Data Lifecycle

A recurring question: what makes data.json grow, what shrinks it, and does anything need manual cleanup? Short answer: nothing needs manual cleanup — here is how it works.

Where your data lives

The local source of truth is a SQLite database inside the app's data directory. The data.json file you see in your sync folder is a snapshot the app rewrites from that database — it is the sync payload and a human-readable backup, not an append log.

Because it is rewritten, its size can go down between runs: expired tombstones and purged items simply stop being written. Deleting data.json does not "compact" anything; the app regenerates the same snapshot from the database.

What makes it grow

• Active, completed, and archived tasks (your history stays searchable by design)
• Projects, sections, areas, people, and saved filters
• Attachment metadata (a few hundred bytes per attachment — the file bytes live separately under attachments/)
• Tombstones for deleted items, kept so other devices learn about deletions

What shrinks it automatically

• Tombstone expiry — records of deletions are pruned after the retention window (90 days by default).
• Trash purge — "Delete forever" (per item or Clear all) removes the data immediately and leaves only a tombstone until retention expires.
• Attachment cleanup — orphaned attachment metadata and stale pending transfers are pruned with bounded retries (Settings → Data has a manual cleanup too).

Why one file instead of an archive split

Archived tasks stay in the same synced document on purpose. File backends (WebDAV, folders, Dropbox) upload files independently — splitting active and archived data across files would make archive/unarchive a two-file transaction that can half-apply and diverge between devices. One document merges as one atomic unit. Long-term payload optimization is planned as incremental record sync on top of the existing revision metadata, not as more files. See Sync algorithm for the merge rules.

Practical expectations

Years of normal task use lands in the hundreds of kilobytes to a few megabytes — small compared to the attachments/ folder if you attach files or audio. If the snapshot feels large: empty the Trash, run attachment cleanup in Settings → Data, and check attachments/ before worrying about the JSON.