Data portability
Your cards belong to you. Ideafy supports local import / export between editions so you can move from Public to Team (or Team to Public, or across editions in either direction) without losing work.
This page covers the local import/export between Public and Team. For a guided walk-through of the migration in either direction, see Migrate between editions.
What's portable
Ideafy exports a project as a folder or a single archive containing:
| Scope | Portable | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Card title, description, solution, tests, opinion, verdict | ✓ | Full fidelity, Tiptap HTML preserved |
| Status, priority, complexity | ✓ | |
| Task number and project prefix | ✓ | Preserved exactly — re-imported cards keep their IDs |
| Git branch name and worktree status | ✓ | The metadata, not the branch itself (the branch is in the local git repo, not the export) |
| Conversation history (all four tabs) | ✓ | Per-section threads preserved |
| Embedded images in card HTML | ✓ | Base64 data URIs travel with the HTML |
| Project settings (folder path, narrative path, document paths) | ✓ | Folder path is portable but may need editing on import if the target machine has a different layout |
| Pool links (poolCardId, poolOrigin) | ✗ | Dropped — pool is tied to the team it was pushed into. On import, the card lands unlinked |
| Team assignment | ✗ | Dropped — re-linked manually on import |
| Stripe subscription / license | n/a | Not per-project; travels with your account, not your data |
Public → Team
Reasons to do this: you started solo, you're hiring, you want to bring your existing board into a new team.
- On the Public edition, open the project settings modal → Export project
- Save the
.ideafy-export.zipfile - On the Team edition, open + Add Project → Import existing
- Pick the export file
- Confirm the target folder path on the new machine (if different from the original)
- After import, open the project settings and link it to your team if you want pool sync
The cards appear on the board exactly as they were on the source machine. Conversation histories are intact; embedded screenshots are intact; completedAt and every other timestamp is intact.
Team → Public
Reasons: you're scaling down, the team dissolved, you want a local-only backup of your work.
Same export format. The importer in the Public edition reads the same archive, drops the team-only fields (pool links, team assignment), and brings everything else across.
Team → Team (across machines)
Two Team users can hand-off a local project through the same export/import flow. This is useful for:
- Bootstrapping a new teammate's machine with the full history
- Moving from an old laptop to a new one without going through the cloud (e.g., when Supabase isn't an option for the moment)
What doesn't transfer
- The git repository itself. Ideafy exports card metadata, not source code. You still need to clone (or copy) the project's folder on the target machine. Worktree metadata on an imported card will point at a worktree that doesn't exist yet — Ideafy will re-provision on the next "start work" click.
- Agent state. Claude Code / Gemini / Codex session IDs aren't portable. New sessions start fresh on the target machine.
- Running dev servers. Obvious, but worth saying: dev servers don't survive export.
- License activation. Public edition can't import a Team license; Team edition needs its own activation.
Sanity-checking after an import
After importing:
- Open a recently-worked card → confirm the Solution and Tests tabs look right
- Confirm the project settings modal shows the correct folder path
- If it's a team project, re-link it to the team via the settings modal
Prev: Install the Team edition Next: Migrate between editions Up: User guide index