Why did Postman erase all my collections?

Describe the bug
That’s rather a rant about app misbehaviour than a bug !
I was using Postman without signing-in because, you know I’m not fond of signing-in everywhere.
It has been quite a long time since I didn’t open the app, so I was not aware of the latest changes.

Anyways, I had some requests stored in local collections. I’m using it to test some services I happen to work with.

Today, I needed to test one of those services, so I opened Postman. At the first screen I was ~prompted~ forced to log in. I found no way to avoid it so I thought “what the hell, let’s login”.

The second after being logged in, I noticed that the collections I had disappeared.
First I thought that there were on an other account (pro vs personal gMail) so I proceeded to login to the other account.
And then again, no collections. All have disappeared !!

Expected behavior
Seriously, why not keep collections stored after logging-out ? It’s not like they weigh GBs !
And why erasing collections that were originally not linked to any account

App information (please complete the following information):

  • Postman for Linux Native App
  • Postman Version 6.7.1
  • OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS linux 4.15.0-62-generic / x64

Additional context
Please tell me my local collection are only hidden somewhere

3 Likes

Hi @bwhisp

Welcome to community :wave:
I understand how frustrating it is to lose your collection, this isn’t the kind of experience we want our users to have.

Once you login to the application, all of your collections are synced to your account. You can check the same by navigating to the links here:

If the collections are synced, please try to re-login to your application which should populate all of the collections back. Else, let’s share them back to the respective workspace.

​

The problem is I never logged in before, so the collections that I stored were locally stored.
And… now they’re lost, at least according to what I can see.
Out of doubt I tried to login with 2 different accounts that I might have used at a moment but I found nothing.

If you have never signed in earlier and then you were forced to sign in, then it probably looks like a bug. May I know if you received the same modal to sign in?

To check this from our end, can you please provide your email accounts associated with Postman?

@bwhisp Also, can you please try to recover the data, if available locally? Below document should guide you on the same.

https://support.getpostman.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035071313-I-lost-all-my-data-how-to-recover-it-

I used 2 accounts but I really don’t think they are related to that:

1 Like

I found 2 files that could correspond to those cited in the tutorial.
I’ll try them on this evening :
./snap/postman/80/.config/Postman/IndexedDB/file__0.indexeddb.leveldb/
./snap/postman/81/.config/Postman/IndexedDB/file__0.indexeddb.leveldb/

But I think those files are associated, each with one of the account I logged in Postman

Well I just tested the method you suggested and it looks like the 2 files I mentioned having found are corresponding to my 2 accounts.
So, I lost the data I have stored locally :frowning:

@bwhisp

I believe you have tried copying data within the file: /snap/postman/80/.config/Postman/IndexedDB/file__0.indexeddb.leveldb/ to Canary location ~/.config/PostmanCanary/IndexedDB/. If not yet, please try the same and check if any data locally stored can be recovered.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused. We are tracking these workflows and working towards fixing them at the earliest.

Please feel free to write to us at help@getpostman.com for further assistance.

I’ve tried with both :
/snap/postman/80/.config/Postman/IndexedDB/file__0.indexeddb.leveldb/
and
/snap/postman/81/.config/Postman/IndexedDB/file__0.indexeddb.leveldb/

without success :frowning_face:

I was able to recover my lost data by doing a import of the backupxxx.JSON file that Postman stored in the %appdata%\Postman folder.
When signed in to your new account → Go to your Workspace → Import → Import one of the backup file %appdata%\Postman\backup-2021-03-04xxxxxx.JSON file and I got back my 2 yrs worth of collection back. It import the environment as well but not the global settings.
Hope u can find the backup ! what a relief

7 Likes

Thank you so much. i was startled to see the local collections vanish after i signed in.
this is what saved my local collections…

p.s @postman, this issue still exists.

when I did the login I lost all my saved data :astonished: :cold_sweat:
did you test this thing?
I am so angry, I LOST A LOT OF IMPORTANT THINGS OMG.
You should at least warn us, BEFORE upgrade, to execute a backup.

2 Likes

Sorry to hear that @gbvbahia01 - if this happened after the upgrade, could you switch to Scratchpad from settings and see if you are able to locate the data there?

Also, the application usually takes a local backup which should help you recover files if lost. Refer section “Recover backup from local file” in this article below and see if that helps.

The importing from the backup file like someone mentioned worked for me! But, this issue still happens, and has not been fixed. I love using postman, but it’s absolutely ridiculous that they erased all of my collections!

Exactly the same situation happend to me today. I spent several hours rebuilding my collections from scratch.

Very disappointed to see that Postman refuses to fix the issue - a very serious issue - even after two years.

2 Likes

Is anyone at Postman looking at improving this? This is actually quite shocking UX. I have been using Postman for years with no need to log in. Our organisation recently decided to use a team account and now having logged in, I thought I lost all my local collections, passwords, environments etc.
I’m surprised Postman holds the position it does, really poor quality product.

Here’s how to fix it in the current version (8.1.0), if you have never logged in to a Postman account. No Canaries needed.

Open your current version of Postman and Log in.
Once you have logged in you will land in an empty workspace. :skull_and_crossbones: Panic not.
Before you logged in, you were probably working on something Postman calls a scratch pad.
To open the scratch pad again, go to the settings cog at the top right.
Select Scratch Pad.
All your stuff is there.

It would be better if the local Scratch Pad was available from the Workspaces menu.

6 Likes

And yet, this happened to me too… All my local data vanished after create a new account… Thanks :ok_hand:

1 Like

Thanks @kghosh99 , it saved me! I think that removing all local content after signing in is really bad move but Postman team redeemed themselves by automatically backing all data so I was able to restore them :grinning:

This happened to me as well, postman removed all my local data after creating an account and login on a desktop. I got back 90% data from run → %appdata%\Postman. Thanks to @kghosh99 Postman has to backup all data locally or to the postman account when the user sign-in the first time on a desktop app.