Home Assistant Backup and Restore: A Complete Guide
A Home Assistant backup is a single archive that captures your configuration, automations, dashboards, add-ons, and integration data so you can rebuild your entire smart home if a drive fails, an update goes sideways, or you migrate to new hardware. The safest approach is to create a full backup on a schedule, copy it somewhere off the device (cloud storage or a network share), and confirm you can actually restore it before you need to. Below, we walk through exactly how to do that and how to recover when something breaks.
What a Home Assistant backup actually contains
Understanding what is and isn't captured prevents nasty surprises during recovery. A Home Assistant backup is a .tar archive. A full backup bundles your Home Assistant configuration (the .storage folder, YAML files, automations, scenes, and dashboards), all installed add-ons, and each add-on's stored data. A partial backup lets you cherry-pick specific folders or add-ons—useful when you only want to snapshot your configuration before editing automations.
What a backup does not do is re-pair radios or rebuild your physical network. Zigbee and Z-Wave network keys are stored within the relevant integration data, so they travel with a full backup, but a Thread or Matter setup still depends on a working border router and a stable network on the other end. If your devices wander offline after a restore, the cause is usually the radio or network rather than the backup itself—our guide on devices that keep going offline covers that separately.
How to create a backup
The built-in backup tool lives under Settings → System → Backups in the Home Assistant interface. Menu wording shifts between releases, so navigate by these landmarks rather than memorizing an exact screen.
- 1Open Settings → System → Backups
- 2Choose Create backup and pick Full (or Partial to select specific items)
- 3Optionally set a password to encrypt the archive
- 4Download the resulting file or confirm it synced to your chosen off-device location
- Open the Backups screen. Go to Settings, then System, then Backups.
- Start a new backup. Choose the option to create a backup, then select Full for a complete snapshot or Partial to include only chosen folders and add-ons.
- Add a password (recommended). Encrypting the archive protects credentials, tokens, and network keys stored inside it. Record this password somewhere safe—without it, an encrypted backup cannot be restored.
- Wait for it to finish, then move it off the device. A backup that lives only on the same SD card or SSD as your installation offers no protection if that storage fails. Download it, or configure a backup location that writes to cloud storage or a network share.
Automate and store backups off-device
Manual backups are easy to forget, and the one time you skip it is the time you need it. Home Assistant supports scheduled, automatic backups with a retention policy (for example, keep the last several copies and delete older ones automatically). Set this up once and you'll always have a recent restore point.
For storage, you have a few practical options, summarized below.
| Destination | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) | Paid subscription that supports cloud backup storage | Hands-off, encrypted off-site copies that also fund the project |
| Network share (NAS / Samba) | An add-on or integration writes backups to a network folder | Local-first homes that already run a NAS |
| Cloud sync add-on (e.g., to a personal cloud drive) | Community add-on uploads archives to your storage provider | Free off-site copies if you're comfortable configuring it |
| Manual download | You download each archive to a computer | Occasional snapshots before risky changes |
A common, resilient pattern is one local copy plus one off-site copy. If keeping your data local is a priority for you, our overview of moving your smart home off the cloud explains the broader trade-offs of local control.
How to restore a backup
There are two common restore scenarios: recovering an existing install, and rebuilding on fresh hardware.
Restoring on a working installation
- Go to Settings → System → Backups.
- Select the backup you want—either one already on the device or an archive you upload.
- Choose a full restore, or a partial restore to bring back only specific items.
- Enter the encryption password if you set one, then confirm. Home Assistant restarts during the process.
Restoring on new or wiped hardware
After flashing Home Assistant onto new storage and reaching the onboarding screen, look for the option to restore from a backup instead of starting fresh. Upload your archive there and Home Assistant rebuilds your configuration, add-ons, and data. This is the standard path for migrating from an SD card to an SSD or moving to a new mini PC.
After restoring: what to check
Most things come back exactly as they were, but a few items depend on factors outside the archive:
- Network and radios. Confirm your Zigbee/Z-Wave dongle is on the same port and your Thread border router is reachable. A flaky connection here mimics a bad restore—see how to stabilize a hub that keeps disconnecting.
- Cloud integrations. Some integrations may ask you to re-authenticate if tokens expired between backup and restore.
- IP addresses. Integrations that point to a fixed device IP can break if your router handed out a different address. Reserving IPs avoids this; our smart-home Wi-Fi guide covers stable addressing.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Home Assistant backups stored by default?
On Home Assistant OS and Supervised installs, backups are written to a backups folder on the same system storage as Home Assistant. That's convenient but not safe on its own—copy each backup to cloud storage or a network share so a disk failure doesn't take your only copy with it.
Can I restore a backup to a newer version of Home Assistant?
Restoring into the same or a newer version generally works well. Restoring a newer backup onto an older version is not supported and can cause errors, since data formats change between releases. When migrating, install a current version and restore into it.
Do I need to back up my Zigbee or Z-Wave network separately?
A full backup includes the data for those integrations, including their network keys, so your mesh and device pairings survive a restore as long as you use the same radio adapter. The physical USB dongle itself is hardware—keep it, and plug it into the same port when you migrate.
How often should I back up?
Schedule automatic backups (daily or weekly suits most homes) with a retention limit, and always take a manual full backup before any update or major configuration change. Frequent automation editors lean toward daily; stable setups can run weekly.
