I run my entire business using Notion. Projects, content, documentation—all of it. Every backup option I’ve come across has the same issue: they're subscription SaaS tools that send your data through third-party servers, mostly export JSON files, and quietly acknowledge in their FAQs that they can't actually restore your workspace.
I'm building NotionVault, a native desktop app using Tauri/Rust. It runs locally and offers full workspace backups to a folder you choose. Exports in Markdown (human-readable), CSV (for databases), and JSON (for complete structure), along with all images and attachments downloaded locally. The app manages scheduling and retention. Want cloud backup? Just point it to the cloud drive sync folder of your choice. No OAuth integrations are necessary.
The tech decisions: I prefer Tauri over Electron because I don't want to ship Chromium for a backup tool. The Rust backend manages Notion API traversal, rate limiting (3 req/sec), and the immediate download of file attachments. Notion uses expiring S3 URLs with a 1-hour TTL, so you need to grab them during the run or lose them. Each backup is a full pull—no incremental logic, no diffing, no state management. Simplicity over cleverness.
The honest positioning: this is DR/BC, not a restore tool. The Notion API does not support clean restores. Nobody's tool does, even if their marketing implies otherwise. NotionVault is a fire escape. If Notion has a catastrophic day, you have your content in portable formats you can actually open.
One-time $20 purchase. No subscription, no servers on my end, and no recurring cost to justify.
Building this for myself first. Would you use something like this? What would make it worth $20 to you?
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