Setting up encrypted backups

This is probably the single most important thing to do in your first week with GBooks Air. It takes five minutes, and it's the difference between a lost laptop being an inconvenience or a genuine catastrophe.

Step 1: Choose a passphrase

Go long rather than clever — four or five unrelated words strung together are both stronger and easier to remember than a short string of symbols. Steer clear of anything guessable from your business (your company name plus "2026" doesn't count as a passphrase).

Step 2: Create the backup

In Settings → Backup, choose Create encrypted backup, enter your passphrase, and confirm it. GBooks Air encrypts your entire company file, transactions, invoices, customers, rules, and receipts included, with AES-256-GCM.

Step 3: Save the recovery key. This is the step people skip.

A hex recovery key gets generated alongside your passphrase. Copy it somewhere that isn't this computer: a password manager, a printed copy in a filing cabinet, ideally both. If you ever forget your passphrase, the recovery key is the only other way back in. There's no "forgot password" email waiting for you, because nobody but you holds the key in the first place.

Step 4: Download and store the file

Save the backup file somewhere other than the device you're backing up — an external drive, or your Google Drive (more on that below). A backup that only exists on the laptop it's backing up doesn't actually protect you from anything happening to that laptop.

Optional: connect Google Drive

In Settings, connect your Google account and backups get placed automatically in your own Drive. The file is encrypted before upload, so Drive, and Google, only ever see ciphertext. It doesn't change your privacy position at all; it just gives your encrypted file a reliable second home.

Step 5: Set a reminder

Weekly is a reasonable default, more often around big imports or ahead of year-end. The full schedule is in Backups & recovery.