Backups and restore

All data is in one SQLite database inside the volume (/data/hdtracker.db) – with several accounts, the accounts and libraries of everybody. A backup is always the whole installation; restoring one brings all accounts back to that state.

The folder /data/images only holds copies of posters and other images. It does not need to be backed up – missing images are simply loaded again.

Scheduled backups in the app

Under Settings → Maintenance hdtracker can back up its database on a schedule (off by default). You choose how often and how many copies to keep. The copies are stored in /data/backups inside the volume and can also be downloaded or deleted on that page. Run now creates a backup immediately.

Backing up the whole volume

That works as well – but copy it while the container is stopped, or always copy the three files hdtracker.db, hdtracker.db-wal and hdtracker.db-shm together. hdtracker keeps recent changes in the -wal file for a moment; a copy of only hdtracker.db taken while the app is running may be incomplete.

Restoring a backup

docker compose stop

# Volume name: see `docker volume ls` (usually <folder>_hdtracker-data).
# Backup from the volume: /data/backups/<file>
# Downloaded backup in the current folder: /in/<file>
docker run --rm -v <folder>_hdtracker-data:/data -v "$PWD":/in alpine sh -c '
  cp /data/backups/hdtracker-2026-09-27_030000.db /data/hdtracker.db &&
  rm -f /data/hdtracker.db-wal /data/hdtracker.db-shm &&
  chown 1000:1000 /data/hdtracker.db'

docker compose start

What the three lines do: put the backup in place of the database, remove the leftover helper files of the old database, and give the file to the user the app runs as.