Support

01Contact

support@bracketware.com

Include your operating system and version, the Bracketware version (Settings → About), and what you were doing when it went wrong. If it involves a specific tournament, the activity log for that event usually contains the answer — you can copy it out of the control desk.

02Before you buy

The questions that come up most:

• Does it work with no internet? Yes, completely. There is no server component.
• How many entrants? No artificial cap. Large lists are paginated and round robin schedules are generated round by round rather than all at once, so the ceiling is your machine's memory and screen.
• Can two people run the same event on two laptops? Not simultaneously — there is no live sync. One machine runs the event; you can export or hand over a backup file.
• Is there a public bracket link for spectators? No. That is the honest trade for being offline. You can export a PNG, SVG or printable report and share that, or put the room on projector mode.
• Can I try it first? There is no time-limited trial. See the refund terms — if it does not do what this site says it does, you get your money back.
• Can I use my own branding? Yes. Set a program name, tagline, accent color and logo for the interface, display mode, browser icon and printable exports. The signed app name and Dock icon remain Bracketware.

03Where your data lives

Tournaments, players and results are kept in a single SQLite database in the application's data directory. Preferences (theme, scoring defaults, sound, timer, projector scale, and custom program name, tagline, accent and logo) are stored separately in local application storage.

04Backups and moving to another machine

Every save is atomic, and Bracketware keeps the three previous snapshots of each tournament. That protects you from a crash mid-event. It does not protect you from a lost laptop — for that, take a backup.

1. Settings → Backup → Export full backup. This writes a single JSON file containing all tables: players, tournaments, stages, groups, participants, rounds, matches, results, and settings.
2. Copy that file somewhere that is not the same machine.
3. On the new machine, install Bracketware, then Settings → Backup → Import backup.

Imported backups are validated before anything is written, and the merge is transactional — a malformed file is rejected outright rather than half-applied.

Before an event, taking a backup once you have the roster loaded is a thirty-second habit that has saved a lot of Saturday mornings.

05Importing registrations

Registrations import from CSV, with a preview so you can see exactly what will be created before it is created. Recognised column headings:

A headerless file with one name per line also works. If your export has extra columns, leave them — unrecognised columns are ignored rather than rejected.

name,seed,club,rating
Kestrel,1,Northside,1840
Vantage,2,Harbour,1795
Northgate,3,Northside,1770

Exported CSVs escape their cells against spreadsheet formula injection, so a participant who names themselves =cmd() cannot turn your standings export into an attack on whoever opens it.

06Fixing mistakes

A score was entered wrong

Undo (Ctrl/Cmd + Z) covers recent saved actions while they remain in the bounded recovery history. You can also open a completed match and correct the result: Bracketware rewinds it to its original checkpoint and recalculates every round that depended on it, so the bracket stays internally consistent instead of contradicting itself.

Someone has to drop out

Use withdraw in the control desk rather than deleting them — a withdrawal keeps their completed results intact and handles the remaining fixtures correctly. Use forfeit for a single match they cannot play.

The wrong person is in the bracket

Substitute them. Before an event starts you can also rename, reseed, add and remove freely — the draft is fully editable until you explicitly start the tournament.

Someone arrived late

Non-elimination formats accept walk-in registration after the event has started. Elimination brackets cannot take a late entrant without invalidating the draw, which is a property of elimination brackets rather than of this app.

07Recovering a damaged save

If the current snapshot of a tournament is damaged — a power cut mid-write, a full disk — Bracketware opens the newest valid recovery snapshot instead and records the recovery in that tournament's activity log. You will see a notice; check the log to confirm what was restored and re-enter anything from the last few minutes.

If the app will not open a tournament at all, do not keep reopening it. Email support and, if you have one, restore your most recent full backup onto a clean install.

08Keyboard shortcuts

09Removing Bracketware and its data

On macOS, deleting the application does not delete your tournaments — that is deliberate, so removing the app cannot quietly destroy an archive. Android removes the private app database when you uninstall Bracketware. Exports and backups are separate files on both platforms.

1. On macOS, delete the application from Applications, then delete the data directory listed in section 03.
2. On Android, uninstall Bracketware to remove its private database and preferences.
3. Delete anything you exported. Mac App Store exports live under Downloads/Bracketware/; direct-download and Android exports live under their respective Documents/Bracketware/ folders.

Backups you copied elsewhere — another drive, a cloud folder — have to be deleted there too. Bracketware has no way to reach them.