---
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title: Server Upgrade - Back Up Tableau Server
collection: tableau
version: next
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/tableau/next/en-us/server/server-upgrade-prepare-backup.md
canonical_url: https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/server-upgrade-prepare-backup.htm
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description: Back up Tableau Server before beginning an upgrade.
---
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# Server Upgrade - Back Up Tableau Server

We _strongly_ recommend that you make a backup of your installation of Tableau Server before beginning the upgrade process. A backup made before you start the upgrade provides data that you'll need to set up a test version of the upgraded environment, and it also gives you the ability recover if the upgrade process fails. Backups are not an include step during upgrades, except when the upgrade includes a minor version upgrade to PostGRES and then a pg-only upgrade is created for internal use during upgrade.

**Notes:** 

- We recommend you disable subscriptions and scheduling in your production environment immediately before taking the backup, and reenable them after the backup is complete. Doing this will help avoid having your users receive duplicate subscriptions and email messages when you restore your backup in your test environment.
- The full backup can take a while if you have a large installation or a lot of extracts.
- Any changes made between the time you took the backup and the time you do the upgrade are lost because they aren't included in the backup.
- [Remove Unneeded Files](https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/maintenance_cleanup.htm).

To back up server configuration data, use the `tsm settings` command.

When you use the `tsm maintenance backup` command, the current date is appended to the backup file:

tsm maintenance backup -f <backup\_file> -d

For more information, see [tsm maintenance backup](https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/cli_maintenance_tsm.htm#tsm).

Continue to [Server Upgrade - Download Setup](https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/server-upgrade-prepare-download-setup.htm).