Why you might move your pod
When you first set up your pod, you chose where it lives: a local file on your device, or a file on your Google Drive. That choice isn’t permanent. Maybe you started with a local file to keep things simple, and now you want to open your pod on your phone too — that means moving it to Google Drive. Or maybe the opposite: you’re on Drive and you’d rather keep everything on your own device. Either move takes a few seconds and doesn’t touch your data.
Your pod stays encrypted the whole time — same password, same family key. Moving it just copies the encrypted .beanpod file to the new spot and starts saving there. Nothing is decrypted, re-uploaded in the clear, or exposed.
Only the pod owner can move storage. If you’re a family member, ask whoever set up the pod to do it.
How to move your pod
Open Settings and go to Family Data Options.
Find the Move to Google Drive row (if you’re currently on a local file) or Move to a local file row (if you’re currently on Drive), and click the Move button next to it.
Read the confirmation — it tells you what happens to your current file — then confirm.
If you’re moving to Google Drive: sign in with your Google account if you haven’t already this session. If you’re moving to a local file: pick where to save the new .beanpod file on your device.
That’s it — your pod is now saved to the new spot, and it’ll keep auto-saving there from now on.
What happens to the file you were using
It stays exactly where it is — we don’t delete it. It just stops updating once you’ve moved. We recommend keeping it for a little while as a backup, until you’re happy everything’s working in the new spot. After that, you’re welcome to delete it yourself.
If you use beanies.family on more than one device, the others are still pointed at the old location and will show an error the next time they try to save. On each of those devices, sign out and load the pod again from the new location (Drive file or local file). They’ll pick up right where they left off.
If something goes wrong mid-move
If the move can’t finish — say your network drops while creating the Drive file — beanies.family puts you back on your original storage automatically and shows you what happened. Your data is never in limbo: it’s always saved in at least one place. Just try the move again when you’re ready. In the very rare case it tells you to sign out and sign back in to recover, do that — your pod is safe in your file, and signing back in re-attaches the app to it.