I had to use the backup as well..
I was attempting to create tags which matched my categories, but instead the categories disappeared and tags were created.
Will this be changed in a later release?
I also believe the description for this function should be changed to reflect this in a clear way, in the options screen. When I first saw the description, it reminded me of UTW, which used a “convert to tags” function to create a copy of your categories as tags (leaving your categories intact).