Hi! Welcome to Streamer’s Haven! My name is Monodex, and I want to teach you how to make a Stream Deck backup of your button profiles. Losing a Stream Deck profile that has advanced functionality can be very frustrating and can even cripple your workflow process if you rely on it. I know you value your time, so I’m just going to get straight to the point here – Sans the fluff!
Table of Contents
The Stream Deck Backup Process
Backing up your Stream Deck profile only takes 5 easy steps.
- Left-Click on the Gear icon
- Select the “Profiles” tab
- Right-Click your profile. A new window should appear that looks like this:
- Hover over “Backup All”
- Left-Click “Create Backup…”
As you can see, restoring a backup is just as easy.
Recommended Backup Interval Frequency
If you rely on the Stream Deck for your work, I recommend creating a backup any time you make a change. This means any time you change the layout or add new buttons. Doing this ensures that you will retain complete workflow functionality even in the event of a botched update or catastrophic data loss.
Side note: As of Version 5.3, The Stream Deck will create automatic backups before each update. This process is only run when the update is triggered, so you still need to make manual backups.
Extra Security: Sync to Cloud Storage
Between Google Drive, OneDrive, and Amazon Cloud Storage, there are a ton of cloud storage services that give you a fairly large drive to work with, even on the free plans. Certainly large enough for the tiny backup file. Syncing your profile to this cloud storage service is a very good way to secure your stream deck profile in the event of catastrophic data loss.
Trust me, it never hurts to be prepared. I’ve lost 480 gigabytes worth of pictures from over 8 years of my life when I tripped over a wire connected to an external HDD drive when it was spinning. This caused the drive reading head to impact the drive platter and destroy the drive.
Pro tip: If you value your data, keep it in at least three places. Also, burning pictures to a CD is not a good long-term storage solution since data rot can destroy those in about 10-50 years’ time, depending on the disc type. A 10-year lifespan estimate is generous, given that it is “perfect storage conditions,” which almost nobody does.
Thank me later.
Creating an Export of your Stream Deck Profile
Exporting your profile is slightly different from creating a Backup in that it is intended to be used to share profiles with other users.
This is particularly useful if you are using the stream deck on a business level. For example, a programmer can create a multi-action macro to import a complex formula into an excel cell for data entry purposes. This allows any worker to utilize that complex formula at the touch of a button, and they don’t have to worry about making as many mistakes.
For streamers, the original market intent behind the origin of the stream deck in the first place, exporting means sharing button layouts among collaborators. This can be very useful if you decide to hire a stream manager who handles all of your scene switching for you so you can focus entirely on creating your content.
To export a Stream Deck profile, you repeat the same process for creating a backup until Step 4, then you instead click on Export and name it something memorable. That file you created can then be uploaded to discord or sent to whomever you choose to share it with.
Conclusion: Backups are important
I think it goes without saying that backups of your data are important, especially when that data has income multiplying potential. I hope that you practice good data retention practices. Storing a file in at least three different places is something I do for my work.
For example, the images I make are stored locally, synced to Amazon Photos, exist on my website’s server, and are even stored in the automatic daily backups made of my website. I really value this data because it is a source of my livelihood.
A stream deck profile has that same value because it is a tool that enhances your productivity. Anything that does that is deserving of careful handling of the data that makes that productivity possible.
Could you redo it if it was lost? Yes, absolutely. Losing a profile isn’t as dramatic as losing a website you spent the last 3 years building, but it is still an inconvenience to you. Backups cost nothing, and you have everything to lose if things go wrong.