Backup and Restore Docker Volume Data

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here are some scripts that can be used to manually backup and restore data from Docker volumes.

Manual Docker Volume Backup

This script uses a temporary Docker container to mount the target volume. It also mounts the current directory so it can write the archive file.

Usage: backup-docker-volume.sh <Volume Name> <Backup File Name>

#!/bin/bash

#!/bin/bash
# Usage: backup-docker-volume.sh <Volume Name> [Backup File Name]
# Example 1: ./backup-docker-volume.sh n8n_n8n_data n8n_data_backup
# Example 2: ./backup-docker-volume.sh n8n_n8n_data

# Use this command to find the name of the volume:
# docker inspect --format '{{ json .Mounts }}' <container_name_or_id>


# 1. Capture the volume name
VOLUME_NAME=$1

# 2. Check if the second argument ($2) is provided.
# If not, default to "n8n_backup_" + current timestamp.
TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S")
BACKUP_NAME=${2:-"n8n_backup_$TIMESTAMP"}

# 3. Run the backup
docker run --rm \
  -v "$VOLUME_NAME":/source:ro \
  -v "$(pwd)":/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/"$BACKUP_NAME".tar.gz -C /source .

echo "Backup completed: ${BACKUP_NAME}.tar.gz"

Restore a Manual Backup

This script:

Restoring Offen Docker Volume Backups

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This restores a backup from an Offen backup tar file.

Assumptions

The docker compose file is in a directory: /srv/docker/<project name>
The name of the Offen service in the compose file is: <project name>-backup

The Script

Usage: restore-backup.sh <folder in /srv/docker> <volume name> <backup file path>

Example: ./restore-backup.sh n8n n8n_n8n_data ../n8n/backup-2025-12-26T00-00-00.tar.gz

# Save the script dir for later when we need to reference the expanded backup files
script_dir=$(cd -- "$(dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" &> /dev/null && pwd)

# Restore the specified backup to a temp directory
rm -rf ./tmp
mkdir tmp

tar -C ./tmp/ -xvf "$3"

# Create a backup of the current state
cd /srv/docker/$1
docker exec $1-backup backup
docker compose down

# Delete the volume contents
docker run --rm -v $2:/data/ alpine /bin/sh -c "rm -rf /data/*"

# Create a container to copy the files to the backup data to the Docker volume

# Map the volume to the backup_restore folder of the alpine container.
docker run -d --name temp_backup_restore -v $2:/backup_restore alpine

# Copy the backup contents to the backup_restore folder which then writes to the Docker volume.
docker cp $script_dir/tmp/backup/my-app-backup/. temp_backup_restore:/backup_restore

# Clean up
docker stop temp_backup_restore
docker rm temp_backup_restore

# Start containers
docker compose up -d