Projects & safety

What's in a project

A project is a folder that contains one file:

my-dataset/
├── project.sqlite3        # labels, annotations, drafts, settings, history
├── project.sqlite3-wal    # SQLite journal (present while open)
└── project.sqlite3-shm

Source images stay wherever they already are. The database stores each image's path relative to the project folder. If the images live on a different drive on Windows, the path is stored absolute.

Projects created by an older Lannotex are upgraded automatically when opened. A project saved by a newer version refuses to open in an older one rather than risk damage.

How your work is protected

Layer	What it does
Recovery drafts	Every edit is written to a per-image draft immediately.
Autosave	Drafts are committed 700 ms after you stop editing.
Transactional saves	A save either completes fully or changes nothing.
Validation	Invalid geometry is rejected before it is stored.
Durable writes	SQLite runs in WAL mode with full sync; exports are written atomically.

Backup and restore

Project → Backup project… writes a consistent copy of the database. It's safe to run while the project is open.

Project → Restore backup… checks the backup's integrity, then restores it into an empty folder. It never overwrites an existing project.

Backups don't include images

A backup holds annotations, drafts, settings, and team history, not the image files. Back up your source images separately.

Moved an image?

Choose Project → Relink current image… and pick the file's new location. Lannotex only accepts a file with the same dimensions, so existing annotations can't end up misaligned.

Version control

Commit exports (Labelme JSON, COCO, YOLO, or native JSONL) to Git, not the live project.sqlite3. The binary database doesn't diff or merge.