linkding/docs/backup.md

Backups

This page describes some options on how to create backups.

What to backup

Linkding stores all data in a SQLite database, so all you need to backup are the contents of that database.

The location of the database file is data/db.sqlite3 in the application folder. If you are using Docker then the full path in the Docker container is /etc/linkding/data/db.sqlite. As described in the installation docs, you should mount the /etc/linkding/data folder to a folder on your host system, from which you then can execute the backup.

Below, we describe several methods to create a backup of the database:

• Manual backup using the export function from the UI
• Create a copy of the SQLite database with the SQLite backup function
• Create a plain textfile with the contents of the SQLite database with the SQLite dump function

Choose the method that fits you best.

Exporting from the UI

The least technical option is to use the bookmark export in the UI. Go to the settings page and open the Data tab. Then click on the Download button to download an HTML file containing all your bookmarks. You can backup this file on a drive, or an online file host.

Using the SQLite backup function

Requires SQLite to be installed on your host system.

With this method you create a new SQLite database, which is a copy of your linkding database. This method uses the backup command in the Command Line Shell For SQLite.

sqlite3 db.sqlite3 ".backup 'backup.sqlite3'"

After you have created the backup database backup.sqlite you have to move it to another system, for example with rsync.

Using the SQLite dump function

Requires SQLite to be installed on your host system.

With this method you create a plain text file with the SQL statements to recreate the SQLite database.

sqlite3 db.sqlite3 .dump > backup.sql

As this is a plain text file you can commit it to any revision management system, like git. Using git you can commit the changes, followed by a git push to a remote repository.