How safe are the Boost Note notes I take on the Web App?

[WeberAlex]

Are my notes encrypted in transit and at rest and can someone in Boost Note read them (would you?). Alos can I store sensitive information on the Web App?

As for a backup, do your recommend to make one locally, or do you provide a strong backend solution?

[Komediruzecki]

Hi, WeberAlex,

I think there are some useful answers about security here: #519

I think data is currently not encrypted, but we don't have the incentive to read it.

If you want to know more about your data, privacy policy, terms of use, you can read more about it on our webpage: https://boostnote.io/terms and https://boostnote.io/policy.

For the backup, always make local backups, there is of course backend redundancy of data, but nothing is guaranteed.

If you look at recent problems which occurred for GitLab company - they had 5 different backup solutions, and when they experienced accident data loss, they found out that 4/5 (or 5/5) solutions were either not working or not set up correctly.

Having said that, I would always advise keeping local backups, you can automate it and not worry much about it, always backup frequent enough so that you are comfortable to lose any data made between two backups.

[WeberAlex]

Hi Komediruzecki,

Thanks for the links. This comment answered my question about encryption at rest. As for the anecdote, it reminded me to make a local backup 🏃

Regarding Boost Note Web App, how do I backup a Space? I see an Import function but no Export.

[Komediruzecki]

Currently, we have an exact backup procedure only for local spaces (i.e. you can save whole storage/folders to MD, PDF, and HTML formats), it is missing as a direct feature from boost note cloud.

I can share with you a script I use to backup data over Boost Note API (https://intercom.help/boostnote-for-teams/en/articles/4590937-public-api-documentation), but I would like it better if we could provide it from the app itself.

[WeberAlex]

Hi Komediruzecki,

I planned on using Boost Note Online on a Chrome OS (Chromebook). That's not a very good news to me. I have opened a ticket #1246 about this issue. Are you planning on having an Export function on the Web App any time soon? I believe that every cloud applications that I use can export their data locally. It also means that I can't export all the notes that I take in Boost Note and use them in another application.

Thank you for sharing your script with me. Does it backup the whole storage? I will try doing a backup on my Windows computer in the meantime.

[WeberAlex]

Hello @Komediruzecki,

Can I see your script? Thank you.

[Komediruzecki]

Hi,

Yes, it is based on this one: https://github.com/Sunno/boostnote_exporter

I changed/updated few things since API changed (and it might have changed again so you need to see for further fixes as well)
main.py

[WeberAlex]

Thank you for the script, I will try it on.

[WeberAlex]

Currently, we have an exact backup procedure only for local spaces (i.e. you can save whole storage/folders to MD, PDF, and HTML formats), it is missing as a direct feature from boost note cloud.

What are local spaces? I have just installed Boost Note Desktop App on Windows, that's an Electron application. But I don't see any option to create a space on my system (locally), or to backup all my notes.

[Komediruzecki]

Local spaces were separated from the Boost Note app recently, there is now a separate application for only local file system storage/space which does not sync across browsers/operating systems and devices, rather is scoped to your file system and can be synced by the external tool if needed.

Repository: https://github.com/BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local
Our roadmap for local spaces: BoostIO/BoostNote.next-local#43

[WeberAlex]

Got it. I saw the fork in your profile, but I was not sure about the difference between BoostNote-App vs BoostNode.next.