Move your GBrain into a workspace

If you run GBrain on your own computer, you can move its notes into a workspace without losing anything that is already there. The move has five parts:

1. Back up the workspace.
2. Export your GBrain.
3. Send the export to the workspace.
4. Import it.
5. Check the result, then clean up.

Every command runs in a terminal on your computer. Nothing is changed in the workspace until the import, and by then you have a copy of everything it held. Going the other way, from a workspace to your own computer, is Move your GBrain out of a workspace.

Set up gbrainio

Every command on this page runs through gbrainio, GBrain’s command line. It installs in one line and needs nothing else on your computer.

1. Install it.

   $ curl -sSL https://gbrainio.terminalwire.sh | bash
   

2. Sign in. Run gbrainio login. It opens your browser; approve it there, and choose the workspace you’re moving into. If the browser doesn’t open, the command prints a link to paste into one.

3. Get shell access. An admin of the workspace turns it on for you under Shell in its settings. Free workspaces can’t turn it on. gbrainio workspace shell <id> open prints that page’s address.

4. Find the workspace’s id. gbrainio workspace ls lists the workspaces you can reach, with their ids and whether shell access is on.

Your notes come from the GBrain already running on your computer, so the only new thing to install is gbrainio.

Make a folder for the move

Keep the id in a variable so the commands below can be pasted as written, and make a folder for the move:

$ WS=652
$ mkdir -p ~/gbrain-move && cd ~/gbrain-move

Use your workspace’s id in place of 652.

The commands that run inside the workspace are in single quotes. The quotes stop your own shell from reading $, ~ or > in them, so those reach the workspace as written.

Compare GBrain versions

$ gbrain --version
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- gbrain --version

The two don’t have to match. The move carries your notes as markdown files, which every version of GBrain reads, rather than a database dump, which only loads into the version that wrote it. The versions are worth knowing in case something looks off later. Workspaces move to new GBrain versions on GBrain’s schedule, after each release is tested, so a workspace is often a release or two behind the newest one.

1. Back up the workspace

Take two copies of what the workspace holds now, onto your computer:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'rm -rf /data/move-backup && gbrain export --dir /data/move-backup'
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'tar czf - -C /data/move-backup .' > workspace-notes.tar.gz
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'pg_dump -h 127.0.0.1 -U gbrain -Fc gbrain' > workspace-database.dump

• workspace-notes.tar.gz is every note as a markdown file. This is the copy you can put back yourself, the same way the move works.
• workspace-database.dump is the whole database under Memory, including links, facts, timelines and earlier versions of each note. If you ever need the workspace exactly as it was, send this file to support@gbrain.io.

Note how many notes the workspace has before the move:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- gbrain stats

Pages:     31
Chunks:    41
Embedded:  41

2. Export your GBrain

On your computer:

$ gbrain export --dir ~/gbrain-move/notes

It ends with a count, like Exported 1204 pages to /Users/you/gbrain-move/notes/. Count the files to be sure they’re all there:

$ find notes -name '*.md' | wc -l

Check for notes in both places

A note’s path is its name, like people/jane-doe. When the workspace already has a note at the same path, the import replaces it with yours. List the paths on both sides and compare them:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'gbrain list --limit 100000' | cut -f1 | sort > workspace-paths.txt
$ (cd notes && find . -name '*.md' | sed 's|^\./||; s|\.md$||' | sort) > my-paths.txt
$ comm -12 workspace-paths.txt my-paths.txt

If the last command prints nothing, no note will be replaced. If it prints paths, those notes will become your versions. The workspace’s versions are in workspace-notes.tar.gz. To keep both, rename your copies in notes before the next step.

3. Send the export to the workspace

$ COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar --no-xattrs -czf - -C notes . | gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'mkdir -p /data/move-in && tar xzf - -C /data/move-in'

The export goes through the terminal compressed and is unpacked in the workspace. COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 and --no-xattrs keep macOS from adding its hidden ._ files and file attributes to the archive; on Linux they change nothing.

Check that the same number of files arrived:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'find /data/move-in -name "*.md" | wc -l'

4. Import it

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'gbrain import /data/move-in'

GBrain reads every file, files each note, and indexes it for search. It ends like this:

Import complete (41.2s):
  1204 pages imported
  0 pages skipped (0 unchanged, 0 errors, 0 malformed filenames)
  1611 chunks created

A large export can take a while, and closing the terminal stops an import running in it. For thousands of notes, start it in the background and check on it:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'setsid nohup gbrain import /data/move-in < /dev/null > /data/move-in.log 2>&1 &'
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'tail -5 /data/move-in.log'

Running the import again is safe. Notes that are already in skip as unchanged, so a second run picks up only what the first one missed.

Indexing notes for search uses a little of the workspace’s AI credit. For notes of typical length, a few thousand cost well under a dollar.

5. Check the result

The count. Run gbrain stats again:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- gbrain stats

Pages should be the count from before the move, plus your export, minus any paths the comparison found in both places. Embedded catches up to Chunks over the next few minutes as search indexing finishes. If it stays behind, finish it by hand:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'gbrain embed --stale'

A search. Look for something you know is in your notes:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'gbrain search "a phrase from one of your notes"'

Memory. Open the workspace’s Memory on the web. Your folders are there, and a note opens to its text.

The assistant. Ask about something only your notes would know. It answers from Memory and names the note.

Clean up

Once the workspace looks right, remove the files the move left in it:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'rm -rf /data/move-in /data/move-in.log /data/move-backup'

The folder on your computer holds the backups and your export. Either move it somewhere you keep backups, or delete it when you no longer need it:

$ rm -rf ~/gbrain-move

Putting the workspace back

To undo the move, send the backup in and import it the same way. Notes that the move replaced go back to the workspace’s versions:

$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'rm -rf /data/restore && mkdir -p /data/restore'
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'tar xzf - -C /data/restore' < workspace-notes.tar.gz
$ gbrainio workspace shell $WS -- 'gbrain import /data/restore && rm -rf /data/restore'

Notes that came only from your export stay. For the workspace exactly as it was, everything else included, write to support@gbrain.io with workspace-database.dump.