Creating Backups¶
At a minimum, a backup of PhotoPrism should include the files in your originals folder and a copy of the index database. We also recommend backing up the storage folder so that you don't need to recreate any thumbnail or sidecar files, and your backup includes the complete configuration.
The easiest way to create a full backup is to first run the backup command to generate a database dump as shown below. Then back up your originals and storage folders using any standard file backup utility.
Scheduled Backups¶
By default, PhotoPrism 240523-923ee0cf7 and newer versions automatically create daily database backups for you, with up to 3 copies being retained. The schedule, the type of backups, and the number of backups to be retained can be changed in the configuration.
We recommend that you manually create a full backup of all files, including your configuration and index database, before starting a server migration or making any other major changes.
Backup Command¶
If you are using Docker Compose, you can run the following command in a terminal to manually create a new MariaDB or SQLite database backup:
docker compose exec photoprism photoprism backup -i -f
By default, a backup is created in storage/backup/mysql/[YYYY-MM-DD].sql. Omit the -f flag if you do not want to overwrite existing files. A custom backup base folder can be configured with PHOTOPRISM_BACKUP_PATH
If you are using Podman on a Red Hat-compatible Linux distribution, exchange docker compose for podman-compose.
Alternative ways to create SQL dumps from SQLite are shown in our advanced backup guide.
Custom file names¶
You can specify a custom filename as an argument to dump the database to a file of your choice (using the -f flag to overwrite existing files):
docker compose exec photoprism photoprism backup -i my_custom_dump.sql
The file name argument is interpreted as an absolute path, so the example above will create a file /photoprism/my_custom_dump.sql inside the container volume. For example, to store the file in the default backup directory:
docker compose exec photoprism photoprism backup -i /photoprism/storage/backup/mysql/my_custom_dump.sql
You can also use - as file name to write the SQL dump to stdout.
Note that our examples use the new docker compose command by default. If your server does not yet support it, you can still use docker-compose or alternatively podman-compose on Red Hat-compatible distributions.
Important Directories¶
Originals¶
The originals folder contains your original photo and video files. You can back it up and restore it using any standard file backup program if you have not already set this up.
Storage¶
SQLite, config, cache, backup, thumbnail and sidecar files are saved in the storage folder. As with the originals folder, the exact path on your computer depends on your configuration.
We recommend that you back up this folder as well so that you don't need to recreate the thumbnails and have a complete backup of your configuration. As for the originals folder, you can use any standard file backup utility to do this.
Database¶
If you are using MariaDB or another dedicated database server instead of SQLite, they will store their data in a separate database folder whose location depends on your configuration, e.g. in the mariadb service section of your compose.yaml file.
MariaDB Server Migration¶
For detailed information on how to move your MariaDB database to another server or virtual machine, please see the Server Migration section of our MariaDB Troubleshooting Guide.