Back up your prompts: export, store, and import anywhere
How to export your whole library to one JSON file, keep it safe in your own Dropbox, Drive, or git repo, and import it onto another device in seconds.
A local-first prompt notebook keeps your data on your own device, which is fast and private - but it also means backups are your responsibility. If you clear your browser storage, switch laptops, or a browser quietly evicts the data, an un-backed-up library is gone. The good news is that backing up takes seconds and puts you fully in control. This guide covers exporting to a single file, where to keep it, and how to bring it onto a new device.
One file holds everything
Promptsson exports your entire library as a single JSON file. That one file contains your prompts, their variables, categories and tags, and your ratings and notes - the whole notebook, not just the prompt text.
JSON is a plain-text format, which is exactly what you want for a backup. It’s readable in any text editor, it diffs cleanly in version control, and it isn’t tied to any one app or vendor. Even years from now, with no special software, you could open the file and read every prompt you ever wrote. To create one, open the workspace, find Export, and save the file somewhere you trust. There’s no account, no upload, and no server involved - the file lands on your disk and goes wherever you put it.
Keep the file where your other files live
Because the backup is just a file, you can store it anywhere you already keep things safe. Three good options, depending on how you work:
- Dropbox or Google Drive. Drop the export into a synced folder and it’s copied to the cloud and to your other machines automatically. The simplest option for most people: export, save into the synced folder, done.
- A git repository. If you’re comfortable with git, commit the JSON file to a private repo. You get full version history for free - every export becomes a snapshot you can diff and roll back to. This pairs especially well with the one-change-at-a-time habit from the rating guide, since you can see exactly how your library evolved.
- A plain folder you back up anyway. If your machine is backed up by Time Machine, a network drive, or any whole-disk system, just save the export into a folder that gets swept up.
Whichever you choose, the principle from the local-first guide holds: your data stays under your control, in storage you already own, rather than locked inside someone else’s service.
How often, and a naming habit
How often you export depends on how much you’d hate to lose. A light user might export monthly; someone refining prompts daily should export weekly or after any big editing session. The honest test: if you lost everything since your last backup, would it sting? If yes, export now.
A small habit makes backups far more useful: put the date in the filename, like
promptsson-2026-06-03.json. Dated files mean you keep a trail of snapshots rather than a single
file you overwrite - so if a bad edit slips in, you can reach back to last week’s version. A
handful of dated exports in a synced folder is a remarkably resilient setup for something so
simple.
Importing onto another device
Moving your library to a new laptop, a different browser, or a colleague’s machine is the mirror image of exporting:
- Get the JSON file onto the new device - via your synced folder, a git pull, or even an email attachment to yourself.
- Open the workspace on the new device.
- Choose Import and select the file. Your prompts, categories, tags, ratings, and notes appear, exactly as you left them.
Because the format is open, import is also how you’d recover after clearing your browser or moving between browsers entirely. There’s no migration tool to wait for and no proprietary lock in - the file you exported is the file you import.
If you import into a library that already has prompts, take a moment to check how entries combine so you don’t end up with duplicates. When in doubt, import into a fresh, empty workspace and you’ll get a clean, exact copy of the backup.
A backup routine worth keeping
Pulling it together, a routine that’s easy to stick to:
- Export on a schedule that matches your pace - weekly for active users, monthly for casual.
- Save into a synced folder or git repo so a copy lives somewhere other than this one device.
- Date every filename so you keep snapshots, not just the latest state.
- Test an import once on another browser or device, so you know recovery works before you ever need it.
That last point matters most: an untested backup is a hope, not a plan. Run through an import once while everything is fine, and you’ll trust your library to survive a lost laptop or a cleared cache. With that safety net in place, you can build the collection described across these guides - well-structured, variable-driven, steadily improved - knowing it’s genuinely yours to keep. Start or restore yours in the workspace, and browse the starter library for prompts to seed it.