4SB Archives

If you connect your device to iTunes or open the Files app you’ll be able to see the documents you’ve added to forScore, but that’s only half of the story. Other information, like your setlists, annotations, metadata, settings, and more, are stored in other locations that you can’t access directly. Instead, you use the app to make edits and forScore manages that data internally.

Early on in forScore’s development we added the Backup panel which allows users to create a snapshot of this internal data so you can revert to a previous state if needed. Backups use the custom 4SB file format and they’re saved to the same folder where all of your PDFs and other documents are stored so you can access them and copy them to a safe location.

This works well as an added layer of protection: if you accidentally delete a folder full of setlists, for instance, restoring from the latest automatic backup is usually enough to get you back up and running. It also helps you back up your entire library to your computer by ensuring that forScore’s information about your PDF files isn’t lost: create a 4SB backup in forScore, open iTunes on your computer and access the File Sharing panel, then copy everything there to a safe location.

More and more people rely on cloud storage providers, though, and backing up using a service like Dropbox by uploading every one of your documents is tenuous. If one file doesn’t make it, you might never know and end up with an incomplete backup. Copying data through iTunes and a USB cable is simply more reliable than uploading it to a server.

That’s why we introduced 4SB Archives with our latest updates. Archives are single files that contain your entire forScore library, documents and all. You can upload one to Dropbox and, if the upload is successful, you know the backup is complete. Archives require more storage space than backups, since they include all of your documents, but they’re a helpful new tool in the right situation.