How far back you can go: the recovery window
Your recovery window is how much version history you can roll back through. It is the same for everyone, and no plan changes it:
Every version from the last 7 days, then a daily version out to 30 days.
So for the past week you can return to any version your device uploaded, and for the rest of the month you can return to one version per day. This is a flat product fact, not an upsell — the recovery window is identical whether you are on the free trial or a comped beta account.
Where a restore happens
Restores run through centraid, not the Clawgnition dashboard. The reason is simple: your backups are sealed with a key only your device holds, so only centraid can unseal and rebuild them. The dashboard shows you your vaults and versions, but it cannot open your data — and neither can we.
What a restore does, step by step
- In centraid, choose the vault and the version you want to restore.
- centraid requests short-lived, read-only permission for that vault from Clawgnition.
- It pulls the sealed snapshot bytes straight from storage.
- It unseals them on your device using your encryption key, and rebuilds your vault.
You never paste anything into the dashboard to restore. The whole flow lives in centraid.
Restores are always free
Reading your data back — whether that is a restore or a full export — is never metered and never costs a fee. This is structural, not a promotion: the storage Clawgnition runs on has no charge for reading data out, so free restores are simply how the product is built. It is also what makes the exit promise real.
Restoring to a new machine
Say your laptop is gone and you have a new one. To bring your vault back:
- Install centraid on the new machine.
- Point it at the same vault using the three connection values: the gateway endpoint, an API key, and the vault id. If you no longer have the old API key value, just create a new key — that is fine and does not affect your data.
- Provide your encryption key to centraid, exactly as you did when you first set up. This is the part only you can do.
- Restore the version you want.
You need your encryption key to restore. A new machine, a new API key, and your vault id are all replaceable — but the key that unseals your data is not. If you have lost it and every copy of it, the backups are still there but permanently unreadable, and we cannot recover them for you. This is the one thing to protect above all others. See Your keys.
Common questions
How far back can I roll?
Every version from the last 7 days, then a daily version out to 30 days — the same for everyone.
Does restoring cost anything or count against my quota?
No. Reads and restores are always free and are not metered. Only the data you store counts toward your allowance. See Billing & quota.
Can I restore from the dashboard if I do not have centraid handy?
No. Only centraid can unseal your data, so a restore always runs there. The dashboard can show you your vaults and versions, but it cannot open them.
I lost my encryption key. Can you restore my data?
No — and this is by design. We never hold your key, so we cannot unseal your backups. If you have lost every copy of the key, the data cannot be recovered. Read Your keys to make sure this never happens to you.