# What is the best way to back up my notes?

Export "Encrypted full backup (.pnbackupz)" under Settings > Import & Export > Export. It encrypts everything - notes, journals, vault items, tasks, images, audio, and files - with your phrase key, so it is safe to park on a cloud drive or a USB stick, and it restores with your phrase on any device.

It opens with the phrase that made it, so keep a "PrivacyNotes backup (.zip)" alongside it if you ever [move to a new phrase](https://privacynotes.app/help/phrase-compromised/): same contents, restores into any vault, and readable on disk, so store it somewhere you trust. "Encrypted backup (.pnbackup)" covers text and metadata rather than images and files, and "Text backup (.json)" and the HTML archive are portability formats rather than restore formats.

Why keep local backups when everything syncs? Sync is not a backup: it faithfully propagates deletions, including a compromised server dropping data that your devices then mirror. A copy on your own disk is the one no server event can touch. Export before big imports, before leaving, and on a rhythm you will keep.

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Source: https://privacynotes.app/help/backup-strategy