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Vrge

Your Data, Backups & Updates

Where your data lives

  • Your data lives in a SQLite database on your own computer. In solo mode with local AI, none of it leaves the machine. Two things change that, both by your choice: team mode syncs shared records to the server you run, and a cloud AI key sends the content you have configured to your own provider.
  • Export your data anytime as JSON or CSV from Settings → Data Management.
  • Export works even with an expired license. No DRM, no lock-in.

Bringing your clients from another CRM

If you are moving from HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce — or from a spreadsheet you have kept for years — you can bring your client list with you. It is in Settings → Data Management → Import Clients, and it is also offered during setup, so you can start with your existing clients rather than an empty screen.

You do not need to format the file. Export whatever your CRM gives you. Vrge reads the column headings, works out which is the name, the email, the company and so on, and shows you what it matched so you can correct anything it got wrong.

How to get the file out of your current CRM:

  • HubSpot: Contacts, then Export at the top right. Choose CSV. HubSpot emails you a download link.
  • Pipedrive: open your Contacts list, then Export and choose CSV. The file appears under Generated exports to download.
  • Salesforce: Setup → Data → Data Export, then open the Contacts file from the export.
  • A spreadsheet: File, then Download or Save As, and pick CSV. Any layout works as long as the first row names the columns.

Before anything is saved, Vrge shows you exactly what will happen — how many clients are new, how many you already have, and any rows the file repeats — along with the names it is about to create. Nothing is written until you confirm, and the whole import can be undone afterwards if the file turned out to be the wrong one.

Clients you already have are left alone rather than duplicated: Vrge matches on email address first, then on name and company together. Everything it does create is marked as imported, so months later you can still see where a record came from.

What comes across, and what doesn't. The import brings your client list: names, email addresses, phone numbers, companies, tags and notes. It does not bring deals, activity history, emails or attachments from your old CRM. That is deliberate rather than a limitation we are working around: those are the things Vrge rebuilds for you from your actual email, calendar and bank as it watches, which is more current than anything an export could carry. If you want the old records themselves, keep the CSV. It stays readable in any spreadsheet.

Backups, restore, and reset

You are responsible for your own backups. The controls live in Settings → Data Management:

  • Download Backup saves everything on this computer as a single encrypted file: your clients, projects, invoices and expenses, plus the parts that make Vrge feel like yours — your inbox, the record of where each entry came from, and everything Vrge has learned about how you work. Attached files are included too, up to 25 MB each.
  • Restore from Backup replaces your current data with a backup. Before it does anything, Vrge tells you exactly how much recent work would be erased so nothing is a surprise.
  • Export Data: different from a backup. Export gives you readable JSON or CSV (clients, projects, invoices, etc.) to open in a spreadsheet or move to another tool. A backup is for restoring Vrge itself.
  • Reset All Data permanently deletes everything in the local database. Cannot be undone.

Your recovery code

Because backups are encrypted, the first time you make one Vrge shows you a recovery code: six groups of letters and numbers. This is the key to your backups.

  • Write it down and keep it somewhere safe: a password manager, or on paper away from your computer. You need it to restore a backup on a new computer.
  • We don't have a copy.The code never leaves your machine. That is what makes the backup private — not even we can open it — but it also means that if you lose the code and lose the computer that made the backup, the backup can't be recovered. There is no reset.
  • On the same computer you don't need to type it. Vrge remembers it in your operating system's secure keychain. You only type it when restoring somewhere new.

Setting up automatic backups (free)

A backup you have to remember to make is a backup you don't have on the day you need one. Vrge can write one for you every day:

  1. Take one backup by hand first: Settings → Data Management → Download Backup. This is where Vrge shows you your recovery code, and it will not start automatic backups until you have seen it. A backup nobody can open would be worse than no backup at all.
  2. In the same section, under Automatic backups, click Choose folder and pick where they should go.
  3. That's it. Vrge writes one a day and keeps the most recent seven, removing older ones so the folder doesn't grow forever. It only ever deletes its own backup files. Anything else in that folder is left alone.

Which folder?Somewhere that isn't only on this computer: your Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive or Google Drive folder all work well. Because the backup is encrypted before it is written, those services only ever hold scrambled data.

Vrge Cloud Backup (optional, paid)

Vrge Cloud Backup keeps a copy of those same encrypted backups on our storage, so your records survive losing the computer entirely: no cloud folder of your own required, nothing to maintain.

Solo installs only.Cloud Backup copies the database on this computer. In team mode your records live in the server's database instead, so Vrge hides Cloud Backup there rather than upload a file that would not contain your team's work. Backing up a team server is one command on the machine running it, covered in the self-hosting guide. Hosted backup for team servers comes after launch.

We cannot read any of it. Your backup is encrypted on your machine before it is uploaded, and the key is your recovery code, which never leaves your computer. We hold the file and never the key. It is not that we promise not to look. We have nothing to look at.

To turn it on:

  1. Subscribe to Vrge Cloud Backup (monthly or yearly).
  2. In Settings → Data Management, switch Vrge Cloud Backup on and paste the Vrge Cloud Backup key from your subscription email. It is separate from your Vrge licence key.
  3. Click Back up nowonce to confirm it works. You'll see how much storage you're using, and every backup you already have listed underneath.

You keep the same recovery code, and you still need it to restore on a new computer. Free folder backups keep working alongside Sync. Using both is the belt-and-braces option.

If you cancel: everything already stored stays yours. You can still see it, download it and delete it. The monthly fee pays for storing new backups, never for getting your own data back. Free folder backups carry on as normal, and Vrge itself is unaffected: it is a one-time purchase and keeps working whether or not you subscribe to anything.

Using two computers? Vrge Cloud Backup backs up each one separately. It does not keep them in step. Backups from both appear in the same list, and each is labelled with the computer that made it, because restoring one replaces what is on the machine you restore onto. Name your computers in Settings → Data Management so they are easy to tell apart.

This makes Vrge Cloud Backup a good way to moveto a new computer: back up on the old one, restore on the new one, carry on. It is not a way to work on two computers at once: a day's work on the laptop and a day's on the desktop cannot be merged. If you need that, a Team license runs Vrge on a server you host — where backups are the server's job, not Cloud Backup's, and everyone's records stay in step across every computer they use.

A backup routine that actually protects you

  • Keep backups off your computer.A backup sitting on the same laptop doesn't help if the laptop is lost or stolen. Because the file is encrypted, it is safe to keep in Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive, or on a USB stick.
  • Do it on a schedule you'll keep.Weekly is a reasonable floor; more often if you're entering a lot. Settings shows the date of your last backup.
  • Test a restore once.The only backup you can trust is one you've restored. Try it on a spare machine, or just confirm the file opens with your code before you rely on it.

Moving to a new computer

  1. On the old computer, make a fresh backup and note where it saved.
  2. Copy that file to the new computer (USB stick, or a cloud folder you use).
  3. Install Vrge on the new computer and open it.
  4. Go to Settings → Data Management → Restore from Backup and choose the file. It will ask for your recovery code. This is the moment you need the copy you saved.

How updates arrive

  • Vrge checks for updates automatically when you open the app.
  • When an update is available, you'll see a notification in the bottom-right corner.
  • Click “Install & Restart” to update, or “Later” to dismiss.
  • Updates within your purchased version are always free.
  • Major version upgrades (e.g., v1 → v2) may be a separate purchase.