In this tutorial, we show you how to backup and restore MongoDB with the commands : mongoexport and mongoimport.

1. Backup database with mongoexport

Few examples to show you how to use the mongoexport to back up the database.

Review some of the common use options.

$ mongoexport
Export MongoDB data to CSV, TSV or JSON files.

options:
  -h [ --host ] arg         mongo host to connect to ( <set name>/s1,s2 for
  -u [ --username ] arg     username
  -p [ --password ] arg     password
  -d [ --db ] arg           database to use
  -c [ --collection ] arg   collection to use (some commands)
  -q [ --query ] arg        query filter, as a JSON string
  -o [ --out ] arg          output file; if not specified, stdout is used

1.1 Export all documents (all fields) into the file “domain-bk.json“.

$ mongoexport -d webmitta -c domain -o domain-bk.json
connected to: 127.0.0.1
exported 10951 records

1.2 Export all documents with fields “domain” and “worth” only.

$ mongoexport -d webmitta -c domain -f "domain,worth" -o domain-bk.json
connected to: 127.0.0.1
exported 10951 records

1.3 Export all documents with a search query, in this case, only document with “worth > 100000” will be exported.

$mongoexport -d webmitta -c domain -f "domain,worth" -q '{worth:{$gt:100000}}' -o domain-bk.json
connected to: 127.0.0.1
exported 10903 records

1.4 Connect to remote server like mongolab.com, using username and password.

$ mongoexport -h id.mongolab.com:47307 -d heroku_app -c domain -u username123 -p password123 -o domain-bk.json
connected to: id.mongolab.com:47307
exported 10951 records

Review the exported file.

$ ls -lsa
total 2144
   0 drwxr-xr-x   5 mkyong  staff      170 Apr 10 12:00 .
   0 drwxr-xr-x+ 50 mkyong  staff     1700 Apr  5 10:55 ..
2128 -rw-r--r--   1 mkyong  staff  1089198 Apr 10 12:15 domain-bk.json