Back this up

Your Reaper data folder holds things you can't regenerate. Where it is depends on your install.

File	Why it matters
reaper.db	Your policies, decisions, whitelist and audit trail.
secret.key	The master key, when Reaper generated one. Absent if you supply REAPER_SECRET_KEY.
secret.salt	Minted per install, and paired with that key. Both are needed to decrypt.
launcher.conf	Windows, macOS and the snap only. The port and bind address live here and nowhere else.

Caution

The key and the salt only work as a pair. The key is stretched with secret.salt before anything is decrypted, so a backup carrying one without the other reads exactly like a backup carrying neither. Take them together, every time.

Let Reaper do it

Settings, Backup produces one archive so you don't accidentally take three files out of four by hand. It leaves out secret.key if your key comes from REAPER_SECRET_KEY because there's no file to take. Restoring that archive needs you to have the same variable set.

If your install has a launcher.conf, it travels with it. Rebuilding on the same kind of install keeps your set port and bind address. Restoring turns recovery mode off inside it.

Restoring that archive requires your admin password. Downloading it only requires that you're signed in.

Caution

Treat the archive and reaper.db as sensitive. They hold the credentials for every service Reaper talks to, including a Plex token that grants full control of your Plex account. Encryption at rest guards the file on disk. Keep it out of public issue reports and support threads all the same.

The one Reaper takes on its own

Most updates only add to the database. If an update needs to change or remove something, Reaper copies the database into a pre-migration folder beside it before the update runs and keeps the newest three. If it can't write that copy, it stops and doesn't run the update.

These are ordinary Reaper backups. Settings, Backup restores them just like any other. Treat them as sensitive because each carries the same credentials as the archive above.

The one you can throw away

You can delete cache.db whenever you want. It's just a local mirror of watch history and the IMDb dataset, so Reaper will rebuild it for you.

Reaper keeps cache.db out of the backup because nothing in it is a source of truth.

Restoring

Move your files back into the data folder and start Reaper. Migrations run before the app accepts a connection so an older database is brought forward as it starts up.

If you go the other way, Reaper stops. A database a newer version set up won't open on an older one because the older code can't read it safely. Put the newer version back, or restore a backup made with the older one.

If you restore reaper.db without its matching key and salt, every stored credential becomes unreadable and you'll have to enter them again. Your policies, decisions and audit trail will survive.

Caution

Re-entering a credential against the wrong key destroys the good one. If services come back unreadable, put the right key and salt in place first. Saving over an unreadable credential writes new ciphertext under the wrong key, and the original is then gone.