to keep from before a restore to 0, it is kept only until the next restore point is made — Go back to where I was still works right after a restore). Undo last change at the top of History goes back to the version before your most recent change, with the same confirmation and the same safety restore point. It reaches back through your recent saves, galleries included: a change to images, files, links or slot notes — or deleting a slot or a whole node — is undone like any other, with its images. Moving or zooming the canvas, clicking through a stack, or moving a card is never counted as a change. Now and then a gallery change can’t be undone this way (for example one made with an older version of FlowJoe); Undo tells you so rather than undoing something older, and a restore point is the way back. A restore is saved like any other change: closing FlowJoe or reloading afterwards keeps the restored version. If a restore cannot complete, FlowJoe tells you what state your Flow is in.

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What restore points do not cover

Importing a Flow over the current one, and starting a New Flow, do not take a restore point. Both replace your Flow completely, and a restore point taken then would not survive to be used. Both offer to save or export your current Flow first — that export is your safety net, so take it. Merge-import is different: it keeps your Flow’s identity, and your restore points stay valid.
Restore points also:
  • Live on this device, with the app. They do not travel inside a .fj export or a workspace folder, and they do not sync to another machine.
  • Belong to one Flow. Switching Flows does not carry them across.
  • Reference your media rather than copying it. If a file was already gone, restoring brings back the slot but not the missing file.

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The Local Recovery Copy (Workspace mode)

When your Flow is connected to a Workspace Folder, FlowJoe also keeps one automatic copy of it inside the app. This exists for one situation: the folder becomes unreachable — an external drive unplugged, permission lost, or the folder moved. FlowJoe then pauses saving instead of losing your work, and the copy is what Use Local Copy restores from. Your options at that point, on the Settings → Data → Workspace Folder card:
  • Reconnect Workspace — once the drive is back.
  • Use Local Copy — continue from FlowJoe’s copy, in the app’s own storage.
  • Rebuild Workspace — write everything out to a new folder.
  • Switch to Local Storage — stop using the folder.
If the copy has fallen behind, the card says so plainly rather than implying it is current.

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When a workspace file was changed elsewhere

If your workspace’s flow.json changes on disk while FlowJoe is running, you are asked what to do — Use External Changes, Keep My Changes, or Open External as New Flow. FlowJoe does not pick silently, and any copy set aside is kept rather than deleted: open it as its own Flow, export it to .fj, or discard it. See Workspace Folders.