43 Folders

Back to Work

Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

Join us via RSS, iTunes, or at 5by5.tv.

”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

rooSwitch for easy, restorable application profiles

rooSwitch - Shuffle Your Settings Around

When you're testing a new version of an application (or just being a little paranoid), it can be a pain to deal with protecting your "real" data from being corrupted or overwritten. While something like SuperDuper is priceless for backing up a drive to a disk image, you want something that's not only lighter in weight, but that is smart enough to deal just with the settings associated with a single program. That's where roobaSoft's rooSwitch comes in.

rooSwitch's smarts come in being able to recognize which Preferences, Application Support folders, and related files belong to an app's settings (but, not -- it should be noted -- its documents), so that you can then backup, switch, and restore a group of settings whenever you need to. This can be quite a lifesaver.

So, for example, if I feel like a build of the OmniFocus sneaky peek is being balky (Heaven forfend!), I just drop the OF icon onto rooSwitch's drop-pad, and it saves the current prefs as "default," allowing me to create a new, empty set of preference for testing the app. I can also duplicate a previously switched profile, and, of course, restore any set at any time.

Another one of those fantastic apps that you may never need -- until the day you really need it.

rooSwitch is shareware from roobaSoft, and it will set you back $14.95 (approximately 1/47 of an "Alex"). Props to roobaSoft for easy PayPal payment and an instant serial number.

Tommy Weir's picture

I like RooSwitch for those...

I like RooSwitch for those apps like KIT or Yojimbo which have only one database. You can have multiple databases using it. Same for iWeb if you use it.

Franz's post just gave me the willies... off to back up...

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

Popular
Today

Popular
Classics

An Oblique Strategy:
Honor thy error as a hidden intention


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

Scared Shitless

Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »