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+++ title = "Extract/Restore a Backup" weight = 70 +++
"People don't want backups. People want Restores."
What's the point in backing up if you can't restore from it?
Of course, Norg has a restore functionality, and can restore an entire backup to
a directory of your choice.
To protect current data, Norg will only restore to an empty directory, so it is
important to specify a directory that is empty. Norg will create directories that
do not exist.
Steps
First, find the backup you wish to restore. This can easily be done by using
the list command.
norg -c myconfig.toml list
Which will give you an output similar to this:
# For Borg
hostname-2024-08-23T15:46:19.037234 Fri, 2024-08-23 15:46:19
hostname-2024-08-24T15:21:17.738163 Sat, 2024-08-24 15:21:18
# or for Restic
ID Time Host Paths Size
---------------------------------------------------------------
5f2bc4f1 2024-08-23 10:30:25 hostname /home/me 96.361 MiB
e0de9b6c 2024-08-24 11:50:52 hostname /home/me 94.123 MiB
When you know which archive or snapshot you want to extract, you can run the
extract command with repository, archive and destination parameters.
# Borg example
norg -c myconfig.toml extract -r MyBorgRepo -a hostname-2024-08-23T15:46:19.037234 --destination /my/restore/location
# Restic example
norg -c myconfig.toml extract -r MyResticRepo -a 5f2bc4f1 --destination /my/restore/location
Further Command Line Reference
Like with all other commands, you can specify Borg/Restic command line parameters after all other parameters to adjust how the extract will run. Please see Using both Borg and Restic for more information.