Important Things to Know About Carbonite Safe as You Get Started

There are some aspects of Carbonite that you may not be aware of when first installing the software. The most important of them are listed below.

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Turning Off Your Computer

Turning off your computer during a backup or restore will not require your backup to start over from the beginning. If you turn off your computer while a backup or restore is taking place, Carbonite will resume from where it left off after an internet connection has been made.
- Note: Carbonite requires a constant internet connection for your files to be completely backed up onto our servers. If you are in the middle of backing up a large file and your internet connection is interrupted, you will have to restart the backup of the file in question. Learn more about improving your backup speed here.

If you delete a file from your computer, it will be removed from our servers within 30 days.
If you remove a file from your backup, it will be removed from Carbonite within 72 hours.

During the free trial of Carbonite, music and video files are not included in your backup by default.
On the Basic plan of the software, video files can be backed up, but they are not automatically selected for backup. They are automatically selected on the Plus and Prime versions of the software.
- If you would like to learn how to back up files, follow these articles: for Macs, and for Windows.

Certain files need specific programs to open. Carbonite does not back up programs. In the event of a hardware failure, previously installed programs must be manually reinstalled. After a restore, Carbonite does not automatically import data files back into the programs that once used them (e.g. Outlook, Outlook Express, Roboform, Entourage, etc). You will need to import your restored files manually after Carbonite has restored them to your computer.
- The following articles guide you through the steps for importing on Mac and Windows computers once your restore is complete:
  - Post-Restore Checklist for Macs
  - Post-Restore Checklist for Windows

For Windows computers, C:\Users is selected for backup by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11.
- To add other files and folders to your PC backup, right-click on them and select Carbonite; Back this up.
- You can learn more here.
For Mac computers, /Volume/Users is selected for backup by default. These locations are where most user data is usually saved. Currently, we do not scan your computer for user-created data outside of these locations.
- You can learn more here.

By default, Carbonite only selects your user folder for backup on your internal hard drive. However, with the Carbonite Safe Plus plan, you can add as many files and folders from one external drive as you would like to your online backup. The following articles can guide you through the steps:
- Backing up Files on an External Hard Drive on a Windows Computer
- Backing up Files on an External Hard Drive on a Mac Computer
- If the external hard drive is unplugged from your computer for 30 days or more that backed up data will be removed from the backup.

Shortcuts are not programs or folders. They do not contain data files; they simply point to another location where the actual data exists. Selecting shortcuts for backup may give you the false impression you are backing up your data. To ensure the data files for these programs are selected for backup, first find out where the program's data files are saved on the computer and then add them to your backup.

Selecting folders for a particular program in the Program Files folder or Applications folder does not necessarily back up the data files for that program or application. To ensure the data files for these programs or applications are selected for backup, you need to find out where they are saved on the computer and add them to your backup.

Certain programs like Microsoft Word have an area where you can see which documents were recently opened. This list is based off the files you have opened while running the program on your computer. We cannot restore this list for you. It will be automatically recreated as you access the documents on your computer.

After you have created a Carbonite account, you need to click the Sign In button on our website to access your account. To sign in, please use the information you typed in when you created the account.

You can add as many computers to your account as you would like. Each computer requires its own unique Carbonite subscription. You can purchase additional Carbonite Safe subscriptions by signing into your Carbonite account from the computer you'd like to protect.