Data directory

Data directory contains:

• document.db - database
• config.ini - instance level settings like port on which the Trilium application runs
• backup - contains automatically backup of documents
• log - contains application log files

Location of the data directory#

Easy way how to find out which data directory Trilium uses is to look at the "About Trilium Notes" dialog (from "Menu" in upper left corner):

Here's how the location is decided:

Data directory is normally named trilium-data and it is stored in:

• /home/[user]/.local/share for Linux
• C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming for Windows Vista and up
• /Users/[user]/Library/Application Support for Mac OS
• user's home is a fallback if some of the paths above don't exist
• user's home is also a default setup for [[docker|Docker server installation]]

If you want to back up your Trilium data, just backup this single directory - it contains everything you need.

Changing the location of data directory#

If you want to use some other location for the data directory than the default one, you may change it via TRILIUM_DATA_DIR environment variable to some other location:

Windows#

1. Press the Windows key on your keyboard.
2. Search and select “Edit the system variables”.
3. Press the “Environment Variables…” button in the bottom-right of the newly opened screen.
4. On the top section ("User variables for [user]"), press the “New…” button.
5. In the Variable name field insert TRILIUM_DATA_DIR.
6. Press the Browse Directory… button and select the new directory where to store the database.
7. Close all the windows by pressing the OK button for each of them.

Linux#

export TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/home/myuser/data/my-trilium-data

Mac OS X#

You need to create a .plist file under ~/Library/LaunchAgents to load it properly each login.

To load it manually, you need to use launchctl setenv TRILIUM_DATA_DIR <yourpath>

Here is a pre-defined template, where you just need to add your path to:

        Label
        set.trilium.env
        RunAtLoad
        
        ProgramArguments
        
            launchctl
            setenv
            TRILIUM_DATA_DIR
            /Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/trilium-data    

Create a script to run with specific data directory#

An alternative to globally setting environment variable is to run only the Trilium Notes with this environment variable. This then allows for different setup styles like two database instances or "portable" installation.

To do this in Unix-based systems simply run trilium like this:

TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/home/myuser/data/my-trilium-data trilium

You can then save the above command as a shell script on your path for convenience.

Electron user data directory (desktop only)#

When running the desktop application, Electron stores internal data (caches, spell-check dictionaries, session storage, etc.) separately from the Trilium data directory. By default this goes to the system's application data folder (e.g. %APPDATA% on Windows), which may be undesirable in corporate environments with roaming profiles or when running in portable mode.

To keep Electron data out of the system's roaming profile, set the TRILIUM_ELECTRON_DATA_DIR environment variable to an explicit path. The trilium-portable script does this automatically, pointing it to trilium-electron-data/ next to the application.

Fine-grained directory/path location#

Apart from the data directory, some of the subdirectories of it can be moved elsewhere by changing an environment variable:

Environment variable	Default value	Description
TRILIUM_DOCUMENT_PATH	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/document.db	Path to the Database (storing all notes and metadata).
TRILIUM_BACKUP_DIR	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/backup	Directory where automated Backup databases are stored.
TRILIUM_LOG_DIR	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/log	Directory where daily Backend (server) logs are stored.
TRILIUM_TMP_DIR	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/tmp	Directory where temporary files are stored (for example when opening in an external app).
TRILIUM_ANONYMIZED_DB_DIR	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/anonymized-db	Directory where a Anonymized Database is stored.
TRILIUM_CONFIG_INI_PATH	${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/config.ini	Path to Configuration (config.ini or environment variables) file.
TRILIUM_ELECTRON_DATA_DIR	System appData	Directory for Electron internal data (caches, spell-check dictionaries, etc.). Set this in portable mode to avoid writing to the system profile (desktop only).