Back Up and Restore Grafana Dashboards from SQLite (2026)

Grafana dashboards are stored in a SQLite database by default, and while not ideal for production, it’s common for smaller setups. When you need to back up and restore these dashboards, you’re essentially dealing with a SQLite database dump.

Here’s how you can back up and restore your Grafana dashboards stored in SQLite:

Backing Up Grafana Dashboards

The most straightforward way to back up your Grafana dashboards is to dump the entire SQLite database.

Locate your Grafana SQLite database: By default, this is usually found at /var/lib/grafana/grafana.db on Linux systems. The exact path might vary depending on your installation method.
Create a database dump: You can use the sqlite3 command-line tool to dump the database schema and data into a SQL file.
```
sqlite3 /var/lib/grafana/grafana.db .dump > grafana-backup.sql
```
This command creates a file named grafana-backup.sql containing all the SQL statements needed to recreate your Grafana database, including your dashboards, users, data sources, and other configurations.

Restoring Grafana Dashboards

To restore, you’ll essentially import the SQL dump back into a Grafana SQLite database.

Important: Before restoring, ensure Grafana is stopped to prevent data corruption.

sudo systemctl stop grafana-server

Clear the existing database (optional but recommended for a clean restore): If you want a completely fresh restore, you can remove the existing grafana.db file. Be absolutely sure you have a backup before doing this!
```
sudo rm /var/lib/grafana/grafana.db
```
Import the SQL dump: Use the sqlite3 command to import the contents of your backup file.
```
sqlite3 /var/lib/grafana/grafana.db < grafana-backup.sql
```
This command recreates the grafana.db file and populates it with the data from your backup.
Restart Grafana: Once the import is complete, start the Grafana server again.
```
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
```
After Grafana starts, you should see your dashboards and other configurations restored.

Considerations for Production

While this method works for smaller setups or for migrating Grafana instances, relying on SQLite for production environments is generally discouraged due to its limitations in concurrency, performance, and scalability. For production, consider migrating to a more robust database like PostgreSQL or MySQL.

The next step in managing your Grafana instance might involve setting up external database connections.