I have on one occasion deleted a config file that I would have to completely rewrite if I didn't have my Emacs backups. That said, I keep them under $XDG_CONFIG

I have on one occasion deleted a config file that I would have to completely rewrite if I didn't have my Emacs backups. That said, I keep them under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs/backups, so I don't have to worry about littering.