Frequently Asked Questions

How do I transfer my lists from the Lite version to the full version?

Paperless Lite includes a button in the settings that will quickly and easily transfer all of your data to the full version. Simply tap the settings/gear icon on the main screen, then tap on "Transfer Lists To Paperless".



How do I backup my data?

Paperless includes an automatic backup feature that saves all of your lists to a free Dropbox account. This feature also allows you to sync your lists between devices. To turn on automatic backup and syncing, go to the Settings screen within the app and tap "Automatic Backup and Syncing".

Also available from the Settings screen, is "Backup To Email". Use this feature to send a backup of all of your data to yourself via email. To restore lists from the backup, simply open the email using the "Mail" app on your iPhone, then tap on the "Restore All Lists" link. (or you can restore individual lists from the backup as well).



Why doesn't Paperless sync with [my favorite online service/desktop application]?

Syncing between iOS devices via Dropbox is now available in version 2.0. I may look into syncing with other services/applications where it makes sense.



Syncing: When I make a change to a list, it gets synced from Dropbox right away (with the spinning busy wheel showing that the list is being synced). What's going on?

This is an issue with the current version of Paperless that occurs if the time on your device is set incorrectly. Paperless thinks the list on Dropbox is newer than the one on your device, so it loads the list back onto your device (even though you just uploaded it).

You can fix the problem by having your iOS device set it's date/time automatically:

  1. open the Settings app on your device
  2. tap on "General"
  3. tap on "Date & Time"
  4. switch "Set Automatically" to ON


Why do I have a duplicate list of my "Groceries" list (for example) named something like "Groceries [My iPhone's Name copy - August 1, 2011]"

To ensure proper syncing, each list in Paperless must have a unique name. So, when a conflict arises with two lists having the same name, it appends something like [Device name's copy - September 1, 2011] to one of the lists... so you have a chance to pick which list to keep, rather than Paperless just overwriting one of them (which might have important information in it!).

Here are the circumstances under which Paperless will handle list name conflicts in this manner:

  1. if you have Paperless running on a device with syncing turned on, then turn on syncing on a second device and they both have a list (or multiple lists) with the same name
  2. if you restore lists from an email backup (from the "Backup To Email" feature) that have the same name as lists already in Paperless
  3. if you import a list from email that has the same name as a list already in Paperless
  4. in rare cases where Paperless on one device couldn't upload a list to Dropbox (usually due to no internet connectivity), then the same list is modified on another device… when the first device is finally able to sync, if it thinks the version of the list on Dropbox is newer, it will handle a naming conflict like that
  5. if you were upgrading from an older version of Paperless that had multiple lists with the same name


Syncing: If I unlink from Dropbox, Paperless gives me the option to "Delete Lists And Unlink" or "Keep Lists And Unlink". Why would I want to delete them?

You'd choose the "Delete Lists And Unlink" option if you are temporarily switching to another Dropbox account.

Keep in mind that if you choose "Keep Lists And Unlink", then relink to that same Dropbox account... you'll end up with two copies of each list. This is because Paperless has no way of knowing which version of the lists you want to keep (the one on Dropbox might have been updated from a different device). Rather than overwrite the list on Dropbox, it keeps both so you can decide which to keep.



I want to edit my lists on a desktop computer, can I do that?

At this time, there is no desktop computer or web-based version of Paperless to edit your lists on a computer.

However, if you have syncing with Dropbox turned on, you could edit the lists on your computer - though it's not for the faint of heart.

Lists are stored on Dropbox in the "Paperless" folder, and each list is saved as a separate .xml file. You can open the .xml files in a plain text editor to edit them if you wish - but you must be sure to only edit your information, and not the XML formatting tags (like <itemName>).

You should also be aware that XML requires that a few characters be written in a special way:

As far as text editors go... if you're on a Mac, a free application called TextWrangler is highly recommended. I'm not familiar enough with Windows text editors to make a recommendation, although Notepad++ looks like it might be good.

Or, you could try a free XML editor called "Serna" (Mac/Windows/Linux) which will automatically fix any characters like "&" when you save the file - though I find this more complicated to use than a plain text editor.



Will you localize Paperless to use my language?

I'll look into supporting other languages in a future update.



Can you add a feature to let you place lists within lists? or arrange lists within folders or categories?

Perhaps. That feature may make it into a future release but it's too soon to make any promises.



Why doesn't Paperless let you assign due dates to items in checklists?

Paperless was never intended to be a time based task manager like one of the many "getting things done" clones. There are plenty of those out there, and personally that's not the way I work. I find that with most date based solutions, I end up spending a lot of time changing dates when priorities change - rather than actually focusing on getting things done.

With Paperless, if something is important, I just place it at the top of the checklist - and less important things are pushed further down. If priorities change, list items can quickly be rearranged accordingly. Based on feedback, many people agree with this simple approach.

Also, Paperless is used for more than just checklists/todos. So, in some ways, going the date based route and trying to turn it into a full blown time-based task management app that syncs with other time-based apps/services just doesn't make sense.

I think there's room for both ways of managing ones time, and I talk more about this in the blog post "Paperless Versus 'Getting Things Done'".