💾 Backup

Backup & Restore Grafana on Windows

Complete backup strategy for Grafana on Windows — what to back up, automated PowerShell scripts, scheduled Task Scheduler jobs, restore procedures and database migration guidance.

What to back up

A complete Grafana backup on Windows requires three components:

🗄

Data directory

...\grafana\data\ — contains the SQLite database (grafana.db) with all dashboards, users, data sources, alerts and plugins.

📄

Configuration file

...\grafana\conf\grafana.ini — all your custom settings including port, auth, SMTP and paths.

📁

Provisioning (if used)

...\grafana\conf\provisioning\ — dashboard JSON files and data source YAML files if you use Infrastructure as Code provisioning.

Manual backup (one-time)

# Stop the Grafana service (important — prevents DB corruption)
Stop-Service -Name "Grafana" -Force

# Create timestamped backup directory
$timestamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd-HHmm"
$dest = "C:\Backups\Grafana\grafana-$timestamp"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $dest -Force | Out-Null

# Copy data directory
Copy-Item -Path "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\data" `
          -Destination "$dest\data" -Recurse

# Copy config
Copy-Item -Path "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\conf\grafana.ini" `
          -Destination "$dest\grafana.ini"

# Copy provisioning if it exists
$provPath = "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\conf\provisioning"
if (Test-Path $provPath) {
    Copy-Item -Path $provPath -Destination "$dest\provisioning" -Recurse
}

# Restart service
Start-Service -Name "Grafana"

Write-Host "Backup complete: $dest"

Automated backup script

Save as C:\Scripts\grafana-backup.ps1 and schedule it with Task Scheduler.

#Requires -RunAsAdministrator
# grafana-backup.ps1 — Automated Grafana backup for Windows

param(
    [string]$GrafanaPath = "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana",
    [string]$BackupRoot   = "C:\Backups\Grafana",
    [int]   $RetainDays   = 30
)

$timestamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd-HHmm"
$dest = "$BackupRoot\grafana-$timestamp"

try {
    # Stop service
    Stop-Service -Name "Grafana" -Force -ErrorAction Stop
    Write-Host "Service stopped"

    # Create backup directory
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $dest -Force | Out-Null

    # Backup data directory
    Copy-Item "$GrafanaPath\data" "$dest\data" -Recurse
    Write-Host "Data directory backed up"

    # Backup config
    Copy-Item "$GrafanaPath\conf\grafana.ini" "$dest\grafana.ini"

    # Backup provisioning
    if (Test-Path "$GrafanaPath\conf\provisioning") {
        Copy-Item "$GrafanaPath\conf\provisioning" "$dest\provisioning" -Recurse
    }

    # Compress backup
    Compress-Archive -Path $dest -DestinationPath "$dest.zip" -Force
    Remove-Item $dest -Recurse -Force
    Write-Host "Backup compressed: $dest.zip"

    # Remove old backups
    Get-ChildItem $BackupRoot -Filter "*.zip" |
        Where-Object { $_.CreationTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-$RetainDays) } |
        Remove-Item -Force
    Write-Host "Old backups cleaned up"

} finally {
    # Always restart service
    Start-Service -Name "Grafana"
    Write-Host "Service restarted"
}

Schedule with Windows Task Scheduler

# Register a daily backup task at 2:00 AM
$action = New-ScheduledTaskAction `
    -Execute "powershell.exe" `
    -Argument "-NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\Scripts\grafana-backup.ps1"

$trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Daily -At "02:00"

$principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal `
    -UserId "SYSTEM" -LogonType ServiceAccount -RunLevel Highest

Register-ScheduledTask `
    -TaskName "Grafana Daily Backup" `
    -Action $action `
    -Trigger $trigger `
    -Principal $principal `
    -Description "Daily Grafana backup"

Restore procedure

Stop the service

Stop-Service -Name "Grafana" -Force

Extract the backup

Expand-Archive -Path "C:\Backups\Grafana\grafana-20260608-0200.zip" -DestinationPath "C:\Restore" -Force

Restore data directory

Remove-Item "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\data" -Recurse -Force
Copy-Item "C:\Restore\grafana-20260608-0200\data" `
    "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\data" -Recurse

Restore config

Copy-Item "C:\Restore\grafana-20260608-0200\grafana.ini" `
    "C:\Program Files\GrafanaLabs\grafana\conf\grafana.ini"

Start the service and verify

Start-Service -Name "Grafana"
Start-Sleep 5
Invoke-WebRequest "http://localhost:3000" -UseBasicParsing

Export dashboards as JSON (lightweight backup)

For dashboard-only backups without stopping the service, export dashboards via the Grafana API:

# Export all dashboards via API
$headers = @{ Authorization = "Basic " + [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes("admin:admin")) }
$dashboards = (Invoke-RestMethod "http://localhost:3000/api/search?type=dash-db" -Headers $headers)

foreach ($dash in $dashboards) {
    $uid = $dash.uid
    $title = $dash.title -replace '[\/:*?"<>|]', '_'
    $json = Invoke-RestMethod "http://localhost:3000/api/dashboards/uid/$uid" -Headers $headers
    $json | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 20 | Out-File "C:\Backups\Dashboards\$title.json"
}
Write-Host "Exported $($dashboards.Count) dashboards"