Backup and restore

Your rules are the result of many decisions, so they’re worth a backup. Little Snitch stores your rules and settings in two formats:

An encrypted, proprietary format, which Little Snitch can update efficiently. This is the file that Little Snitch actually uses: /Library/Application Support/Objective Development/Little Snitch/configuration6.xpl.
An export format in JSON syntax, with the file extension .lsbackup. You can read it, and you can compare two of these files with a diff tool.

To restore either format, or a format of an older version of Little Snitch, choose File > Restore from Backup… in the Little Snitch app, or use the command line utility.

Back up with Time Machine or a similar app

If you already back up your Mac regularly, and your backup includes /Library/Application Support, half of the work is done. But only half: this folder contains the configuration in the encrypted format, and to use it, you also need the encryption key.

The encryption key is in the System keychain (open the Keychain Access app), under the name “Little Snitch Encryption Key”. Make sure that you have a copy of this key in case you need to restore. Even better, do a test restore on a different Mac: that proves that your backup includes the System keychain and restores it correctly.

A backup of this folder has one more advantage: it also includes the network statistics, again encrypted.

Create a backup file

To create a backup as an .lsbackup file, choose File > Create Backup…, or use the command line utility. The file contains all rules and all settings that matter for the network filter, but not the network statistics.

The big advantage of this format is that it’s open: programs can read and process it with standard libraries, and a diff tool shows you exactly what changed between two backups.

The flip side is that Little Snitch doesn’t encrypt these files. Anyone who gets hold of a backup file can read your rules, and those of all other users on your Mac at the time of the backup. Keep your backup files in a safe place.

Restore from a backup

In the Little Snitch app, choose File > Restore from Backup….
Select a backup in the list. To use a different file, click Browse….
Click Next.
Click Import….
Enter an administrator password.

The list shows the following backups:

Automatic daily backups in /Library/Application Support/Objective Development/Little Snitch. Their file names contain the date and time of the backup.
Automatic backups of your previous configuration, which Little Snitch creates each time you restore a backup. Use them to undo a restore. Their file names contain importBackup.
.lsbackup files that Spotlight finds.
Configurations in the proprietary format that Little Snitch put aside, because they caused a crash or couldn’t be read. Their file names contain crashOnLoad.
Backups and configurations in the proprietary format of older versions.

To restore a backup on a different Mac whose user IDs are different, use the command line, and give it a mapping of the user IDs.

The reason: backups contain the rules and settings of all users, and Little Snitch identifies the users by their numeric Unix user ID, not by their name. A different Mac can have more or fewer accounts, and it can assign the user IDs in a different order.