# Did signing out of Postman really just delete all my data? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help Hub\ **Created:** [July 15, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555 "2019-07-15T19:37:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jhowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@jhowe](https://community.postman.com/u/jhowe)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/1 "2019-07-15T19:37:59Z")
I’ve been using Postman without signing in for months. Our company is pretty restrictive about putting anything in the cloud. I did want to see what else I could do with an account, so I signed up and signed in. After poking around, I decided I didn’t see enough value so I signed-out. There was some message about deleting things, but I figured since I hadn’t created anything new I didn’t have anything to save. After signing out, when I restart Postman, all of my previous requests and collections seem to have been deleted. Is this really what happened, or is there some way to recover what I had been using? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Chris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/getpostman/user_avatar/community.postman.com/chris/32/6637_2.png) [@Chris](https://community.postman.com/u/Chris)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/2 "2019-07-15T20:48:13Z")
Hey @jhowe! Sorry to hear you’re having problems here – locally stored data is wiped when a user signs out of the app. If you have backups of your local files, we may be able to guide you through the restoration process. ---
**Author:** ![jhowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@jhowe](https://community.postman.com/u/jhowe)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/3 "2019-07-15T21:17:05Z")
Unfortunately I don’t have backups. I do have one collection that I had exported previously, so I will be able to restore that. I must say that I was not expecting Postman to basically take ownership of my local files just because I signed in to a cloud account. When I saw the message about deleting local files, I thought that Postman might delete some files that were created while I was logged on, and I was fine with that. I didn’t know that Postman was going to wipe out the work I had done before I ever created a Postman account. Sadly our office desktops are not backed up (something I’ve complained about), so it seems that the requests I had created are now gone and I’ll have to recreate them as needed. I really find Postman useful, but I don’t understand why it would need to wipe out all data just because you sign out of your account. ---
**Author:** ![singhsivcan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/getpostman/user_avatar/community.postman.com/singhsivcan/32/1595_2.png) [@singhsivcan](https://community.postman.com/u/singhsivcan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/4 "2019-07-16T06:27:24Z")
You also might want to read about - [Data dump in Postman](https://learning.getpostman.com/docs/postman/collections/data_formats/#data-dumps) Which will help you to backup all your data across the workspaces that you’ve joined. ---
**Author:** ![jhowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@jhowe](https://community.postman.com/u/jhowe)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/5 "2019-07-16T11:49:15Z")
Yes, in hindsight that would have been a good thing to do and it is something that I will take advantage of going forward. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![davidrbrooks73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@davidrbrooks73](https://community.postman.com/u/davidrbrooks73)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2019, 5:24am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/6 "2019-09-04T05:24:31Z")
Have just seen this post and it looks like I have now lost years of work. Why on earth would you put a button to delete all of your local data where you would normally find a login or cancel button. I was in a rush to get to postman and clicked this button. Now I have nothing. We are behind a firewall and all my data is local because I cant sync. This is the most stupid functionality ever. There wasn’t even a warning button to let you know that all local data would be irretrievably deleted. I wish I had never signed up to postman - I had been happily using it locally for years. I agree with jhowe - " I was not expecting Postman to basically take ownership of my local files just because I signed in to a cloud account" - who thought this would be a good idea? (especially with a self destruct button where you would normally expect a login button). ---
**Author:** ![todd.hampton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@todd.hampton](https://community.postman.com/u/todd.hampton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/7 "2019-10-21T23:13:09Z")
Really annoyed by this “feature”… Wish I have never signed in. Users be warned. ---
**Author:** ![obmuc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@obmuc](https://community.postman.com/u/obmuc)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/8 "2019-12-19T15:32:00Z")
What the hell? I just lost months of work due to this. This is a deal-breaker… i’m switching to ARC; recommend others do the same. ---
**Author:** ![marthedal22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@marthedal22](https://community.postman.com/u/marthedal22)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 1:16pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/9 "2020-01-07T13:16:23Z")
Same here… just lost 2 years work just because I clicked the sign in button ---
**Author:** ![arlem](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/getpostman/user_avatar/community.postman.com/arlem/32/3078_2.png) [@arlem](https://community.postman.com/u/arlem)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/10 "2020-01-07T13:38:32Z")
@marthedal22 Did you mean sign out? If you had sync enabled signing back in will restore your data. You can verify that by going to [https://go.postman.co/me](https://go.postman.co/me) and checking if your data is there. ---
**Author:** ![jslevin4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b487fb/32.png) [@jslevin4](https://community.postman.com/u/jslevin4)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/11 "2020-01-09T17:53:35Z")
Same thing happened to me. Lost a ton of work just now. ---
**Author:** ![brian.bellon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@brian.bellon](https://community.postman.com/u/brian.bellon)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/12 "2020-01-24T18:46:38Z")
This just happened to one of our users and he found a backup .json file under \Appdata\Roaming\Postman with a filename of backup-\.json. He made a copy of the file and imported it into Postman and got his data back. He hadn’t ever created an account and had just used Postman locally, never syncing his collections. Hope this could help you! ---
**Author:** ![susanne387](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/858c86/32.png) [@susanne387](https://community.postman.com/u/susanne387)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 8:40am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/13 "2021-01-13T08:40:37Z")
Even if you can restore the data by logging in, that’s not okay. My data should not simply disappear into the cloud once I have logged in. This massively destroys the user’s trust in Postman. ---
**Author:** ![jimcoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jimcoun](https://community.postman.com/u/jimcoun)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 10:30am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/14 "2021-01-13T10:30:10Z")
This happened to me today. Very bad user experience… I am really disappointed. Totally agree with the user above. I did not expect everything to move to the cloud once I log in. ---
**Author:** ![jimcoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jimcoun](https://community.postman.com/u/jimcoun)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 10:36am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/15 "2021-01-13T10:36:10Z")
Thanks. Just recovered! ---
**Author:** ![salutallen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@salutallen](https://community.postman.com/u/salutallen)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 9:02pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/16 "2021-03-18T21:02:36Z")
I’ve been using Postman locally on my device without an account for years. I expected my saved collections were stored in a local folder somewhere. When I recently created an account and logged in for the first time, poof–all of my local collections were gone without a trace and no way to easily locate and import them into my account. Searched for a solution and found this post. Thank you @brian.bellon, I found a fairly recent backup file under the \Appdata\Roaming\Postman folder and was able to import all of my saved collections. I must say, this is a really poor user experience and really poor planning by the Postman development team–this could have seriously wrecked my day. ---
**Author:** ![docking-module-saga1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@docking-module-saga1](https://community.postman.com/u/docking-module-saga1)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2021, 6:30pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/17 "2021-03-22T18:30:02Z")
Well this just happened to me. I signed in for the first time because I wanted to edit my environments, but I was having issues so I tried signing out, and apparently when I said it would delete all unsaved data, all my local SAVED data for the last couple of months is deleted? Who thought this was a good idea? ---
**Author:** ![taehoshino](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/getpostman/user_avatar/community.postman.com/taehoshino/32/6608_2.png) [@taehoshino](https://community.postman.com/u/taehoshino)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 1:13am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/18 "2021-03-23T01:13:39Z")
Hey @docking-module-saga1, Sorry to hear that you are unable to find your local data. So that we can assist you further, can you submit a request from the following link? [https://support.postman.com/hc/en-us/requests/new](https://support.postman.com/hc/en-us/requests/new) ---
**Author:** ![docking-module-saga1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@docking-module-saga1](https://community.postman.com/u/docking-module-saga1)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/19 "2021-03-23T17:22:26Z")
I found my data under the backup file which was mentioned above in the thread, so looks like it wasn’t all deleted. I tried searching for it in the default save folder when I googled so I thought it was all lost before. Still I don’t understand why the default unsigned-in data would be deleted to begin with. This is the link I still had open about recovering data, and no where did it mention the backup file: [https://support.postman.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035071313-How-to-recover-my-data-](https://support.postman.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035071313-How-to-recover-my-data-) ---
**Author:** ![taehoshino](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/getpostman/user_avatar/community.postman.com/taehoshino/32/6608_2.png) [@taehoshino](https://community.postman.com/u/taehoshino)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 1:05am UTC](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555/20 "2021-03-24T01:05:39Z")
Thanks for getting back @docking-module-saga1. Sorry for the troubles, but I am glad to hear that you could recover your data. Thanks so much for pointing out about that help center article 🙏 I have now updated the article to include that information 👍 Please let me know if you have any further questions. [Next page](https://community.postman.com/t/did-signing-out-of-postman-really-just-delete-all-my-data/6555.md?page=2)