@Tephlon @jan Thank you for the replies.
Now I’m really confused. After a fresh boot I started n8n as I did before and there was no message about creating the config file like there was earlier. It started fine but I only had access to the two empty workflows I made earlier today to test whether I was able to keep them after a reboot.
Now I’ve just rebooted my computer and done the exact same thing again, and again no message about creating the config file. This time however, I have access to my workflows from yesterday as well as the empty test workflows from this morning. Yesterday’s workflows being lost this morning is the whole reason I posted here. I really don’t understand what’s happening.
The /home/node part is definitely the message I’m shown when it says about creating the config file. Is that not normal? I’m running Ubuntu 18.04 if that could be a factor in anything. I thought it looked odd but I’m very new to all of this so I assume it’s another thing I don’t understand yet. I manually created the .n8n folder too. I’m sure it was a coincidence that it started working after I did that as the folder doesn’t appear to be used at all.
Apologies for a further basic question, but how would I go about backing up the database? I assume it’ll be SQLite as I haven’t changed any database settings. As I’ve been able to regain access to my workflows from yesterday I don’t think I I’m in much danger of losing them completely but It’d be good for peace of mind going forward to be able to back it up.
Also, to have n8n start on boot would I just need to add --restart always to the run command?