Export, backup and restore

Open My Library → Library tools → Reports. "Export CSV" downloads your core catalog fields straight away (handy for re-importing elsewhere — it includes each book’s Dewey and LC classification and each copy’s call number under the same column names the import understands, so a re-import reproduces them), and "Export & backup…" opens a page with that same CSV plus a complete JSON backup containing every field your library holds.

The JSON backup is the complete record of your library: every copy with its price, covers, notes, inscription note, call number, collector details (including value basis and source), custom-field definitions and values, and copy photo references; each book’s Dewey and LC classification; each copy’s full shelf location — room, bookcase, and shelf — along with the location tree itself; every loan, open or returned; and your want list. Images are carried as links, not embedded. Backups taken before September 2026 predate the loans, want list, and location tree, so take a fresh one if you rely on it. For each copy it also carries, when there is one, the date it was marked missing and the date a finished shelf check last saw it in place; restoring the backup brings both back (a missing copy is restored as missing, on the same date, without the name of whoever marked it), and a backup from before these dates existed restores exactly as it always did. The CSV has no column for them. Neither file includes Library activity — the history of moves, condition changes and removals stays in AllMyBooks — nor shelf checks themselves, nor copies you have removed, even while they can still be restored.

Export is available to library admins and members, not guests.

The same Export & backup page puts a JSON backup back. Choose the file and you get a preview first — how many copies will be restored, which books are already in the catalogue and which will be recreated from the file, which shelf locations and custom fields will be reused or created, and any warnings — and nothing is written until you confirm. Keep the tab open while it runs; it works through the file fifty copies at a time, like an import.

A restore brings back every copy with all of its details: price, covers, notes, inscription note, call number, collector details, custom-field values, copy photos, and its full shelf location (rooms, bookcases and shelves are recreated where they are missing and reused where the names and types match); each copy’s loans, open and returned; and the want list. Books are matched to the shared catalogue by their id, then ISBN or LCCN, and recreated from the backup when absent. Cover and photo images are re-attached as links to the existing files, not copied or checked. It does not restore tags, members and roles, read status, showcases, or shelf photographs — the preview says so.

Restoring only works into an empty library, so it cannot mix a backup into copies you have since added by hand: empty the library first, or restore into another library you administer that is still empty. Copies you have removed still count while they can be restored, because a backup restored beside them would duplicate any you then brought back: the refusal says how many are waiting and until when, and the library counts as empty once their 30 days have passed. A backup never brings back a copy that was removed after being restored from it. It only ever adds — nothing that was already there is changed or removed — and running the same file again is safe: copies it already restored are skipped, which is also how an interrupted restore is resumed. If a custom field in the backup has the same name as one in the library but a different type, that field’s values are left out and named in the report.

Backups taken before September 2026 (format version 1) restore too, but they never contained loans, the want list, or the location tree, so those parts stay empty and each copy’s shelf is matched by name only — the preview warns you. Take a fresh backup now so you have the complete one.

Restore is available to library admins only. Members see who can restore; guests see neither export nor restore.