--- title: I Accidentally Wiped My Entire VS Code Setup and Built a... description: A developer accidentally wiped their entire VS Code setup during a storage cleanup and, finding no adequate backup solution, built Ark — a VS Code extension... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-accidentally-wiped-my-entire-vs-code-setup-and-built-a-tool-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again-mbo86ey55 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I Accidentally Wiped My Entire VS Code Setup and Built a Tool to Make Sure It Never Happens Again | daily.dev og:description: A developer accidentally wiped their entire VS Code setup during a storage cleanup and, finding no adequate backup solution, built Ark — a VS Code extension... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-accidentally-wiped-my-entire-vs-code-setup-and-built-a-tool-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again-mbo86ey55 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/mBo86eY55.png og:image:alt: I Accidentally Wiped My Entire VS Code Setup and Built a Tool to Make Sure It Never Happens Again og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I Accidentally Wiped My Entire VS Code Setup and Built a Tool to Make Sure It Never Happens Again **[Evans Elabo](https://daily.dev/sources/9onl610bxnittl3hwj9qm)** · [@oxconcept](https://daily.dev/oxconcept) · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer accidentally wiped their entire VS Code setup during a storage cleanup and, finding no adequate backup solution, built Ark — a VS Code extension that auto-backs up extensions, settings, and keybindings to a private GitHub Gist every 30 seconds. It supports one-click restore on any machine, requires no third-party servers, and is free and open source on the VS Code Marketplace. ## Content **TL;DR** - I lost everything due to a storage cleanup gone wrong, searched for a backup solution for VS Code and found nothing, also I couldn't restore from my GitHub account synchronizations, I lost my setup configs, extensions, and many others, so I built **Ark** - now my setup auto-backs up, and I can restore it instantly. **Links:** - [VS Code Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ellaboevans.ark-disaster-recovery) - [GitHub](https://github.com/ellaboevans/ark) # The Story A week ago, I got a storage alert. My drive was close to being full. I grabbed a cleaning tool to sweep up junk files... and accidentally nuked my entire VS Code setup. Extensions, settings, keybindings, gone. I panicked. Surely there's a tool for this? I searched for "VS Code backup", "VS Code recovery", you name it. Nothing. There were tools that did _other_ things, but nothing that solved _this_ specific problem. So I spent a weekend building it myself. # What is Ark? **Ark** is a VS Code extension that automatically backs up your entire setup (extensions + settings) to a private GitHub Gist. When disaster strikes, new machine, accidental wipe, whatever, you restore everything in seconds. **Key features:** - Auto-backup every 30 seconds (silent, no overhead) - Backs up to private GitHub Gist (you own it, GitHub stores it, it's free) - One-click restore on any machine - Secure - no third-party servers, just your GitHub token - Smart restore - shows you what's changing before applying # Why I Built It Most developers spend _months_ perfecting their VS Code setup. The right extensions, theme, and keybindings. You'd think this would be... backed up? But no. A new laptop? Hours of rebuilding. Wiped your drive? Start from scratch. It shouldn't be this fragile. # Now? Now, when my drive gets full, I don't panic. When I get a new machine, setup is 2 minutes. When I experiment with settings, I know I can always restore. **It's free, open source, and lives on the VS Code Marketplace.** Just search "Ark" in extensions. If this solves a problem you've had, I'd love to hear about it. If you have ideas for improvements, I'm all ears. **Links:** - [VS Code Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ellaboevans.ark-disaster-recovery) - [GitHub](https://github.com/ellaboevans/ark) ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I wiped my entire Obsidian vault, and I regret not doing it sooner](https://daily.dev/posts/i-wiped-my-entire-obsidian-vault-and-i-regret-not-doing-it-sooner-s6ijf99gg) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devtools](https://daily.dev/tags/devtools), [#vscode](https://daily.dev/tags/vscode) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-accidentally-wiped-my-entire-vs-code-setup-and-built-a-tool-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again-mbo86ey55) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-accidentally-wiped-my-entire-vs-code-setup-and-built-a-tool-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again-mbo86ey55","headline":"I Accidentally Wiped My Entire VS Code Setup and Built a Tool to Make Sure It Never Happens Again","text":"A developer accidentally wiped their entire VS Code setup during a storage cleanup and, finding no adequate backup solution, built Ark — a VS Code extension that auto-backs up extensions, settings, and keybindings to a private GitHub Gist every 30 seconds. 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