Backups and restore

The commands on this page are for Docker Compose: run them from your Dossier folder (~/dossier). For the other ways of running Dossier, the Back up step under Day to day in its installation guide has them.

• Export: Settings → Your data → Export downloads everything (profile, themes, settings, applications with their documents, chat, notes and history) as one JSON file. Your API key is left out unless you tick the box.

• Import: importing such a file replaces all data in one step, after saving a backup of what was there to the data directory's backups folder.

• Nightly backups (on by default) write the same export to /data/backups in the app's volume at 03:00 server time, keeping DOSSIER_BACKUP_RETENTION_DAYS days of them. Copy them off the server now and then: docker compose cp app:/data/backups ./backups.

• Database dumps: back up PostgreSQL itself too:

  docker compose exec -T db pg_dump -U dossier -Fc dossier > dossier.dump

  To restore a dump, stop Dossier, load the dump, and start Dossier again:

  docker compose stop app
  docker compose exec -T db pg_restore --clean --if-exists -U dossier -d dossier < dossier.dump
  docker compose start app

Keep a copy of .env with your backups: saved API keys can't be read without its DOSSIER_SECRET (an export with the key included carries it in plain text instead).