inav/docs/Backup and Restore.md

Backup and Restore

INAV Configurator can automatically back up your configuration before flashing firmware and offer to restore it afterwards. When upgrading across major versions (e.g. 7.x → 8.x → 9.x), settings are automatically migrated to the new firmware format.

For manual CLI-based backup and restore, see the CLI documentation.

Automatic Backup & Restore During Firmware Flash

What happens automatically

1. Before flashing (with or without Full Chip Erase enabled): Your current CLI configuration (diff all) is automatically captured and saved to the backup directory.
2. After flashing: Depending on the situation, the Configurator offers to restore your settings if Full Chip Erase was enabled:

Scenario	Behavior
Patch update (e.g. 8.0.0 → 8.0.1)	Auto-restore offered immediately
Minor update (e.g. 8.0.0 → 8.1.0)	Auto-restore offered immediately
Major upgrade (e.g. 7.x → 8.x) with migration profile available	Migration preview shown — confirm to restore with converted settings
Major upgrade without migration profile	Warning shown — restore still possible but some settings may fail
Major downgrade (e.g. 9.x → 7.x)	Auto-restore blocked — manual restore only (settings may be incompatible)
Local firmware file (loaded from disk)	No auto-restore offered — backup is still saved
Flash without Full Chip Erase	Backup taken, no restore offered

Migration Preview

When updating across major versions (e.g. 7.x → 9.x), the Configurator shows a migration preview overlay before restoring. This lists:

• Removed settings — settings that no longer exist in the new firmware (will be skipped)
• Renamed settings — settings whose name changed (automatically converted)
• Renamed commands — CLI commands that were renamed (automatically converted)
• Value replacements — setting values that changed meaning (automatically converted)
• Setting remappings — numeric IDs that were renumbered (automatically converted)
• Warnings — settings whose semantics changed and require manual review

You can review all changes before confirming or cancelling the restore.

Multi-step migrations are handled automatically. For example, a 7.x → 9.x upgrade applies migration profiles in sequence (7→8, then 8→9).

Manual Backup & Restore

The Firmware Flasher tab provides three buttons:

• Backup Config — saves your current CLI configuration to a file (opens save dialog)
• Restore Config — loads a backup file and restores it to your flight controller
  • If the backup is from a different major version, the migration preview is shown first
  • If no migration profile exists for the version gap, a warning is shown but you can still proceed
• Open Backups Folder — opens the backup directory in your file manager

For CLI-based backup and restore procedures, see Backup via CLI and Restore via CLI.

Backup File Location

Backups are stored in your OS-specific application data directory:

OS	Path
Windows	%APPDATA%/inav-configurator/backups/
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/inav-configurator/backups/
Linux	~/.config/inav-configurator/backups/

Use the Open Backups Folder button in the Firmware Flasher tab to open this directory.

Backup File Naming

Type	Format
Auto-backups	UPDATE_inav_backup_{version}_{board}_{YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS}.txt
Manual backups	inav_backup_{version}_{board}_{YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS}.txt

Auto-backups are pruned automatically — only the 10 most recent are kept. Files you rename are never pruned.

Backup File Format

Backup files are plain-text CLI dumps with a metadata header:

# INAV Backup
# Version: 8.0.0
# Board: SPEEDYBEEF405V4
# Date: 2026-04-11T10:30:00.000Z
# Craft: MyQuad
#
# INAV/SPEEDYBEEF405V4 8.0.0 Apr  1 2026 / 12:00:00 (abc1234)
# GCC-13.2.1
# ...
set gyro_main_lpf_hz = 110
set acc_hardware = AUTO
...

You can open and edit these files with any text editor.

Restore Error Handling

If errors occur during restore (e.g. unknown settings, invalid values):

• An error dialog shows the affected lines
• You can choose:
  • Save anyway — saves the successfully applied settings and reboots
  • Abort — discards all changes and exits CLI mode

Tips

• Always flash with Full Chip Erase when upgrading to a new version. This ensures clean defaults and triggers automatic backup and restore.
• Review migration previews carefully — especially the warnings section, which highlights settings whose meaning may have changed.
• Keep manual backups before major upgrades. While auto-backup handles this, having an extra copy in a known location gives peace of mind.
• Use diff over dump for backups. The diff format only stores settings that differ from defaults, which makes restoring safer across versions. The auto-backup feature already uses diff all.