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Restoring Data from Your Previous Operating System

Move Signal, Thunderbird, Office, and KeePassXC data into the right Qubes OS VMs without restoring old browser profiles or unnecessary files.

Restoring data from your previous operating system is a manual migration, not a kuhbs restore. Your migration disk contains ordinary files and application exports, not KUHBS archives. Import only the data selected under restore-now; leave old and rarely used data on the air-gapped archive.

Create the destinations first

Add the operator-reviewed application catalog. Enable and Create the persistent KUHBs for Signal, Thunderbird, Office, KeePassXC, and every other application whose data you need. Enable and Create surf for normal web browsing, but do not treat its unnamed DisposableVM sessions as migration destinations.

For a normal AppVM KUHB, the persistent destination follows the generated name:

  • KUHB signal → app-signal
  • KUHB thunderbird → app-thunderbird
  • KUHB office → app-office
  • named instance private → app-<kuhb>-private

A StandaloneVM destination uses sta-<kuhb>. Runtime DisposableVMs are not migration destinations because their changes are discarded.

Do not import this data into generic default Qubes OS VMs. It belongs to the persistent KUH owned by the matching application KUHB.

Import manually

  1. close the destination application;
  2. connect the migration disk;
  3. in Qubes Devices, attach the storage device only to the matching persistent KUH;
  4. copy that application’s directory or use the application’s import function;
  5. verify the imported data; and
  6. detach the device before moving to the next application KUH.

Thunderbird can resync IMAP mail; import only local mail or the required profile state. Do not import an old browser profile, bookmarks database, cookies, extensions, or saved sessions. Store the websites and logins you still need in KeePassXC, then copy the current URL and credentials into each fresh surf DisposableVM session. Open unknown files in a separate disposable session before copying them into a persistent application KUH.

Future backup and restore

After the manual import is verified, use Backup on each application KUHB. KUHBS expands the selected KUHB into its configured persistent KUH archives.

Later, Restore overlays those archives onto the same existing, halted KUHs. If you Remove and recreate a KUHB while its backup VM is running and storage is mounted, Create restores any matching archives before setup scripts run. Restore does not delete destination files that are absent from the archive.

Next: Upgrading KUHBS Managed VMs .