Restoring a Document Vault

Note: This content is no longer updated. For the latest content, please go to the user guide for M-Files Online. For information on the supported product versions, refer to our lifecycle policy.

Even if a document vault is destroyed or the data is somehow corrupted, you can always restore the healthy vault from a backup. For more information about creating backups, see Backing Up a Document Vault and Scheduled Backup Jobs.

Note: You can restore the backup only on a server whose M-Files Server version is the same as or later than the version on the server that is used to create the backup. If you restore the backup on a server that has a later version, see Upgrading a Document Vault.
Note: If you are using Microsoft SQL Server as the database engine of your vault, see Backing Up for instructions on backing up and restoring your vault data.
You can restore a backup of a document vault using M-Files Admin.

Video: M-Files Administrator: Backup and Restore an M-Files Vault

Do the following steps to restore a document vault from a backup file:

  1. Open M-Files Admin.
  2. In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files server.
  3. Click Document Vaults.
  4. In the task area, click Restore Document Vault.
    Result:The Restore Document Vault dialog is opened.
  5. In the Full backup field, specify the location of the backup file on the server from which the full backup is to be restored.
  6. Optional: In the Differential backup (optional) field, specify the location of the differential backup file to restore a differential backup on top of the full backup.
  7. Select either:
    • Restore using original identity: Select this option to use the existing ID of the document vault.
      or
    • Restore as a different vault (new identity): Select this option to generate a new unique ID and to specify a new name for the vault to be restored.
    The identity is used in establishing document vault connections to the server. The name of the vault can be changed on the server, and the document vault connection can have any name in the client software of the end user.
  8. In the Location for vault data on server field, specify the location where the data of the document vault is saved.
  9. Optional: Click Advanced... if you want to define a separate location for file data.
  10. Optional: Select the Overwrite existing files check box if you want to overwrite existing files in the selected metadata and file data locations.
  11. Click OK.
    Result:The Attach Vault Options dialog is opened.
  12. Select the features to be disabled in the attached vault:

    If you do not know which features to disable, do not make any changes in this dialog.

  13. In the Attach Vault dialog, click Attach.
A document vault is restored from the selected backup file.
The users of the document vault must add a connection to it via M-Files Desktop settings. For instructions, see Adding a Vault Connection.