Move Your Sessions to a New Device Without Cloud Sync

With Cloud Sync off, your sessions exist only on the device that captured them, so a new computer or phone starts empty unless you bring them across. You’ll move your sessions (transcripts, summaries, notes, chats, highlights, to-dos, and topics) and, if you turned on Save Session Audio, the audio files that go with them.

Your Hedy settings and any downloaded Local AI or speech models stay behind, so set your preferences again on the new device and download the models you need there.

Before you start

• Sign in with the same Hedy account on the new device. Hedy shows each account only its own sessions, so moved sessions stay hidden under a different account.
• Keep the old device as it is until you’ve checked the new one. Open a few sessions on the new device, including one with audio, before you delete Hedy or reset the old device. Until then, the old device holds your only copy.

Same kind of device: use its own transfer tool

Moving to the same kind of device is easiest, because the platform’s own migration tool moves Hedy’s sessions and audio together.

Mac to Mac. Use Apple’s Migration Assistant, either while setting up the new Mac or later from Applications → Utilities. Transfer your user account with its apps and files. Hedy keeps everything inside your user Library, so it comes across with your account.

iPhone or iPad to iPhone or iPad. Use Quick Start when you set up the new device, or restore it from an iCloud or computer backup of the old one. Hedy’s data is part of the device backup.

Android to Android. When you set up the new phone, choose to copy data from your old phone, preferably with a cable. Don’t rely on restoring from a Google cloud backup: Google skips backing up an app’s data once it is larger than 25 MB, which Hedy’s almost always is. If your old phone runs Android 12 or older, check that a session’s audio plays on the new phone before you reset the old one.

Windows to Windows. Windows has no built-in tool for this, so you copy two folders by hand:

1. On the old PC, quit Hedy completely: right-click the Hedy icon in the system tray and choose Quit Hedy. Closing the window only hides it.
2. Copy the file hedy_sessions.db from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedy (paste that path into the File Explorer address bar).
3. Copy your audio files (.m4a and .wav) from Documents\Hedy. If you find none there, look in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedy.
4. Install Hedy on the new PC. If it is running, quit it from the system tray.
5. Paste hedy_sessions.db into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedy on the new PC, replacing the file that’s there. If files named hedy_sessions.db-wal or hedy_sessions.db-shm sit next to it, delete them first.
6. Paste the audio files into Documents\Hedy on the new PC, even if they came from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedy on the old one.
7. Start Hedy and sign in.

You don’t need to copy the models folder. Hedy downloads models again when you need them.

Any device to any other: Export All Data and Import Data

To move between different kinds of devices, say from Windows to a Mac or from an iPhone to an Android phone, use Hedy’s built-in backup. It also works between two devices of the same kind if you’d rather not migrate the whole device.

1. On the old device, open Settings → Automation & Data and, under Backup & Transfer, choose Export All Data. Hedy saves all your sessions, topics, and highlights as a single file.
2. Move that file to the new device, for example by email, AirDrop, a USB stick, or a cloud drive.
3. On the new device, sign in, open Settings → Automation & Data, choose Import Data, and select the file.

Import is available in the Hedy apps for iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows, but not in the web app. Running it twice doesn’t create duplicates: Hedy skips sessions it already has.

The export file doesn’t include audio. Your sessions arrive with their transcripts and notes, but without their recordings. To keep the audio, move the audio files yourself as described below.

Moving the audio files by hand

Hedy looks up a session’s audio by its file name, so once the files are in Hedy’s audio folder on the new device, imported sessions find their recordings again. Copy every .m4a and .wav file and keep the file names unchanged.

Copy the files from the folder on the old device to the matching folder on the new one. On Android, collect the files from both folders and put them all in Music/Hedy on the new phone. On a Mac or Windows PC, quit Hedy on the new device while you copy. On a Mac, if macOS asks whether Finder may access data from other apps, choose Allow.

If you only need a few recordings, you can also save them one at a time: open the session’s audio player menu and choose Share audio file on a phone, or Show in folder on a computer.

Related

• Understanding Cloud vs Local Storage
• Keep Sensitive Conversations on Your Device