backup
A corrupted hard drive no longer need lead to the loss of all your data. Today there are cloud services: mail is stored in Gmail, files in Dropbox, notes in Apple Notes, and so on. But even with cloud services there’s no doing without backup. Instead of corrupted drives, they present other surprises: for example, they might shutter, hike subscription prices, lose your data, or use it to train AI. And if your internet ever goes down, online-only data is useless.
So as not to be caught off guard by sudden unavailability or policy changes, always back up your data on your own computer and protect it against ransomware. And backups need to be both readable and usable without proprietary software. They should be able to either be exported to common standard formats (PDF, HTML), or migrated to a “backup” app that works offline and without a subscription.
There is no universal recipe here: each online service has its own procedure. Today we look at backing up data in Notion — a knowledge base and note-taking app.
Backup
Notion lets you export data in one of three formats: PDF, HTML or Markdown+CSV. You can export a single note, a group of notes, or even an entire database. But only business and enterprise subscribers can do a full export to PDF format.
For most apps, we recommend exporting to HTML format, as it’s free, saves all types of data, and can be viewed in any browser with no special software required.
You can do the exporting on a desktop computer or mobile device. For small amounts of data, a ZIP-archive download is immediate; for large amounts, you receive a download link by email — which arrives with some delay.
To export several notes or a subpage, press the advanced menu icon (•••), select Export, specify HTML as the export format, and include subpages and all types of content (Everything).
How to export all data from Notion
An entire workspace can be exported from the desktop app or web interface. Go to the settings, and under Workspace → Settings, click Export all workspace content. In addition to the above settings, be sure to enable Create folder for subpages.
Only workspace administrators have this export option. For teamspaces, the export won’t include other users’ personal (hidden) pages created within the teamspace.
Exporting a workspace from Notion
Having unzipped the archive on your computer to a separate folder, you can open the index.html file in it with any browser and freely navigate through your notes.
Export to Obsidian or AFFiNE
To not only view saved notes but also be able to edit them without Notion, you have to migrate your data to another, similar app that works offline or on a server under your control. The list of possible alternatives to Notion warrants a long read all of its own, so here we’ll limit ourselves to just two apps that Notion users often recommend as a substitute.
Obsidian is an app for structured data storage that can work entirely offline, free of charge. There’s a paid service — Obsidian Sync — for synchronizing multiple devices, but users manage without it by placing the storage (vault) in an iCloud folder, or by using third-party plugins for synchronization with SFTP, Amazon S3, Dropbox or other services.
To migrate data from Notion to Obsidian:
- Perform a full export of the Notion workspace as per the above instructions.
- Install Obsidian and the official import plugin.
- Create a vault in Obsidian for the migrated data.
- Activate the installed plugin under Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
- Start the import via the button on the vertical command bar on the left.
- Select Notion (.zip) as the import file format, and in the dialog, specify the ZIP file downloaded during export.
- Enable Save parent pages in subfolders.
- Press Import.
- Wait for the import to finish.
For very large databases, you may encounter problems with importing embedded ZIP files, in which case see the help page on the Obsidian website.
Data migration from Notion to Obsidian
AFFiNE is an open-source app offering a workspace with fully merged docs, whiteboards and databases, replacing, the developers say, both Notion and Miro. The business model is based on paid plans and AI assistants, but the app can work offline and even function as a standalone server wholly on your own infrastructure.
Content export from Notion is built right into the AFFiNE desktop app, so the procedure is quite straightforward:
- Perform a full export from Notion.
- Unzip the file to a separate folder on your computer.
- Install AFFiNE and create a workspace.
- Run the import by going to All pages → New Page → More options → Import page.
- Choose import from markdown files, and select the html file from the unpacked folder.
Visit the AFFiNE website for a video guide to importing from Notion.
And remember to protect local backups of your important data against stealers and ransomware with the help of Kaspersky Premium.
