# Move a database Copy a whole Postgres database between a connection on your computer and SnoutData Cloud, in either direction: a hosted project onto your laptop, or the database you have been building locally into a hosted project. :::note **New in SnoutData 1.0.32, and not finished yet.** Today you can choose the two ends, have the app check both databases and review exactly what the move will do. **Starting the move comes in a following release.** Sections marked *(coming)* describe what happens once it does. ::: ## What moves The schema and the data: tables and their rows, sequences and where they had got to, views, functions, triggers, enums and other types, indexes, constraints, row-level security policies and comments. Two things do not, on purpose: - **Owners and grants.** Roles belong to a server, and the role that owns a table on one server rarely exists on the other. Everything is created as the user the target connection signs in with. - **The parts of a hosted project that belong to SnoutData Cloud itself**, such as the schemas its sign-in, storage and data API services use. They are left out when you move a project onto your computer, because a plain Postgres has nothing to do with them. ## Start one Click the two-arrow icon in the side bar, choose **File, Move Database**, or open the command palette and choose **Move Database**. Pick the source and the target, and the app checks both before anything runs.  ## Moving into a database that does not exist yet The target does not have to exist. Under **Create a new database** in the target list you can choose: - **New SnoutData Cloud project**, with a name. - **New database on the server of** one of your connections, with a name. Nothing is created when you choose it or when the app checks it. It is created when the move starts *(coming)*, and the app then saves a connection to it. If the move does not finish, the new database is left where it is and the report says so, so you can delete it or try again. ## The checks Every check says what it found in a sentence, and most offer the ways to deal with it. Nothing runs until each one that needs a decision has one. - **Versions.** A target running an older Postgres than the source is allowed, and anything that needs the newer version is listed if it fails. - **Extensions.** If the target cannot create an extension the source uses, the check names every table with a column of that extension's type, with its row count. Those tables cannot move without the extension, so this is the check to read carefully. - **A target that already holds tables.** The move stops unless you choose to replace what is there. - **A new target.** A name that is already taken on that server, or a connection that is not allowed to create databases, is caught here. - **Production.** Moving into a database marked as production asks you to type its name before it starts. ## Replacing a target *(coming)* When you replace a target that already holds data: - Moving into a hosted project, **a copy of what is there now is saved first**, as a cloud export, and the move does not start if that copy fails. The finished move links to it. - The screen lists everything that will be dropped, by name, before you confirm. - The `public` schema is emptied rather than dropped, so the grants a hosted project's data API relies on stay in place. ## Watching it run *(coming)* The move shows each table as it copies, with rows and bytes, the rate, and the time left. Moving into or out of a hosted project that is paused, it wakes the project first and says so. When it finishes, a report compares the row count of every table on both sides and lists anything that did not restore. ## The source afterwards *(coming)* By default the source is left exactly as it was, which makes a move a copy. You can choose instead to: - **Pause** it, if it is a hosted project. - **Delete** it. This is only offered for a move that copies all of the source, it only happens if every object restored and every row count matched, and it asks you to type the source's name. A deleted hosted project can be recovered for the grace period of your plan. ## Good to know - **A move is a copy taken at one moment.** Anything written to the source after the move starts is not in the target. For a database that keeps changing, move it when it is quiet. - **Nothing extra to install** *(coming)*. The app downloads the Postgres tools it needs the first time you move a database.