The cloud backup holds the same as a backup to a disk (the firm's database with its clients, matters, case files, exhibits, facts and citations, the vault files and the chat conversations), but it runs by itself and goes to your account. When you turn it on, you choose whether it is encrypted.
Each section has its own backup: the firm's and the Personal one are never mixed.
Encrypted or unencrypted?
When you turn on the backup, JUDLEX asks you Encrypt the backup? and shows you both options side by side, each with what you gain and what it costs you. By default, Unencrypted is selected.
Unencrypted | Encrypted | |
|---|---|---|
Advantage | You get your files back easily: they can be seen and downloaded from your cloud's website, with their names, and JUDLEX restores it without asking for a password. | More security: it is encrypted on this computer before it leaves, and neither the cloud service nor JUDLEX can read it. |
Drawback | Less security: anyone who gets into that cloud account can see the firm's files. | If you lose the password and the recovery code, you will not be able to restore anything: in the cloud the files are encrypted and split up, and nobody can open them, not even us. |
Unencrypted, the files sit in your cloud with the same folders as on your computer, inside JUDLEX/backup/plain-…/files: Asuntos, each matter with its Originales and Clasificados, and Conversaciones. Names have no accents or spaces (that is what every service accepts): “Notaría Peñalver.pdf” shows up as “Notaria_Penalver.pdf”. If a file changes, the earlier one is kept aside in versions, so you can go back to an older backup. Encrypted, everything goes in envelopes whose names give nothing away.
What you share with a colleague is always encrypted, whatever you choose here.
Turning it on
Choose where
In Settings → Data, under Cloud backup, choose the connection in Where it is stored and click Turn on the backup…. If a connection is failing right now, the list says so next to its name (Failing or Sign in again) and, when you choose it, the reason: fix it first from its menu.
Choose whether it is encrypted
Read the two options and pick one. For an unencrypted backup, click Activate and you are done.
If you encrypt it, set the backup password
At least 12 characters; a phrase you can remember works best. It is not your cloud account password or your JUDLEX one. This is the password that opens the backup from another computer.
If you encrypt it, keep the recovery code
JUDLEX shows you a code made of nine groups of four letters and numbers. It opens the backup if you forget the password or lose this computer. Copy it and keep it on paper or in your password manager, away from this computer, and type the two groups it asks for, to check that you have it. Then click I have it saved.
Next to Last backup you can see whether the backup is Encrypted or Unencrypted.
If that cloud already holds a backup of this computer (for example, because you reinstalled JUDLEX), JUDLEX tells you and lets you carry on with it instead of starting a new one. If it is encrypted, JUDLEX asks for its password or its code; if not, it asks for nothing.
When it backs up
By default, automatically after changes: once a while has passed without changes, and no more than once in a given period. If nothing changes, it still makes one a day.
On the same card you can change:
Back up automatically after changes: when this is off, backups are manual and only happen when you click Back up now.
Quiet minutes: how long it waits after the last change.
Minutes between backups: the minimum time from one backup to the next.
Daily backups and Monthly backups: how many are kept. By default, 30 daily and 12 monthly.
Click Save to apply your changes. Back up now makes one straight away, even when backups are set to manual. You can keep working while it runs. The card itself shows how it is going, also when the backup runs on its own: a bar, how much it has done out of how much, how many files, how much it has uploaded this time, how much is left and, after a few seconds, how long it will take at that rate, and the file it is working on. A very large file can take a while to upload without the bar moving, which is why its name is shown. You can also follow it in In progress.
What is uploaded each time
Only what has changed. A paper that is already in the cloud is not uploaded again, even if it appears in several backups. That is why the first backup takes a while and later ones are usually quick.
If a file cannot be read (because another program has it open, for example), the backup still goes ahead and tells you how many files were left out.
The latest backups
Below, Latest backups shows when each one ran, how it went, how much it uploaded and how many new files it included. The amount uploaded is recorded when the backup finishes, so while a backup is Running it shows 0 B; you can follow its progress on the card or in In progress. If you close JUDLEX in the middle of a backup, it shows as Interrupted (JUDLEX was closed), and what had already been uploaded is reused by the next one.
Encrypting it, removing the encryption or changing the password
With an encrypted backup, the button is Password and encryption…; with an unencrypted one, Encrypt the backup…. Both start a new backup, either encrypted with a new password and a new code or unencrypted, depending on what you choose. The previous one is deleted from the cloud as soon as the new one has succeeded once: that way the old password or code no longer opens anything, and a backup that switches to encrypted does not leave its unencrypted version behind.
This is also the way out if you have lost the code: start a new backup with a new password.
Turning it off
Turn off the backup stops new backups from being uploaded. It does not delete anything: what has already been uploaded stays in the cloud and can be restored (if it was encrypted, with the password or the code).
Deleting it from the cloud
Delete the backup from the cloud… deletes from that cloud everything this computer has uploaded as a backup: the latest one and all the earlier ones. If nothing else is left in the JUDLEX folder of that cloud (no backups from other computers and nothing shared), the folder is deleted too. On this computer, JUDLEX forgets the key, the history and what it remembered about what had been uploaded, and the backup is left turned off. When you turn it on again, everything is uploaded anew, as it was the first time, and you choose again whether it is encrypted.
Google Drive has one more case: if the folder holds something JUDLEX did not upload (added on the Drive website or by another app), Google does not let JUDLEX delete it. JUDLEX deletes everything of its own, forgets the backup all the same and tells you the folder stays; you can delete it yourself from drive.google.com.
If a backup is uploading at that moment, JUDLEX tells you: stop it or wait for it to finish.
If the licence expires
The backup becomes read-only: you can view and restore it, but no new backups are uploaded. You can still delete it from the cloud.