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Version: Next (nightly)

Backup and export

Your data is yours, and Cobblr makes it easy to take a full copy out. Both kinds of copy live at Configuration then Backup.

  • Blueprint: Download writes your setup (no records) to a file you can send to anyone. Install applies one onto the current workspace.
  • Tried Cobblr in a sandbox first? The file it emailed you when you chose Take your work is one of these backups: the setup you built, every record, every upload. Make a workspace here and Restore it, and you are back where you left off.
  • Backup: Download produces the .zip with every row and file. Restore rebuilds it into a fresh workspace.

Backups​

A backup captures a workspace completely: its items, fields, views, and settings. Restoring one brings the workspace back as it was, with the same records intact, so a backup is a real safety net and a way to move between instances.

Where backups go​

  • Self-hosted: everything lives in bind-mounted folders under ./data, so copying that directory is already a complete backup (see Self-hosting -> Backups).
  • Off-box, on a schedule: any S3-compatible bucket (AWS, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze, MinIO), or Google Drive (shown once the operator has registered a Google OAuth app for the instance).
  • View backups on each destination lists what is actually sitting in it right now, with each backup's date, time, and size, so you can confirm the copies exist without opening the bucket or the Drive folder yourself.
  • Reconnect Google Drive is what the Drive button reads once it is connected. It is only needed if the authorization expires.

Export​

Beyond full backups, you can export your data in portable form to work with it elsewhere or keep an archive. No lock-in: what you put into Cobblr, you can get back out.

Blueprint vs backup​

They answer different questions.

  • A blueprint is the configuration half: the modules, instances, bundles and your overrides, custom fields, wires, views, and nav, with no records in it. Install a blueprint and you stamp a new workspace shaped like the old one.
  • A backup is everything, data included, and a restore preserves record ids, so QR labels and links keep resolving after the restore.
  • A blueprint installs fine onto another Cobblr instance entirely, which makes it the light way to move a shape between installs. The backup .zip is the way to move a workspace.

Where the buttons are​

Both live at Configuration then Backup.

  1. Blueprint: Download writes your setup to a file you can send to anyone. Before anything is written you see the plan of what it contains.
  2. Install takes a blueprint file and applies it onto the current workspace, again showing the plan (which modules would be enabled, which bundles installed) before you accept.
  3. Backup: Download produces the .zip with every row and file.
  4. Restore is done into a fresh workspace and previews its plan the same way: how many tables, rows and files are coming back, before anything moves.
Giving a friend your setup, and why restore wants a fresh workspace

"Give a friend your setup" is: download here, they install there. The invite form can do the whole handoff in one step when they are joining your own instance.

Restore into a fresh workspace rather than over a live one, because a restore is a rebuild, not a merge.