How to backup Procreate and your artworks

I was shocked to discover there are people who don't know how to backup Procreate, and these same people are spreading wrong information online.

I'm writing this to help you backup your Procreate artworks properly. I have reviewed many iPads, so I do several restores and iPad transfers each year so what I say is based on experience, not intuition or feels.

Procreate actually has help articles that explain how backup works:

1. Can I recover lost or deleted artworks?
2. How to back up your Procreate artwork
3. Can I sync my work to iCloud?
4. Procreate v5.4 upcoming features

The main reason why people still don't know how backup works is because they confuse iCloud Backup with iCloud Drive.

Where does Procreate saves your artworks

Before you backup your artworks, you should know where Procreate saves them.

Procreate (older than v5.4) saves artworks within the app itself. If you delete the app, you also delete all the artworks. If you delete an artwork from within Procreate, that deleted artwork is also gone permanently.

Three ways to backup

There are three ways to backup Procreate and its files:

1. iCloud Backup
2. iCloud Drive
3. Computer backup (free)

Each has its pros and cons.

Let's talk about iCloud first.

Apple iCloud is a collection of services. The two main services that relate to backups are iCloud Backup and iCloud Drive folder.

iCloud Backup is a system backup which automatically backups everything, and this includes Procreate and all artworks within.

iCloud Drive is online cloud storage that's not too different from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. To backup your Procreate and artworks, artworks have to be exported and copied them over to iCloud Drive (or other online storage services that you use). This is a manual process.

How deleted files are restored differs in terms of complexity and time.

On the iCloud settings page, there are two separate sections for iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup.

iCloud Backup

• On iPad, go to Settings, your name, iCloud, enable iCloud Backup (look at the time for last backup)

iCloud Backup will backup everything.

iCloud Backup will backup phone messages, wallpaper, home screen icon arrangement, passwords, Procreate files, even the browser tabs that you did not close at the time of backup.

Here's the step by step workflow to restoring a Procreate artwork:

1. Make sure iCloud Backup was enabled and check when the last backup was
2. A Procreate file was deleted accidentally
3. iPad has to be erased
4. Sign in to your Apple account
5. Choose to restore from iCloud
6. Restore starts
7. iPad restarts
8. iPad is restored with default apps
9. iPad starts to restore all your other apps (eg Procreate)
10. Wait for the Procreate loading bar to disappear and this will take hours, days

Since iCloud Backup is a system backup, you cannot choose to restore just one file. With iCloud Backup you have to restore everything, and to do that you have to erase your iPad first. So unfortunately the "iPad has to be erased" step is necessary, unavoidable.

IMPORTANT: Before you erase the iPad, check if you actually have a backup. Go to iPad Settings, click on your name, click iCloud, look for iCloud Backup and the time of last backup

Restoring through iCloud Backup is tedious and time consuming, but at least you will have everything back. Restoring Procreate will take hours, or days (not kidding) depending on file sizes. You must wait for Procreate's loading bar to disappear before you can see all your files. Procreate cannot be used while it's restoring.

If your iPad is lost, stolen or damaged, you go through these steps as well. If other words, you do not need your old iPad to transfer everything over to a new iPad (or one that's wiped clean).

If you do not have enough iCloud storage, you can backup your iPad to a computer which is free:

1. On Mac, the connected iPad will appear in Finder, and you can choose backup options
2. On Windows, you need iTunes installed, and when connected to iPad, you can choose backup options

Note that encryption has to be enabled if you want to backup passwords.

iCloud Drive folder

iCloud Drive is just an online cloud folder where you can choose the file(s) or folder(s) to backup. Main advantage to iCloud Drive vs the other online cloud storage platforms (Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox) is it's more stable, and works more consistently.

• To use iCloud Drive folder for backup, go to iPad Settings, click your name, click iCloud, click Saved to iCloud, enable iCloud Drive.

After iCloud Drive is enabled, it can be accessed from the Files app on your iPad, sidebar in the MacOS finder and on the iCloud website.

After iCloud Drive is enabled, you should create a Procreate folder in the cloud storage, export the Procreate files and copy them over to iCloud Drive. There are a few ways you can do so:

• From Procreate home screen, you can tap Select, and choose the files and folders (Stacks) to export. Export them as Procreate file format. In the Procreate folder in iCloud Drive, you should create separate folders for each Stack you have in your Procreate gallery.
• Have split screen mode to show Procreate and the Files app side by side. With the Files app, navigate to the Procreate folder in iCloud Drive. Drag and drop your Procreate files over to the Procreate folder in Cloud Drive

Because Procreate (older than v5.4) does not support syncing to iCloud Drive, you have to export Procreate files manually, and copy them to iCloud Drive. This backup process is a manual and not automated, so you have to rely on your own routine.

Without automatic iCloud Drive syncing, your file may not be the latest version because the latest version depends on when you create the backup. Procreate developers said they will add iCloud Drive file sync with Procreate v5.4 in the future. Automatic iCloud Drive syncing is not available for Procreate versions older than 5.4.

Here's the step by step workflow to restore a file from iCloud Drive:

1. Enabled iCloud Drive (not to be mistaken for iCloud Backup) from iPad Settings
2. Manually export Procreate artworks out individually to iCloud Drive's Procreate folder (or sub folders).
3. A Procreate artwork was deleted accidentally
4. Open iCloud Drive's Procreate folder and download that backed up file

Which is the better backup option?

There are pros and cons to each option

Pros and cons of iCloud Backup
+ Backups everything
+ Automatic backup
- Cannot choose individual files to restore
- Has to restore to an erased or new iPad
- Restore process takes hours, or even days depending on the Procreate file sizes
- Procreate cannot be used while restore is ongoing
- Silly to erase an iPad just for restoring one file

Pros and cons iCloud Drive
+ Can restore individual files and folders
+ Much quicker to restore files since you're not restoring the whole system
+ Procreate can still be used since restore process is fast
- Tedious process to export Procreate files manually to the iCloud Drive
- Backup process is not automated and depends on your routine
- New artworks are not backed up automatically until you back them up manually
- Version of the artwork restored will depend on when your last backup was

So until iCloud Drive folder syncing is available with Procreate v5.4, these are the two options you have to use.

The best practice is to use both iCloud Backup and iCloud Drive so that you can have all the pros and fewer cons.

Step by step tutorial

Here's a tutorial created by my friend Rob Sketcherman:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rob Sketcherman (@robsketcherman)