Is there any way to backup Apple's Freeform app to a file/offline?

[Turnpike]

I love Apple's Freeform app, and now that I put SO MUCH stuff on it, does anyone know of a way to back it up offline or something, other than taking screenshots of each page? Something so I'm covered if iCloud gets hacked, locked out, or anything else.

When I first got it set up, one device that had nothing on the newly installed app somehow became the current version of the app, and deleted the first pages I already set up on my other devices. I've been using it on iPhone, iPad, and iMac for about 2 weeks now and it's absolutely awesome. But I don't want some mistake or something to cause me to loose a ton of data now that I am consolidating so much to the app.

If anyone knows of a way to back up the info or the app, it would be extremely helpful to know what you do. Thanks!

 

[chown33]

The Freeform User Guide shows it can export to PDF:

Freeform User Guide

Learn how to use Freeform on your Mac to brainstorm and collaborate in real time. The flexible canvas can include text, media, files, and more.

support.apple.com

I found that page using search terms: mac freeform app user guide

 

[Turnpike]

The Freeform User Guide shows it can export to PDF:

Freeform User Guide

Learn how to use Freeform on your Mac to brainstorm and collaborate in real time. The flexible canvas can include text, media, files, and more.

support.apple.com

I found that page using search terms: mac freeform app user guide

Yep, that's a super-worst-case scenario backup for one board, but I have dozens of boards with thousands of inputs. I was hoping for an offline backup that you could make active again, like OneNote, where I could back up a new install with the same info, rather than a PDF that I'd have to copy all the information over by hand again to have the same moveable Post It's and so on.

For those who are also wondering, after a TON of searching, I don't think there is a full backup option, at least not as of Jan 2023. So at least do the pdf backups of the boards you can't afford to loose, having those is far better than nothing at all.

 

[chown33]

Freeform strikes me as a good start to an app. It has too many gaps to take it as anything but the early stages of a work in progress. We can only hope that it does progress

As just one example, its capabilities generally correspond to what can be represented in the SVG data format. This could easily be bi-directional, so Freeform could both write to SVG files, and read SVG files to add existing content to boards while preserving their "objectness". Furthermore, almost any browser I can think of is capable of rendering SVG data, which would make it stunningly simple to produce browser-viewable versions of boards, so all the folks not using Freeform can view things.

 

[marlouis]

Hi,

Is there any information regarding an Apple's Freeform backup since January ? According to this thread : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254519088 ; saving FreeForm folder from Library/Containers would be the way to do. Does anyone had already backup his boards this way ?

 

[Slartibart]

while it is no backup, you can copy and paste between Freeform and e.g. the free Vectornator keeping the vector- pixelformat- and text characteristics like transparency etc. intact. I use this to create documentation from collaborations in Freeform.
Inconvenience: if you copy multiple items together, they will be pasted as unresolvable group.

Obviously you can copy and paste between Freeform and other applications, e.g. to and from Apple Pages or Affinity Designer. But vector objects are then seem to be converted to PNG.

 

[zorinlynx]

This is the same issue the Notes app has.

There is no convenient way to save documents outside of the app; you pretty much have to back up a cryptic folder on your machine.

Apple really needs to address this if they want these tools used for serious work. I was just thinking earlier when editing a note that there is no "edit history" on notes so if I accidentally delete something and don't "undo" before the undo window passes, it's gone forever unless I dig into Time Machine and go through a complex data recovery mess that no one should have to go through.

 

[Schäver]

Any updates regarding a backup from Freeform?

Freeform is both iCloud activated on my M1 MBP and my iPhone. Does that mean, it is now entirely saved in the cloud? That means, if the server farm of Apple burns down, then my data is lost, right? (Actually I prefer this over a stolen MacBookPro and/ or lost data and or lost iPhone etc.)

 

[MacGizmo]

It was widely publicized when they shipped the app that there was no way to get your data out of the app. Sadly, a lot of users never heard about it and ended up investing a lot of time and effort using it.

I would not expect that Apple will change this. Their entire goal is to lock us into an ecosystem. Giving you a way to leave it just isn't on their list of goals to achieve.

In fact, this app is so useless to the vast majority of users (since there is no Windows version of the app and you can't easily get the editable data out of it), that I wouldn't be shocked to see Apple kill the app in the next year or so.

Sad, because it's a great start to what could be an incredibly useful tool. Hopefully I'm wrong and Apple adds the ability to export to some standard format, or provides APIs to other developers to extract the data into their own app.