Run more than one Topos

Run more than one Topos

One machine runs one Topos at a time — but it can hold several, and you can switch between them whenever you like. A personal Topos and a work Topos on the same laptop is the common case.

Switching takes seconds. Your Topos's data never leaves the machine, and the engine and language models are shared between them, so nothing is re-downloaded.

Switching

Open the Topos icon in your menu bar and choose Select Topos. Every Topos on this machine is listed with its size, and the one you are using is ticked.

Pick another and confirm. Topos stops, swaps in the Topos you chose, and starts again on it. The one you were using is kept exactly as it was — switch back any time and pick up where you left off.

Setting up a new one

Select Topos → New Topos… keeps your current Topos and leaves the machine ready for a new one, then sends you to your browser to create it. When it connects, this machine is running the new Topos and the old one is one click away under Select Topos.

You can also start from the web app: create a Topos there and press Connect this Mac. If the machine already runs a Topos, Topos offers to add and switch — the Topos you were using is kept, not replaced.

Disconnecting

Disconnect this Mac unpairs the machine. Nothing is deleted: your Topos is kept under Select Topos, and reconnecting it is a switch back rather than a fresh setup.

If you later connect a Topos this machine has held before, Topos recognises it and offers to switch back to your existing data instead of starting an empty one beside it.

From the terminal

Everything above is available without the app:

topos-node profile list          # every Topos on this machine, active first
topos-node profile switch work   # activate one (stop the node first)
topos-node profile new           # keep the current Topos, leave the machine free

Switching is refused while a node is running, so stop Topos before you switch and start it again afterwards. If a switch is ever interrupted — a crash, a power cut — the next profile command puts everything back the way it was.

Where your Topoi live

The Topos you are using sits in ~/.topos, exactly where it always has. The others are kept beside it:

~/.topos/                     the Topos you are using now
~/.topos/profiles/work/       another Topos, kept for when you switch to it

Only Topos's own files move when you switch — the database, what it has ingested, and the key that says which Topos this machine is. Anything else you have put in ~/.topos, including your own backups, stays where you left it. Logs belong to the machine rather than to any one Topos, so they stay put too.

Good to know

• One at a time. A machine serves one Topos at once. Switching is how you

change which, and it is quick enough to do whenever you want.

• Nothing is deleted. Every Topos you set up here is either the active one

or archived under Select Topos.

• Sizes are shown next to each Topos in the menu, so you can see what is

using disk before deciding to remove anything.