Backing Up Your Data Using the Export and Import Features in Web Map
onX saves all of your waypoints, lines, shapes and tracks on our servers, but you can also back-up this data on your own computer for safekeeping and to help stay organized.
After using the onX Hunt App for a season or two, your map will most likely be filled with waypoints and tracks that you’ve created. This information can be invaluable, especially when marking locations you would not be able to find again. While we take great care to protect your data, it’s generally a good idea to also make your own back-ups every so often.
Once this data is saved to your computer, it can be restored whenever needed. Both GPX and KML formats are available, but we recommend using GPX format for creating back-ups as it uses less memory than KML format and is easier to manage. You can also load these files into other mapping programs and devices, like Garmin BaseCamp and Garmin GPS units (GPX files), or Google Earth (KML files). It’s your data, and you can use it however you see fit.
The onX Web Map web application is not only a great tool for scouting, it’s also the easiest way to manage your account and keep your data organized. You can use the Export feature to save your information on your own desktop or laptop computer. When you click “Export” in Web Map, it will only save the mark-ups currently selected in the My Content menu, so make sure all the waypoints, lines, shapes and tracks you want to include with the back-up are checked in the My Content menu. When you’re ready to load the GPX files back into your account, you can do so using the Import feature. The Import feature has a 2 MB size limit, so you may want to create several smaller files when exporting your data to make it easier to restore later.
onX team member Jared Larsen is obsessed with keeping his data organized. After every trip, he selects all the waypoints and tracks from those dates and saves them as a GPX file, then deletes them from his onX account. “It’s great to have all that information for future reference,” says Jared, “but I’m not really going to need it again until I start planning my next hunt in that area. Better to clear it out and keep it from cluttering up my map.” Each file exported from Web Map is named “onXmarkups.gpx,” so Jared changes the file name with the date and location of the trip in order to keep his GPX files organized. They’re all saved into the same folder on his computer so he can easily find the one he needs when he’s ready for the next round of scouting.
Besides keeping your data safe, creating back-ups can also improve the performance of the onX Hunt App. Each waypoint, line, shape and track uses a small amount of working memory on your device, meaning the onX Hunt App will have less to use for other functions like zooming, panning, downloading map data, etc. By saving your content to your computer and temporarily removing it from your account, you’ll free up more working memory, allowing the app to run more quickly. A couple of seconds can mean the difference between success and failure, so doing a bit of maintenance on your account from time to time will increase your odds of a successful hunt.
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