The built-in Back up feature saves the current carnival and its Lineage. It does not save every carnival and every Lineage you have.
If you want a complete, exact copy of everything - every carnival, every Lineage, every student - the simplest and most reliable way is to copy the data folder yourself, using Windows' file manager.
This is officially called File Explorer (it was called "Windows Explorer" in older versions of Windows).
Finding your Data folder
SportsTrak always shows you where its data is currently stored. The quickest way to check is to look at the status bar along the bottom of the main SportsTrak window - it displays the current Data Path.
You can also open the Data Path window from the SportsTrak toolbar (next to Check for Updates), which shows the same folder and lets you browse to it directly.
Making the copy
Close SportsTrak before copying anything.
SportsTrak's data is made up of many separate files that all belong together. Copying them while the program is open risks catching some files mid-write, which can leave you with a copy that doesn't match itself.
If you're on a shared network setup with several computers, it's best if nobody else is using SportsTrak at the time either.
Once SportsTrak is closed:
1. Open File Explorer and go to your Data Path folder (see above).
2. Select the whole folder - not individual files - and copy it (Ctrl+C).
3. Paste the copy (Ctrl+V) somewhere safe: a USB drive, an external drive, a cloud-synced folder (OneDrive, Dropbox etc.), or a network location separate from where SportsTrak normally runs.
4. Rename the copied folder to include the date, for example SportsTrak Data 2026-08-10, so you can tell copies apart later.
Copying the whole folder in one go matters - all of SportsTrak's data files depend on each other, so a copy is only trustworthy if every file in it was taken at the same moment.
Restoring from your own copy
This is an all-or-nothing action. Everything currently in your Data folder will be replaced.
Only do this if you genuinely want to discard everything back to the point the copy was made - every carnival, not just one.
1. Close SportsTrak.
2. Rename your current Data folder rather than deleting it (for example, add "-old" to its name). This gives you a safety net if anything goes wrong with the next step.
3. Copy the contents of your saved backup folder into the (now empty) Data Path location.
4. Start SportsTrak and check that things look right.
5. Once you're confident everything is correct, the renamed "-old" folder can be deleted.
Which method should I use?
Use the built-in Back up and Restore for everyday use - saving a carnival before a big change, or handing a carnival to another computer. It's quick, and it correctly reconnects a carnival to its Lineage for you.
Use a File Explorer copy for a complete safety net - before a major software update, before wiping or replacing a computer, or simply as an occasional "just in case" copy of everything at once.