How to make a backup

From Gramps
Jump to: navigation, search
Menubar - "Family Trees > Make Backup..."

How to make a backup of your Gramps genealogy Family Tree database has become easier and more automated over the years. This article describes the process when using older version of Gramps.
Instructions for the 5.2.x version of Gramps may be found in the "Backing up a Family Tree" section of the manual.

Gramps version 3.3 and later

From the menu select Family Trees > Make Backup...

The Gramps XML Backup window will appear.

Fig. 1. Backup Options

You can enter the path where the backup should be stored manually or using the path selector button.

You can enter a file name manually or use the automatically generated file name.

You can either choose to Include or Exclude the Media:.

Gramps-notes.png
Note

This is just a regular XML export, except that no data is filtered out. You can import these as usual with any exported file.

Gramps version 3.1.x to 3.2.x

With media files

Assuming your database is called "My Family Tree", and you want the backup to include external media objects such as images and documents, the recommended method to create a backup is to use the gramps-pkg format:

gramps -O "My Family Tree" -e backup.gpkg

or

gramps --open="My Family Tree" --export=backup.gpkg

This is equivalent to selecting the following menu options: Family Trees -> Export -> "GRAMPS package (portable XML)" -> "Entire Database"

In case of problems, you can add the format of the output to the above command. For a gramps package:

--format=gpkg

or

--format=gramps-pkg

Without media files

If you don't need to include the media objects in your backup, then you can make use of the Gramps XML format:

gramps -O "My Family Tree" -e backup.gramps 

or

gramps --open="My Family Tree" --export=backup.gramps 

This is equivalent to selecting the following menu options Family Trees -> Export -> "Gramps XML database" -> "Entire Database"

The Generate XML page has further information on what can be done with the .gramps files.

Gramps verson 3.0.x

With media files

Assuming your database is called "My Family Tree", and you want the backup to include external media objects such as images and documents, the recommended method to create a backup is to use the gramps-pkg format:

gramps --open="My Family Tree" --output=backup.gpkg --format=gramps-pkg

This is equivalent to selecting the following menu options Family Trees -> Export -> "GRAMPS package (portable XML)" -> "Entire Database"

Without media files

If you don't need to include the media objects in your backup, then you can make use of the Gramps XML format:

gramps --open="My Family Tree" --output=backup.gramps --format=gramps-xml

This is equivalent to selecting the following menu options Family Trees -> Export -> "Gramps XML database" -> "Entire Database"

The Generate XML page has further information on what can be done with the .gramps files.

Gramps version 2.2.x

Without media files

The gramps-xml data format will produce a backup of your data excluding any media objects, such as external images and documents. The following example shows how to create a gramps-xml file from a database called "MyFamilyTree.grdb":

gramps -O MyFamilyTree.grdb -o backup.gramps -f gramps-xml

GEDCOM export

Gnome-important.png
GEDCOM export

Please note that GEDCOM is not recommended for backups since it is a lossy format.

There are times you may need to export your data to GEDCOM. This command will attempt to export your database as a GEDCOM file:

gramps --open="My Family Tree" --output=export.ged --format=gedcom

See also

Gnome-important.png Special copyright notice: All edits to this page need to be under two different copyright licenses:

These licenses allow the Gramps project to maximally use this wiki manual as free content in future Gramps versions. If you do not agree with this dual license, then do not edit this page. You may only link to other pages within the wiki which fall only under the GFDL license via external links (using the syntax: [https://www.gramps-project.org/...]), not via internal links.
Also, only use the known Typographical conventions