mongodump/mongorestore minimal examples

Create & restore a database

mongodump --db mydb --out mydb.mongobackup

This will backup the database mydb from the MongoDB running at localhost and store the backup in the newly created DigiKey.mongobackup directory as BSON.

mongorestore mydb.mongobackup

This will restore the backup to localhost (the database name, mydb, is stored in the backup directory).

It will not overwrite or update existing documents, nor delete documents that are currently present but not present in the backup.

Restore backup with drop

mongorestore --drop mydb.mongobackup

This will drop (i.e. delete) each collection before importing from the backup. This means that

• Existing documents will effectively be overwritten
• Documents that are currently present but not present in the backup will be deleted

However note that while importing the backup, some documents might be missing from the database until the backup has been fully restored.

Note that this will not drop collections that are not present in the backup.