# Quick question about site backups

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [May 25, 2020, 12:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558 "2020-05-25T00:27:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![adiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adiru](https://meta.discourse.org/u/adiru)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2020, 12:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558/1 "2020-05-25T00:27:54Z")

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If later on I want to switch from discourse hosting to my own server, does the site backups suffice?

Right now i’m hosting on/with Discourse, and I see there is option for backups. I do a backup and then when I go to click on “download” it says that I have to contact Discourse support for them to provide me with the download, but then I see that there is a place where I can click download and then its sends me an email stating that I can download from the email link… are these downloads refering to one and the same thing? so I end up with a .tar.gz file…

If later on I decide to go self hosting route, is this .tar.gz file all I need to restore the forum as before or is there something else that needs to be done on the part of Dicscourse support?

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### Author: ![Iceman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/iceman/32/181309_2.png) [@Iceman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Iceman)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558/2 "2020-05-25T00:31:22Z")

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Not 100% sure since you described that you get a “please contact” kind of message and I’m not hosted on Discourse myself but according to this:

> [@adiru](#):
>
> I can click download and then its sends me an email stating that I can download from the email link… are these downloads refering to one and the same thing? so I end up with a .tar.gz file…

If you download your backup from an e-mail then that is your site’s backup.

Later, on a new Discourse installation you can upload that backup file (aka Restore) and have everything on your site back online as per that backup.

Hope that helps!

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### Author: ![adiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adiru](https://meta.discourse.org/u/adiru)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2020, 12:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558/3 "2020-05-25T00:35:16Z")

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Thanks for the reply this is screenshot of what I’m seeing…

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/2/6/2626b9450c0e4ba44b90a3838fa284e8f1067a66.png)

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### Author: ![adiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@adiru](https://meta.discourse.org/u/adiru)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2020, 12:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558/4 "2020-05-25T00:35:50Z")

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also I get this email

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/1/d/1dabc4e2e7c94d4047ffd27d1b230b2cfdd44d99.png)

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### Author: ![EricGT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f1d935/32.png) [@EricGT](https://meta.discourse.org/u/EricGT)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/quick-question-about-site-backups/152558/5 "2020-05-25T00:36:55Z")

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FYI

[Restore a backup from command line](https://meta.discourse.org/t/restore-a-backup-from-command-line/108034)