Backup

Trilium supports simple backup scheme where it saves copy of the Database on these events:

  • once a day
  • once a week
  • once a month
  • before DB migration to newer version

So in total you'll have at most 4 backups from different points in time which should protect you from various problems. These backups are stored by default in backup directory placed in the data directory.

This is only very basic backup solution, and you're encouraged to add some better backup solution - e.g. backing up the Database to cloud / different computer etc.

Note that Synchronization provides also some backup capabilities by its nature of distributing the data to other computers.

Creating a backup#

On the desktop application and web client:#

  1. Go to Settings → Backup and press the Backup Now button.
  2. The backup creation process may take a few moments, especially for larger databases. A notification will inform you when the backup is complete.
  3. The backup will be saved as backup-now in the Existing Backups list, where you can download it.

On the standalone client#

  1. Go to Settings → Backup and press the "Download backup" button.
  2. You will be prompted to restart the app. Confirm, and the app will restart automatically.
  3. Set a backup name or password (both optional), then press "Continue".
  4. Press the "Generate and download" button and wait for the download to complete.
  5. Once you confirm the download is saved on your device, press "Finish" to complete

Downloading a backup#

  • Desktop and web client: to download an existing backup, navigate to Settings → Backup → Existing backups and select Download.
  • Standalone client: automatic backups are not supported in this version. You can manually create and download a backup by going to Settings → Backup → Download backup.

Restoring a backup#

  • For a new Trilium instance: When setting up a new Trilium instance, use the "Restore from backup" option in the setup menu to guide you through restoring your existing backup.
  • For an existing Trilium instance: To restore a backup and replace your current database, go to Settings → Backup and click Restore a backup. You will be prompted to restart the app for the restoration process to begin. After restarting, you can choose to back up the existing database before overwriting it. Note: For the web client, use the Start Over feature (Settings → Database → Start over) to switch to the setup screen and restore a backup.

Next, select the backup file (.db or .tnbackup) from your device. The web client is optimized for handling large backups and is resilient to unstable network conditions, similar to the desktop application.

If your database is encrypted, you will be prompted to enter the password used for encrypting the backup file. Without the correct password, decryption and restoration cannot proceed.

Restoring a backup may take some time, depending on its size. Once it completes, Trilium will open the freshly restored database.

The alternative way for restoring a backup#

Let's assume you want to restore the weekly backup (only in .db format, .tnbackup files are not supported by this method), here's how to do it:

  • find data directory Trilium uses - easy way is to open "About Trilium Notes" from "Menu" in upper left corner and looking at "data directory"
    • I'll refer to ~/trilium-data as data directory from now on
  • find ~/trilium-data/backup/backup-weekly.db - this is the Database backup.
  • at this point stop/kill Trilium
  • delete ~/trilium-data/document.db, ~/trilium-data/document.db-wal and ~/trilium-data/document.db-shm (latter two files are auto generated)
  • copy and rename this ~/trilium-data/backup/backup-weekly.db to ~/trilium-data/document.db
  • make sure that the file is writable, e.g. with chmod 600 document.db
  • start Trilium again

Changing the backup location in Trilium (desktop only)#

Starting with version 0.105, the Trilium desktop client allows users to change the directory where backups are stored. Follow these steps to specify a custom backup directory:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Backup Location.
  2. Click the Select Location button.
  3. Choose any writable directory on your file system. This could include network shares, depending on your operating system.

Once you set a custom directory, all manual and automatic backups will be saved there. If the selected directory becomes unavailable, backups may fail or revert to the default location.

Backup encryption#

Trilium can secure the entire content of the database backup, ensuring it remains unreadable unless the correct password is provided. This is particularly useful for storing backups in unsecured locations, like network shares, unencrypted external drives, or cloud services. 

Encrypted database backups use the Trilium Backup Container (.tnbackup) format, which relies on AES-256-GCM. This authenticated encryption mode scrambles the data and generates a tag confirming it hasn't been altered. The password itself isn't directly used as the key; it's processed through scrypt, a key derivation function designed to be slow and memory-intensive, making brute-force password guessing difficult even with powerful hardware. Each backup also receives a random 16-byte salt, ensuring that the same password never produces the same encryption key twice. Additionally, critical metadata such as chunk order, length, and header flags are cryptographically bound into the encryption (via "additional authenticated data"), preventing undetected tampering like reorder, truncate, or splice operations.

Enabling backup encryption#

To enable encryption for automatic backups in the Desktop application:

  1. Go to Settings → Backup → Backup Options.
  2. Click on Turn on Encryption and set a password.

Once encryption is enabled, all newly created backups (both automatic and manual) will be encrypted with the specified password. Backups created prior to enabling encryption will remain unsecured.

You can change the password anytime using the Change Password button. The new password will apply to backups created after the change.

To disable encryption, uncheck Settings → Backup → Enable Encryption.

Backup compression#

Database backups can be optionally compressed to minimize storage footprint. This method is effective primarily when the database consists largely of text content. However, media files (images, videos, audio), along with PDF, ODF, and DOCX files, are already compressed in their original formats and won't benefit from further compression.

Compressed backups are stored using the Trilium Backup Container (.tnbackup), employing RFC 1952 GZIP compression.

Enabling Backup Compression (Desktop Only)#

To enable compression for new automatic and manual backups, navigate to Settings → Backup → Backup Options and toggle Enable Compression to on.

Disabling backup#

Although this is not recommended, it is possible to disable backup in config.ini in the data directory:

[General]
... some other configs
# set to true to disable backups (e.g. because of limited space on server)
noBackup=true

You can also review the configuration file to provide all config.ini values as environment variables instead.

See sample config.