Backup and restore

Right-click a database and choose Backup / Restore. Both directions live in one tab.

Backing up

1. Switch to Backup mode.
2. Choose the output file.
3. Include data — on for a full backup, off for a structure-only snapshot.
4. Start.

A progress bar tracks the dump, and the result reports how many objects were written.

The output is a plain .sql file: CREATE statements plus INSERTs when data is included. You can read it, diff it, keep it in version control and restore it with any tool that speaks SQL — nothing about it is NabuSQL-specific.

Restoring

1. Switch to Restore mode and pick the file.
2. Set the options:

Option	Effect
Drop if exists	Drop each object before recreating it. Needed when restoring over an existing database
Disable FK checks	Turn off foreign key checks during the restore, so tables can load in any order
Continue on error	Keep going after a failing statement instead of stopping

3. Start. Progress is shown as a percentage, with a running error count.

A restore can be cancelled while it runs.

When it finishes, NabuSQL reports how many statements succeeded out of the total and lists the errors it collected — you find out what did not restore instead of assuming everything did.

Restoring overwrites

With Drop if exists on, existing objects in the target database are dropped and replaced. Restore into a scratch database first when you are not certain what the file contains.

Quicker paths

• Dump SQL file ▸ on a database or table (right-click) writes structure or structure+data straight out, without the backup tab.
• ▶ Execute SQL file on a database runs any .sql file, which is the manual equivalent of a restore.

Automating backups

Task scheduler can run a backup on an interval.

The scheduler only runs while NabuSQL is open

It is part of the application, not a system service. For unattended backups of a production server, use your platform's scheduler with mysqldump, pg_dump or an equivalent.

What a backup does not cover

A database dump contains that database. Server-level things — users and grants, server configuration, other databases — are not in it. For MySQL users and privileges, see User management.