The questions worth asking before you type in a year of records

In your browser's own database, on the device you entered it on. Nothing is uploaded unless you turn on cloud backup, which is optional, free in Lite and Pro, and off until you switch it on.

With cloud backup on, we keep a copy of your kennel records (dogs, pedigrees, health tests, pairings, litters, puppies, contacts' names) so you can get them back on a new device. Your contacts' phone numbers, emails and addresses, prices, your Financials, contracts and private notes are never uploaded readable. One exception on Pro's waitlist: each applicant's name and email are backed up, so a restored waitlist can still be run. The full list →

Want those private details backed up too? Turn on private backup. It encrypts them on your device before they're uploaded, with a key only your devices hold. We can't read them, and you unlock them on a new device with your recovery code, a passkey, or another device you're signed in on.

The same thing that happens to anything else stored only on that laptop. This is the honest cost of local-first, and the reason export is a first-class feature rather than a buried menu item.

Turn on cloud backup and your kennel records come back when you sign in on the new device with the same email. It backs up on its own a few minutes after each change and keeps 30 days of history.

Unless private backup is on, cloud backup leaves your private details on the device, so also take a JSON backup now and then — it's one click and one file containing your whole program. Keep it wherever you keep other important files. Pro can also push and pull that backup to a folder in your own Dropbox, which makes "regularly" a lot easier to stick to.

If it had cloud backup on, open KennelOS on another device, sign in, and go to Import / Export → Cloud backup → Your devices. Erase deletes everything KennelOS holds on the lost phone the next time it opens the app with an internet connection. On Pro, Free its Pro license gives you the phone's license slot back straight away.

The honest limit: the erase can't reach a phone that stays offline or never opens KennelOS again. Your phone's own Find My (iPhone) or Find My Device (Android) is the real protection, and a screen lock matters more than anything we can do.

Yes, but they're separate copies — there's no live sync between them. Move a backup between them with export/import (or via Dropbox on Pro) when you want them to match. Cloud backup can bring your kennel records onto a second device, but one device at a time is the one that backs up.

Most breeders end up with one main device for real record keeping and use the others for looking things up.

Any time. A full JSON backup of everything, and CSV exports for individual record types — dogs, litters, pairings, sales, events, expenses — which open straight in Excel, Numbers or Sheets.

No. Without cloud backup we never receive them: no account, no upload and no analytics in the apps. With cloud backup on, we hold your kennel records only to give them back to you. We don't read them, sell them, or train anything on them, and you can delete them any time from the app. Private backup is encrypted with a key we never have, so we couldn't read it if we wanted to. The details, including what we never receive at all, are in our privacy policy.

Pro's online waitlist gives families an application form, their own status page (their place, offers and the pups they can choose from) and emails in your kennel's name. Applications and messages are encrypted in the family's browser to a key on your device; we can read only their name and email, so we can send them codes and your emails. A family never sees another family's details, and the public list, if you show it, has first names and last initials only. What the online list holds →

Only for the very first load of each app, and for the optional online extras (cloud backup, private backup, Pro's online waitlist, Dropbox backup, license checks on Pro). After that it works offline — genuinely, including creating and editing records.

No, and you don't need one. Open the site once and use your browser's "Add to Home Screen" or "Install" option — it then opens in its own window, with its own icon, like any other app.

Current versions of Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox, on desktop and mobile. It's a modern web app, so a browser that's years out of date won't do.

Yes — CSV import covers dogs, litters, pairings, sales and events. Every import runs as a preview first: it shows you exactly what it would create, what it would update, and which rows it can't confidently match, before anything is written.

Rows with missing or partial identifying details are always flagged for your review rather than guessed at, and a relationship column (a sire's name, say) only ever links to a record that already exists — the importer will never invent one.

Not as a shared live workspace yet. Our online service backs up one program from one main device; it doesn't keep two people's copies in step. Two people can each run their own copy and exchange backups, and Pro's Companion share-out gives a co-owner or buyer a read-only view of what you choose to share.

Living adult dogs you own or co-own — six of them. Puppies don't count until they mature into an adult stage, dogs that have left your program don't count, and deceased dogs don't count. Litters are limited to ten. Pairings, puppies, sales, expenses and history events are unlimited.

Adding a seventh adult dog or an eleventh litter stops with a prompt that explains why and offers the upgrade. Nothing you already entered is hidden, locked or deleted, and you can keep using everything else exactly as before.

Free. No card, no trial clock, no "free for your first year". It's a smaller edition of a paid product, which is a model that's worked for decades — Pro pays for the work, Lite makes the app worth finding.

Export a backup from Lite, subscribe, then import it into Pro. The upgrade button in Lite starts that export for you, and Pro prompts you to import right after you activate. Step-by-step here.

So that Pro never depends on an account. A key you paste in once per device does the job without anyone standing between you and your records. The cloud backup account is separate and optional; Pro works fully without it.

It keeps working. There's a grace window for exactly this — 7 days on the yearly plan, 3 days on monthly. A lifetime key never expires, and goes 3 months offline before it asks you to connect once so it can confirm the key is still yours; you then get another month's warning before anything stops. One reconnect settles it, and your records are never affected either way.

It stays on your device, untouched — we couldn't delete it if we tried. Pro itself will ask you to renew before you can keep working in it, so if you think you might lapse, export a backup while your subscription is current. That backup is a plain file that's yours forever, and a program that fits within the free limits can be imported into Lite.

Yes — email us. The demo is the full app and the yearly plan starts with a free trial, so we'd rather you were sure before paying, and sorted out afterwards if you weren't.