# Can I restore backups from older Discourse versions?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [21.Февраль.2016 13:48:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926 "2016-02-21T13:48:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![gkln](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gkln/32/293382_2.png) [@gkln](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gkln)
#### Post date: [21.Февраль.2016 13:48:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926/1 "2016-02-21T13:48:30Z")

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Hi,

I’m new to Discourse and plan to use it in production very soon.

I have a question regarding backups and their relation to the platform version. I read in [this topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/move-your-discourse-instance-to-a-different-server/15721) that in order to restore a backup the source and target Discourse installs must be on the same version. How strong is this constraint?

I’m thinking about the scenario where, for whatever reason, I loose my current Discourse installation (e.g., after a disk drive failure) and need to reinstall it.

As I understand it, the bootstrap process will fetch a new Discourse version. Will I be able to restore backups from the previous installation? If not, do I need to fix the `version` parameter to make sure I always run the same Discourse version?

Thank you.

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [21.Февраль.2016 21:18:46 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926/2 "2016-02-21T21:18:46Z")

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Yes, you can restore previous versions via the web ui

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### Author: ![acinonyxjubatus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@acinonyxjubatus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/acinonyxjubatus)
#### Post date: [05.Октябрь.2018 17:18:25 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926/3 "2018-10-05T17:18:25Z")

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Hi!  
Is it possible to restore backup from another discourse site?  
I have backup - Dumped from database version 9.5.7 and it was created for other domain name  
Now when I upload archive it’s just stuck on 9%.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [05.Октябрь.2018 20:37:49 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-restore-backups-from-older-discourse-versions/39926/4 "2018-10-05T20:37:49Z")

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A pre 1.0 version is _ancient_, circa 2013 or early 2014. I would not expect that to work.

But yes as long as the version isn’t 5 years old, you should be able to restore the backup! 😉