Moving Project data to a new machine

From time to time, you may decide to treat yourself by purchasing a brand spanking new computer (or acquire one by other means...). On such an occasion, it is highly likely that the first thing you wish to do is install Sitebulb.

Before doing anything else, pat yourself on the back for exemplary decision-making.

When you first fire up Sitebulb, it will ask you to log in. Use your account details to log in, and activate your license on the new machine. In doing so you will deactivate the license on your old machine, but this is fine since you have moved on to the shiny new machine now.

This page will give you more details about moving your license to a different machine.

Since Sitebulb Desktop data is stored locally, you will not be greeted with any of your old audits when you go to the Projects page:

This empty Projects screen is because you are on a fresh install on a brand new machine. All the audit data you had on your old machine was stored locally on that hard drive.

Now you are faced with 2 options:

The rest of this article will assume you wish to proceed with #2 above, and will explain how you get your old audit data across from the crappy old machine onto its beautiful new home.

Alas, our journey begins with the decrepit old junkyard that is your old machine. Give yourself a clear 45 minutes for it to fire up, then open up Sitebulb. You may need to juggle the activation of your license again, but this is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons on the 'Your Account' screen.

This step involves locating where Sitebulb has all your audit data stored in your machine.

Navigate to Settings > Logging and find the Data Directory path:

Now you should be able to see a folder entitled 'Sitebulb', which contains all your existing Project data.

Depending on how long ago you installed Sitebulb on your machine, you will find the Sitebulb folder in one of two locations:

Windows

c:\\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Sitebulb
OR
c:\\ProgramData\Sitebulb

Mac

/Users/<USER>/.local/share/Sitebulb
OR
/Users/<USER>/Library/Application Support/Sitebulb

Now that you have located the folder, make sure to shut down the Sitebulb application before you proceed with the next step.

Copy the entire 'Sitebulb' folder and paste it onto an external drive.

You could also use a file-sharing system like Dropbox/Google Drive.

Now you can shut down the stinking pile of trash that is your old computer, and optionally destroy it.

Return to your new machine, and take a moment to appreciate just how much faster and better-looking it is than its predecessor.

With a spring in your step, sign back into Sitebulb on your magnificent new machine.

Follow the same steps as above in order to find the Local folder, which will already contain a 'Sitebulb' folder of its own.

Don't worry about this, it's just the default folder generated when you install.

Depending on how long ago you originally installed Sitebulb on your old machine, the Sitebulb folder may have a different path on your new machine.

Copy the OLD Sitebulb folder from your flash drive/external location, and paste it over this new one.

Now, when you open Sitebulb up, you will see a perfect scale replica of your previous audits, with all their glorious history, which you can enjoy to your heart's content on your pristine new toy.