Backups

Workspace settings is the control center where you can schedule how often backups run, how long they’re retained, what data is preserved, and in which formats those backups are organized.

Schedule

Your first backup should start soon after you connect your Notion workspace and at least one cloud storage provider. You can also trigger the backup manually from the workspace settings.

There are 3 possible backup states:

• Scheduled - backup will run as scheduled
• In progress - backup is currently running
• Error - some error prevented backup from completing

By default, your workspace is backed up weekly, but you can choose daily or monthly options as well. For example, if a backup finishes on January 1st with the weekly setting, expect the next one on January 8th. You can see the estimated time for the next backup in the workspace settings.

The first backup usually takes a few hours, though large workspaces can take days or even weeks. Subsequent backups should be much faster. At times, issues with Notion or your cloud storage provider may also slow things down.

If the backup file doesn't appear in your cloud storage within a week, please reach out.

Backup formats

Backups are available in JSON and Markdown formats.

JSON

While not easily readable, JSON is essential for restore functionality, as it preserves metadata, ensuring a more complete backup.

JSON backups also cover more ground, as some data couldn't be converted to Markdown (see below).

Markdown

Backups can also be created in Markdown format, which is currently in beta. This format is more human-readable, allowing for easier browsing of content.

Unlike Notion's built-in Markdown export, our backups are exclusively in Markdown and contain no CSV files.

Current limitations of the Markdown format:

• Some database properties, such as buttons, might not be included
• Formatting for some database properties might not be preserved
• Comments aren't included

It's a good idea to have both backup formats enabled for better data protection.

Access levels

By default, we request read & write (full) access to your workspace so we can restore backups directly into it. If you're on the Pro plan, you have the option to grant read-only access instead. In either case, we don't access your data beyond what's necessary for performing backups.

Once you select the access mode during the initial authorization, you won't be able to change it.

Top-level pages

You can manage which top-level pages Notion Backups has access to by reauthorizing in your workspace settings (it's a good idea to do it regularly).

You can also select which pages Notion Backups has access to from your Notion workspace settings (Settings & members → My connections → Notion Backups menu → Access selected pages).

Permissions

Even as a workspace owner, you might not have 'Full Access' permission for every piece of content in your workspace. For example, if someone invites you to their teamspace with only 'Can Edit' access, we won't be able to back up that content.

You can either ask the content owner to grant you 'Full Access', or invite them to your Notion Backups account and let them authorize the workspace directly.

To verify your permission level, check the Share menu in the top-right corner of the Notion page.

In most cases, permission levels are inherited by sub-pages and databases. However, in rare instances they might have different permissions set. For example, if you see "Share settings on this database are unlinked from the parent page," it likely means we don't have access to that database unless you explicitly grant it via the three-dot menu → Connections → Add connection.

See Notion's documentation for details on permission levels.

Media files

By default, media files uploaded directly to Notion (including images, audio, video, and PDF files) will be backed up. This also includes custom covers/icons and attachments in properties. This can significantly increase your backup size. You can always disable media file backups in your workspace settings.

For externally-hosted media files, only URLs will be included in your backups, not the files themselves.

Comments

If you connected your Notion workspace before October 30th, 2022, comments will not be backed up unless you have reauthorized your workspace after that date.

Note that due to Notion API's limitations, only unresolved comments will be backed up.

Auto-delete

To preserve cloud storage space, you can choose to automatically delete backups older than 2, 4, 8, or 12 weeks.

If you are subscribed to a Pro plan, you can select an advanced backup rotation schedule that will retain all backups from the past 15 days, along with one backup from each month and one from each year. This approach keeps recent backups while preserving monthly and yearly snapshots for wider coverage.

Compression

Backups are compressed and archived in the zip file to reduce bandwidth and storage costs.

Zip files are widely supported by most operating systems. If you have trouble unzipping files on Windows, try 7zip.

Revoking access

When you disconnect a Notion workspace from the dashboard, our access token gets automatically revoked via the Notion API. After that, we can no longer access your data.

You can also revoke access in the Notion dashboard under Settings > Connections.