Free step-by-step guide
My laptop screen broke, and Best Buy sent it back in worse shape than when I dropped it off. This is the exact process I used to back up my entire project, an external drive and a private GitHub repo, so a broken computer never means starting over.
1
Everything you need before you start.
External drive: any USB flash drive or external hard drive works.
GitHub account: free at github.com. If you've ever saved code or a website before, you probably already have one.
Tip: You don't need to know anything about git or GitHub ahead of time. Claude walks you through every step.
2
Creates a physical copy of your project you can carry to a new computer, even without internet access.
I want to back up this entire project to my external drive. Can you check what drives are connected and copy everything there?
Tip: Claude will ask you to confirm before copying anything. Open the drive afterward yourself and check the files are really there.
3
Gives this project a private, online home you can pull down onto any computer later.
Go to: github.com/new
Name it: anything short, like my-claude-project
Visibility: Private
Skip: don't check "Add a README file"
Tip: After you click Create, GitHub shows you a URL ending in .git. Copy that whole line, you'll need it in the next step.
4
Sends a full copy of your project to the private repo you just created.
Please back up this project to GitHub. Here's the repo URL: [paste the URL you copied]
Tip: A browser window may pop up asking you to confirm you're logged into GitHub. You're never typing a password into Claude directly, GitHub's own screen handles that part.
5
Saves the preferences and context Claude has built up about how you like things done, not just your project files.
Can you also copy your memory files for this project into my project folder so they get backed up with everything else?
Tip: Skip this step and a new computer gets your files back but not the conventions Claude learned along the way. You'd be explaining everything over again.
6
Gets everything back exactly where you left off, no rebuilding from scratch.
From GitHub: open a terminal and run: git clone, then your repo URL.
From your drive: plug it in and copy the folder over directly.
I just restored this project from a backup. Can you confirm everything's here and we're ready to keep going?
Inside the free AI Creator Academy I show you how I keep every part of my AI business safe and easy to pick back up, no matter what happens to the computer.
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