What’s your migration preparations?

I’m curious how the other beta testers are preparing for migrating notes when Bear 2 is released.

I have been using Bear 2 for creating notes to test the features, but I still copy and paste them back to my Bear notes where my main vault is. My initial plan was to still use Bear as the main vault and migrate that to Bear 2 when the release comes out to avoid any bugs messing up the main vault. (Most likely paranoia?)

However, the more I use Bear 2, the more I just want to live in it. That means using it as the main vault and migrating from that to Bear 2. The benefits of this would be embracing the new features in Bear 2 in my workflow, backlinks in particular, and also avoid some formatting issues when copying and pasting from Bear 2 to Bear (which is totally expected and something I can live with since most of the notes are next only, and these issues seem to mostly be related to images and tables.) The web clipper also sends the content to Bear 2, so that’s another (minor) plus, though I’m dealing with it via copying the note back to Bear.

Anyone going all in with Bear 2? I’m keen to compare thought processes and considerations that would help me shape me eventual decision. Or perhaps the Bear team would recommend against such a move?

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I am in the same situation. I immediately felt at home in Bear 2 and only work there. As a security, I transfer the notes back to Bear 1 at longer intervals (using Export and Import). In the end, I would like to move from Bear 2 beta to Bear 2 final.

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Yes this was also my plan. It gets a little more complicated because I am using Bear across devices (MacBook Pro, iMac, and sometimes iPad) so I plan on sticking w/ Bear v1 for critical docs, but beta testing under device-specific spaces and syncing over once done.

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How has your export/import experience been?

I’m actually starting to lean towards migrating from Bear 2 beta to final as well. I wonder if there are any reasons not to do so.

How do you sync over? Probably copying the notes back to Bear or do you export them like @ilnata?

For now copying, but I want to tag them and try exporting/importing in batch based on the tags; I haven’t tried this yet :slight_smile:

Hi,

Did you do something for Bear Extension to send notes to Bear 2? My extension sends it to Bear 1…

Im only doing some testing in Bear 2. My real notes still live in Bear 1. Context switching and worries over writing things in the wrong place are too painful.

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I’m just a fellow beta tester :wink:

I’ve been living in Bear 2. I have a lot of work ahead of me if I have to migrate back to Bear 1 and then sync :laughing: but I’m really looking forward to the day where I can get back to utilizing a synced MacOS + iOS workflow.

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Since so many people can happily live with Bear 2 already, I wonder if there would be option to not migrate but just continue working with from the database of the beta :thinking:

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I think one of the devs answered a little while back that it would be possible to migrate/upgrade B2 Beta to B2 at some point. I’m too tired to find the link tonight.

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It will be possible to move single notes from B2 beta to B2 by exporting the notes as .bear but a real migration is not planned.

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I migrated Bear 1 notes to the Beta just to have them available. Any new notes I’ve created during the Beta phase I’ve been tagging #bear2 so I think I’ll be able to identify what I need to migrate when the time comes. Trying to keep it simple.

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When you migrate your notes do they exist in both Bear 1 and Bear 2 beta?

Tagging is a good idea. What do you plan to do when migrating? Migrate from Bear 1 to Bear 2 release?

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Bear 2 beta will migrate your existing Bear vault, but the original notes will still remain in Bear.

Yes. My thought is to migrate from Bear 1 to Bear 2. Then I think I can just export the #bear2 tags I’m creating and load them into Bear 2 upon release. I’m not doing extensive note-taking in the Beta so it shouldn’t be much of an effort so long as I remember to tag any note with my #bear2 tag when I’m experimenting with the Beta.

That’s a good idea. Thanks for sharing. I might adopt this too. I basically live in Bear 2 but manually move my notes to Bear 1, but exporting Bear 2 beta notes and loading them in Bear 2 release makes so much sense. Just need to remember to export the notes before upgrading to release I guess.

Another thing that would work … is viewing all Notes. They will display in reverse chronological order by the updated date/time and you can export all notes that have been touched since you started the beta … possibly everything up to the “Welcome~ to the #Bear 2# beta!” note.

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