Why use an external storage device?

If you're running low on storage space and/or want to store & access your Rewind data using multiple Macs, you can move your recording data to an external storage device such as a flash drive.

Warnings

This feature requires the use of the Terminal app and basic shell commands. If you are not comfortable writing shell commands, please don't use this feature.

There are serious risks to using external storage to store your Rewind recordings, specifically it might make Rewind less performant and your database may end up being corrupted with no solution other than reverting back to your latest backup.

You might lose your external storage device and the data can fall into the hands of whoever finds it.

If you run into any issues, we do not provide any support for external storage.

Summary

The follow steps will explain how to prepare your external storage device, copy your existing data to external storage, and verify everything works.

Step 1 (Optional):

Back up your current data as a safety net before proceeding with the below. If you run into any issues, we do not provide any support for external storage.

Step 2: Prepare your external storage device

Connect the external storage device to your Mac.
It should appear on your desktop. For example, it might be named "Samsung USB" if it were a Samsung USB-C Flash Drive.
Right-click the icon and select "Rename" and enter "Rewind-Data" as the new name. If you do NOT do this step, remember the volume name for future steps and replace "Rewind-Data" with the name you want to use.
Right-click the icon and select "Get Info" and make sure under "Format" it says "Mac OS Extended" or "APFS". If it does not say the disk is in either of these formats (for example, if it is "MS-DOS (FAT32)":
1. Open "Disk Utility"
2. Click the "Rewind-Data" external drive
3. Click "Erase"
4. Select the format "APFS (Encrypted)". If for your particular external storage device that option is not available, select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" instead
5. Click "Erase"

Step 3: Copy your existing data to external storage

Quit Rewind.
Open Terminal and copy & paste the following:
```
cd "$HOME/Library/Application Support/" 
```
Copy & paste the following to copy your existing data to external storage (assuming you renamed your external drive "Rewind-Data" as described in Step 1.3 above):
```
cp -r com.memoryvault.MemoryVault/* /Volumes/Rewind-Data
```
*Note: This typically takes 100 MB / sec so can take several minutes and potentially hours depending on the write performance of your external storage device and the amount of recording data. Please note all the original data is left in place (since you're copying the existing data). Make sure that everything works before deleting the original data. Back up your data as a safety net.
Copy & paste the following to configure Rewind to read from the location you copied your data to:
```
defaults write com.memoryvault.MemoryVault appDataPath -string /Volumes/Rewind-Data
```

Step 4: Verify it works

Launch Rewind and you'll be asked: "Rewind" would like to access files on a removable volume. Click "OK"
Open Rewind. After launching the first time it might take a few minutes longer than usual to load the database.
Scroll back and forth and you should see previously captured data and any new data.

Step 5 (Optional): Set up your additional Mac(s)

To access your Rewind data using multiple Macs, make sure you set up your additional Mac(s) to read from the external storage. Please note: if there is any existing Rewind data on the additional Macs, they will be left on their internal disks since we don't support merging different Rewind timelines together.

Connect the external storage device to the second Mac.
Quit Rewind.
Open Terminal and copy & paste the following to configure Rewind to read from the location you copied your data to:
```
defaults write com.memoryvault.MemoryVault appDataPath -string /Volumes/Rewind-Data 
```
Launch Rewind and you should see previously captured data (the Rewind data that is on your external drive).

Important: always quit Rewind before ejecting your drive.

If you have any feedback, please let us know! We would greatly appreciate hearing about your experience.

FAQs

What if I get a "File too large" error? It probably means the external drive is formatted as "MS-DOS (FAT32)" and not "Mac OS Extended" or "APFS". See step 2.3 above.
Can I merge two different Rewind databases into one? No, not at this time.
Why is there a spinner when I open Settings > Storage and look at "current disk space used"? At this time we do not support showing up how much space is being used by Rewind when using an external storage device. You can do this manually be opening "Get Info" on the "/Volumes/Rewind-Data/com.memoryvault.MemoryVault" folder.
Do you have any recommendations for the best external storage device to use? There is a trade-off between price, storage size, and read/write performance. We recommend at least 256 GB, and read/write performance of at least 200 MB/s. We've tested:
Will this work with cloud-hosted storage like Dropbox or iCloud? We do not recommend storing your data in the cloud. We take a privacy-first approach and recommend storing all your data locally. That said, the instructions in this article will work with cloud-hosted storage solutions as long as you don't try to simultaneously read or write Rewind data from multiple machines. To be safe, always quit Rewind before starting work on a different machine. The chances you end up with a corrupted database are higher when syncing to the cloud so make sure to make backups (see step 1 above).
Can I use my external drive for other data in addition to Rewind data? Yes! Make sure to designate a folder on the drive.
What if I don't want to use external storage anymore and go back to storing my data locally? Directions here.

How do I store Rewind data on an external storage device?