Tips and Tricks: Backing Up and Importing Tool Databases

Brad Castle

10 June 2025 10:13

Carveco Tutorial: Backing Up and Importing Your Tool Database

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to back up your entire Tool Database in Carveco Maker and safely restore it later. This is an essential practice for users customizing tools, especially before reinstalling software or moving to another computer.

🔹 Backing Up Your Tools

Open the Tool Database from the Toolpaths tab.
Click Save Copy at the bottom.
Save the file with a clear name (e.g., new-tools.tdb) and store it in a safe location such as cloud storage or an external drive.
This backs up the entire database — including all tool groups and tool types.

🔹 Restoring or Importing Tool Files

Open the Tool Database again.
Click on Tools and Groups > Import.
Select your saved .tdb file and click Open.
All your previously saved tools will be restored — including any custom additions.

Note: If you’ve already got tools with the same name, importing may create duplicate groups like multiple “Metric” or “Inch” tool sets.

✔️ Key Takeaways

Always back up your tool database before reinstalling or updating Carveco.
Save Copy exports the entire database, not individual tools.
Import restores all tools, including custom ones, from a saved .tdb file.
Store backups in cloud storage or USB drives for extra safety.

🧠 Advanced Techniques

Keep separate backups for different machines or users with named copies like tools-laptop.tdb.
Use versioning when saving tool databases (e.g., tools_v2.tdb) to track changes over time.
Manually remove duplicate tool groups after import to streamline your tool list.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

Problem: Duplicate tools after importing.
Solution: Manually delete redundant tool groups in the Tool Database.
Problem: Can't find your saved tool file.
Solution: Recheck your file location and ensure you're searching for .tdb file types.
Problem: Tool settings seem missing.
Solution: Confirm you're importing the correct .tdb file from your backup folder.