Automatic and Manual Backups

We know you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in creating and customizing your Lite Apps. We want to make sure that you can take them with you whenever you upgrade your phone!

Automatic Backup to Your Google Account

Google provides an Automatic Backup service for all apps. It is restricted to 25 MB per app, and more storage can be purchased from Google. This will automatically back up your Lite Apps to your Google Account, so all your Lite Apps are automatically restored when you upgrade your phone.

We have heard many reports from users that this is not reliable, however. If your data goes above 25 MB per app, all the data is silently deleted, with no notification either to the user or to the app developer. Restoration is not guaranteed, and only works when setting up a brand new phone (i.e. you cannot restore a backup at your own convenience.) Google may abruptly decide to delete your backups. As a user, you have no access to your own backups.

We do not recommend that you trust Google with their backup solution. It is half-baked, restrictive, and defeats the entire point of backing up when your data can be arbitrarily deleted.

Custom Backup & Restore

For all the reasons highlighted above, we recommend that you use Hermit’s custom backup & restore solution.

This is a Premium-only feature, available for purchase within the app. Each Premium feature can be activated forever with a one-time purchase (no subscriptions).

Backup to Local Storage

1. Launch the Hermit main app.
2. Press the icon in the toolbar (either at the top or bottom, depending on how you have configured it.)
3. Tap on “Lite Apps”.
4. Scroll down to the “Backup and Sync” section.
5. Tap on “Backup”.

Your Lite Apps will be saved to your phone’s storage. You can then use any file manager or storage app to copy these files anywhere you want.

Sync to Cloud Storage

After creating a manual backup, you can import it onto another phone, or share with friends, or store in your cloud storage provider (e.g. Dropbox or Google Drive or Box).

1. Launch the Hermit main app.
2. Press the icon in the toolbar (either at the top or bottom, depending on how you have configured it.)
3. Tap on “Lite Apps”.
4. Scroll down to the “Backup and Sync” section.
5. Tap on “Share”.
6. Pick your Cloud Storage Provider’s app, and select the Upload option to the directory of your choice.

Restore Lite Apps

To restore Lite Apps, simply click on any *.hermit file, and choose to open it in Hermit. The contents of that Lite App will be restored.

If restoring from Local Storage, you can also start the process from within the app.

1. Launch the Hermit main app.
2. Press the icon in the toolbar (either at the top or bottom, depending on how you have configured it.)
3. Tap on “Lite Apps”.
4. Scroll down to the “Backup and Sync” section.
5. Tap on Restore”.
6. Pick the directory where you saved your *.hermit files.
7. Follow instructions in the app.