Introduction to backups

Available for

  • Pro
  • Business

Platforms

  • Web
  • macOS
  • Windows 10

Never worry about losing your projects, tasks, and comments. If you’re a Pro or Business user, Todoist automatically creates backup files for the active tasks in all of your current projects, so you can easily restore a project at any time.

Warning

Backups are only generated from the day your account is upgraded from a free account to a Pro or Business account.

Therefore, if you delete a project while using the free version of Todoist and then afterward upgrade to Pro or Business, you won't be able to find that project in your backups.

Download a backup

Note

If you've enabled two-factor authentication for your account, you will need to get a code from your authentication app in order to download a backup. Learn more.

  1. Click your avatar in the top-left.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Open the Backups tab.
  4. Click download next to any of the automatic backups. This will start a download for a ZIP file containing CSV files for each of your current projects including all active tasks (completed tasks and archived projects are not included).
  5. Extract the contents of the ZIP file.

You can also click + Create Backup at the top of your backups tab to manually create a backup of all of your active projects.

Warning

When downloading a backup, the start date of a recurring due date will not be saved in the backup. As an example, if you have a task with the recurring due date every year starting January 31 and you then export and import a backup, the task's due date will be changed to every year.

Restore a backup

  1. Create a new project.
  2. In the top-right of the project, click the three dots icon.
  3. Select Import from template.
  4. Choose (or drag and drop) the CSV file from the folder where you extracted the ZIP that corresponds to the project you want to restore.

All the active tasks, due dates, comments, and files from the backed-up project will be added to the new project.

All of your data is safe and secure in Todoist. If you'd like to learn more, refer to our security policy.

FAQ

Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Backups are only created from the day an account is upgraded to Pro or Business.

Backups can store up to 500 comments per task.

Backups are created once a day on days that you’ve logged in to your Todoist and made any changes.

Yes, a total of 21 backups are automatically stored on your account. Whenever a new backup is created, the oldest backup automatically gets deleted.

If you have a Pro or Business plan, follow these steps to restore the task from a project backup:

  1. Download and open a backup.
  2. Find the CSV file of the project that contains the task you need to restore.
  3. Create a new project.
  4. Import the CSV file to the new project. It becomes a duplicate of the original project.
  5. Move the recovered task to the original project.
  6. Delete the new project where you imported the CSV file.

If you have a free plan, unfortunately, it's not possible to recover a deleted task.