Calamus stores your work in a hosted database with staged deletion, but that is not a backup under your control. Export is available at any time and the resulting files open without Calamus. Take one periodically and keep it somewhere that is not Calamus.
Exporting
Settings, under Backups, exports a single book or every project you own, as an archive. Prose can additionally be exported as DOCX, RTF, Markdown or plain text. Content written during a trial is exportable on the same terms as content written after a purchase, including after the trial has ended.
Exports delivered by email
A full export can be delivered by email instead of downloaded. The archive is uploaded to private storage and the message contains a link with a random token that ceases to function 24 hours after issue.
The token alone is not sufficient to retrieve the file. Retrieval additionally requires an authenticated session, ownership of that export, and a recognized device. Each retrieval is recorded in the security log. A forwarded link is therefore not a way to hand the file to somebody else.
Restoring from a backup
A book can be restored into the account from a backup file. The restore asks which pen name to file it under before it runs. Restoring adds a book; it does not overwrite an existing one.
Restore is available in the browser. The Mac and iPad applications export but do not restore, so a restore is performed on the web and the result synchronizes to every device on the account.
What Compile produces is also a copy
Files produced by Compile are written to your own device and open without Calamus. They are formatted output rather than a structural backup, so they complement an archive export rather than replacing it.
Files retained after an account is deleted
An export archive we emailed you, and screenshots attached to a support ticket, are stored in a different store from your books and are not removed when an account is deleted. Both are stored in private storage and are removed on request. The full schedule is in the data deletion notice.