Backup and restore database

Backup

To back up your database, always use the Stash UI. Do not manually copy the database file while Stash is running.

Stash uses an SQLite database in WAL (Write-Ahead Logging) mode. In addition to the main stash-go.sqlite file, there may also be -shm and -wal files present. These files can remain even after stopping Stash. For this reason, you should never manually copy the database files as a backup method.

WAL mode

Learn more about WAL mode in SQLite here.

The Backup or Download Backup tasks are the proper way to create a backup file.

1. Go to Settings > System.
2. Under the Application Paths heading, scroll down to Backup directory path.
3. Set the directory to store your backups.
4. Go to Settings > Tasks.
5. Under the Backup heading, you will find two tasks.
6. Select either the Backup or Download backup task.

Backing up blobs

If you have binary data stored outside the database file, you need to back it up independently. This can be done by copying the relevant folder.

1. Go to Settings > System.
2. Under the Database heading, look for Binary data storage type.
3. If it's set to Filesystem, look below for Binary data path. This is the directory where your blobs are stored.
4. Use your file browser to copy the entire directory to your backup location.

Restore

Assuming you have properly created a backup file, you can use it to restore your database if needed.

Info

The restore procedure uses the default stash-go.sqlite filename. If you changed that when configuring Stash, adjust accordingly.

The following steps are recommended when restoring a database file:

1. Go to Settings > System, scroll down to the Database heading, and check your Database path location.
2. Check what your Binary data storage type is set to.
3. If it's set to Filesystem, look below for Binary data path and move your backed up blobs to that location. If set to Database, skip this step.
4. Create a backup of the current database (optional).
5. Stop Stash.
6. In your file browser, go to the location of your database path.
7. Move or delete the stash-go.sqlite database file (along with the -shm, -wal, and .journal files if present).
8. Copy the backup file that you want to restore to stash-go.sqlite.
9. Make sure that you now have a stash-go.sqlite file and that no -shm, -wal, or .journal files are present.
10. Start Stash.

You should now have Stash running with a working and restored database.

Advanced troubleshooting

If you get a "database malformed" message during upgrade or backup, that probably means the database is already corrupt. One way to get past this is to do a full export and check the error log. If there are not a lot of errors, you can then try to do a full import and get a working database with minimal losses. As the full import is destructive, proceed with caution. For cases like this, it is better to ask for support.