Describe the bug
I upgraded from 3.579 to 3.741 and saw that my standard 2 year subscription of support had expired with the latest version, so I downgraded back to 3.579. Once downgraded, all my saved settings were lost.
Device information:
problem is that when upgrading to a newer version the database format changed and is sometimes not compatible with the old one anymore.
Maybe this can be recovered though:
If possible first try to create a backup of this folder:
~/Library/Application Support/BetterTouchTool
Then in the BTT menubar go to help and select the restore from backup option. There should be a auto backup of your previous version which you can restore
Danke schon @Andreas_Hegenberg!
I sure am glad you suggested the backup, because my first attempt resulted in a corrupt data format. I was able to recover from my backup and eventually restore my settings with the "restore from backup"
functionality. Thank you for your help and for making such a great product.
p.s. I plan to pay for an updated subscription, but am checking if my employer will cover it for me first 
Linking a related issue I initially missed when creating this one: Installed new version, all settings lost
A question about backups:
„Problem is that when upgrading to a newer version the database format changed and is sometimes not compatible with the old one anymore.“
I once lost everything, but I was able to restore all in 10 seconds with my backup. I had no problem at all.
Could it be that a manually created backup of presets and settings is of no use because ist was created with an older version of BTT?
no, this way always works because upgrading a BTT database is always possible (BTT still contains the database upgrade path information from versions released more than 10 years ago). Just downgrading is problematic, e.g. if fields have been added in a newer version and you then try to use it with an older version, the old BTT does not know how to handle these new fields.
I had hoped for this answer, thanks 
Still, I keep reading about people losing their BTT data being … sad
I don't want to offend anyone here, but it is so easy to make a backup of all presets including all settings. I wonder why this is done so little. This backup can be easily imported in case of data loss.
it would be great if Apple just had some sort of auto-on Time Machine for app settings and documents. That would not use too much disk space and would save many people lots of trouble (not only with BTT).
When people do backups they mostly think about their photos, but not all the other stuff on their machines.
Until Apple gets to that point: Guys, do not forget Backups!
In the case of BTT this takes 10 seconds and it saves so much trouble
Or setup time machine and pretty much forget about backups
Also a good solution 
I have this issue - 2 years subscription ended, didn't want to upgrade yet, chose to go back to previous version and then lost everything.
Tried the 'restore from backup' option, but either it seemingly accepts the restore but there's no configurations or BTT just says "data not compatible with this version" and quits and there's no path for me to take any corrective action?
I really love this product and would've updgraded once I had the time to go to the site and check the pricing, but now I've lost what was a lot of work to get me configuration right.
Any ideas would be much appreciated
@Evan_Price can you send me the contents of this folder ~/Library/Application Support/BetterTouchTool (go there via Finder => Go => Go To Folder, make sure to include the ~). Maybe I can recover your preset manually.
If you backup your system, restoring that folder would also solve your issue.
@Andreas_Hegenberg thanks for the offer, that’s much appreciated.
I actually just went ahead and reconfigured all of them (and saw some things had been improved since I was last tinkering around, so thanks!)
I will now pay the lifetime access fee and backup my settings!
Thanks for a great product!