October 11th, 2026

Odoo backup that you can actually restore: a checklist

Two things must be saved together: the database and the filestore. Missing one gives you records without attachments, or files without records.

What to back up

  • PostgreSQL dump: pg_dump -Fc -f mydb.dump mydb
  • Filestore: ~/.local/share/Odoo/filestore/mydb (check data_dir in your config)
  • odoo.conf and any custom addons folder

How often

Daily is the minimum. Keep 7 daily, 4 weekly, 3 monthly. Store at least one copy on a different machine or provider.

Restore test (do this monthly)

createdb restore_test
pg_restore -d restore_test mydb.dump
cp -r filestore/mydb ~/.local/share/Odoo/filestore/restore_test
odoo -d restore_test --stop-after-init

Then open it and check: can you log in, open an invoice, and download an attachment?

Common mistakes

  • Backing up the database only
  • Keeping the backup on the same disk as the server
  • Never opening the restored copy

If the restore test fails, you just learned it for free. Learning it during an outage costs much more.

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