Backups for Mendix on Azure

Last modified: October 23, 2025

Introduction

For apps running in Mendix on Azure, the Backups functionality enables you to create/restore database or file document backups. Other backup functionalities are also supported for Mendix on Azure environments. This includes functionalities such as uploading and downloading backup snapshots and scheduling nightly, weekly, or monthly backups.

Backup snapshots contain both the database and file documents referred to in the database.

Enabling Backups

If you would like to enable creating and restoring backups, select Try new Backup and Restore on the Backups page.

You must have permission to Manage Apps Backups for the namespace.

Creating a Backup

In the Apps page, select your app.
In the navigation pane, click Backups.
Select the environment for which you want to create a backup from the dropdown on the right.

You may not create backups while the environment status is any of the following:

Environment creation is in progress
Environment creation failed
A deployment package is being deployed in the environment
The environment is in transition state (runtime is processing)

Click Create Backup.
To check the status of the backup, see the Status column.

If you want to restart your environment after creating a backup archive, wait until the backup completes. Tables are locked while the database is in the process of creating a backup, so you may receive a timeout error if you try to start your environment while the backup is being created.

Backup Details

You can view details of a backup by clicking More Options ( ) and then Details. The following details are displayed:

Backup Details	Description
Status	The status of the backup (Processing,Failed, or Finished)
Snapshot ID	A unique identifier for the backup snapshot
Created on	The creation date and time of the backup
Deployment Package	The version of the deployment package used during backup creation
Comment	A comment added to the backup

Deleting a Backup

To delete a backup snapshot, perform the following steps:

Click More Options ( ) by a backup that you want to delete.
Click Delete.

The backup file is retained until you delete it from the portal.

Restoring a Backup

You can restore a backup that has been created in your Mendix on Azure environment. Backups from other cloud providers are not supported.

You can only restore a backup if you have Manage Apps Backups and Stop Apps permissions in the respective namespace.

To restore a backup, perform the following steps:

If your app is running, stop it by clicking Stop Application.
Click More Options ( ) by a backup that you want to restore.

If you select a backup snapshot that was originally deployed with a different Mendix version, you will see a warning. You can still restore the data, but you must deploy the same model afterwards.
Click Restore.
Choose the destination environment to which you want to restore the backup snapshot. This allows you to, for example, restore a production environment backup to an acceptance environment.

Do not update the environment while the restore process is in progress.

Your environment details page displays a message while the backup is being restored. After the restore process is completed, the environment activity log shows the status as FINISHED. If a backup restore fails, the backup activity log of your environment shows the status as FAILED.

Uploading a Backup

To upload a backup, click Upload Backup, and then select the backup archive which you want to upload. For information on downloading backup archives, see Downloading a Backup.

You can upload archives containing a Full Snapshot.

Uploading a backup creates a new backup item in your backup list. You can then restore the new backup item by following the regular restore process, as described in Restoring a Backup. This ensures less downtime for your application.

Downloading a Backup

To download a backup, click More Options ( ) > Download on the backup which you want to download.

You can download archives containing a Full Snapshot.

Because the download archive is generated on request, it is not possible to estimate the file size before requesting a download.

To download a backup of an app, follow these steps:

Go to Apps and open your app.
In the navigation pane, click Backups.
On the backup you want to download, click More Options ( ).
Select Download from the drop-down list.
Click Start to submit a backup download request.
After the download request is processed and the backup is completed, click on the Download button to retrieve the backup file.
You can click on the Show URL button to view/copy the download link.

Nightly/Weekly/Monthly Backups

Backups are created and retained as follows:

Frequency	Timing	Type	Retention Period
Nightly	Each night	Automatic	14 days (counting from yesterday)
Weekly	Each Sunday	Automatic	Three months(counting from yesterday)
Monthly	First Sunday of each month	Automatic	One year(1st Sunday of each month)
On demand	On demand	Manual (user initiated)	14 days (counting from yesterday)

Each backup is automatically deleted when its retention period is over, but you can always manually delete it before then. By default, backups are retained for exactly the specified period; for example, a weekly backup created at on October 22nd expires at January 22nd. If you want to keep a backup for longer than scheduled, you can download the backup to your computer.

Automatic backups are only created when the app is deployed.

Notes on Retention

The monthly backup occurs on the first Sunday of the month. If the first nightly backup takes place after the first Sunday in the month, then there is no monthly backup retained for that month. In this case, you can download a copy of a nightly or weekly backup if you need to retain a backup for longer than three months.

Known Limitations

If a backup restore fails, all data that was restored until the point of failure is present in the database. This leaves the database only partially restored.
There is currently no API support for the backup and restore process.
The portal interface appears to allow restoring backups across different namespaces, but in reality this operation is unsupported. Backup and restore operations must be performed within the same namespace only.