Backup & Restore

Most engines here need a command line tool that does not ship inside TablePro. Install the one for your engine first:

Engine	Tools	Install	Dump file
PostgreSQL, Redshift	`pg_dump`, `pg_restore`	`brew install libpq && brew link --force libpq`	`.dump`, custom archive
MySQL, MariaDB	`mysqldump`, `mysql`	`brew install mysql-client`	`.sql`
MongoDB	`mongodump`, `mongorestore`	`brew install mongodb-database-tools`	`.archive`, gzipped
SQLite, libSQL	`sqlite3`	`brew install sqlite`	`.sql`
SQL Server	`sqlpackage`	Download from Microsoft	`.bacpac`
DuckDB	none, the engine writes it	nothing to install	`.duckdb`, or a folder of Parquet

MariaDB 11.0 renamed its clients, so mariadb-dump and mariadb are accepted in place of mysqldump and mysql. The lookup takes the first executable in an absolute PATH folder, then checks standard tool folders such as /usr/local/bin and /opt/homebrew/bin. It also checks /usr/local/mysql/bin and Postgres.app’s latest version. Empty and relative PATH entries are skipped. That path decides which client version does the work. On PostgreSQL that match is checked against the server first, for both directions. pg_dump and pg_restore refuse a server newer than themselves, 15 and later refuse servers older than 9.2, and TablePro names the database with -d, which arrived in 9.3. When the first match cannot reach the server, the newest one that can is taken from the Homebrew postgresql@… and libpq installs, every Postgres.app version, and /Library/PostgreSQL. When none can, the run stops before it starts and names the version to install: PostgreSQL 9.1 needs pg_dump 9.3 to 14, so brew install postgresql@14. A binary that does not answer --version is used anyway. DuckDB is the exception: its dump is a statement the engine already in front of TablePro runs, over the connection that is already open. File > Backup Dump… is dimmed on an engine that is not in the table, and on a libSQL connection pointed at a Turso URL rather than a local file, which sqlite3 cannot reach. For those, use a SQL export from Import & Export.

Restore is disabled on a read-only Safe Mode connection. Backup is not, because it writes nothing to the database.

Backup dump

Open the sheet

Choose File > Backup Dump… on a connected session, or right-click one or more databases in the connection tree and choose Back Up…. The tree’s selection arrives ticked.

Tick what goes in

The database being browsed starts ticked and whole. Tick more databases to write more files. Open a database’s disclosure triangle to reach its tables, all of them ticked, and untick the ones to leave out. Partitioned tables and MariaDB sequences are listed there beside the plain tables.

Pick the format and the folder

Only DuckDB offers a choice of format. Every file lands in the folder named under Save to, called <database>-<yyyy-MM-dd-HHmmss> with the engine’s extension.

Watch the byte counter

Cancel confirms, stops the run, and removes the partial file. Databases already written are kept. The result sheet lists every database with its file and size, and Show in Finder selects them.The bar shows a percentage on PostgreSQL and MySQL, which answer a database size query cheaply. The rest show an indeterminate bar with a running byte count.

What goes in

Ticking a whole database dumps everything in it: tables, views, routines, triggers and sequences, whatever the engine’s tool carries. Unticking even one table narrows the dump to the ticked ones, and every engine narrows differently.

Engine	Narrows to	What a narrowed dump leaves out
PostgreSQL, Redshift	tables, plus each partitioned table’s partitions	Sequences, types, schemas, and tables the selection references. The dump will not restore on its own
MySQL, MariaDB	tables	Views, and tables the selection references. It restores, with those references dangling
MongoDB	collections	Nothing
SQLite, libSQL	tables, plus each one’s indexes and triggers	Nothing
SQL Server	table data	Nothing. The `.bacpac` always carries the whole schema, and a table the selection references by foreign key has to be ticked too
DuckDB	nothing, the picker is off	The whole database goes in every time

The sheet repeats the relevant row under the tree as soon as a selection is narrowed. Leave every table ticked to get the whole database, which is what the sheet starts on.

Backing up several databases

Tick more than one database and the run writes one file per database into the chosen folder. Two databases whose names differ only by a character a file name cannot hold, such as a/b and a:b, get a numbered suffix rather than one overwriting the other. Each database runs on its own. A failure stops that one and the run carries on, and the result sheet says which database failed and why alongside the ones that worked.

Restore dump

Pick the dump file

Choose File > Restore Dump… and select a file the matching backup tool wrote. The panel names the formats this connection’s engine accepts.

Pick the target database

Engines with more than one database ask which. SQLite and DuckDB reach exactly one, so they skip straight to the confirmation.pg_restore runs with --no-owner --no-acl, so the connection user ends up owning the restored objects. mongorestore is scoped with --nsInclude to the database picked.

Confirm

Read what the restore does to the objects already in the database, then click Restore. Each engine does something different: Objects already in the database.

Wait it out

Restore shows no percentage. Cancel confirms and stops the run, and the target database is left as it stands: drop it and restore into a fresh one, or clean up the partial objects yourself.

Restore covers the whole file. There is no table picker on the way back in. A MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite restore runs the file as SQL and nothing else. The client’s own commands in it, source and system for MySQL and MariaDB or .read and .shell for SQLite, are not run, and LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE is refused.

Objects already in the database

Engine	Objects already there	At an error
PostgreSQL, Redshift	Kept, since no `--clean` is passed. The dump’s rows go into them, except into a table where a key collides	Carries on, and the restore reports failed at the end
MongoDB	Kept, since no `--drop` is passed. The dump’s documents are added, except one whose `_id` is taken	Carries on
MySQL, MariaDB	Dropped and recreated when a TablePro backup names them. The rest are left alone	Stops, and keeps what ran before it
SQLite, libSQL	Kept. A taken key or name is an error, except a table created with a quoted name, which gets the dump’s rows	Stops. A dump in one transaction, as every TablePro backup is, keeps none of it. Any other keeps what ran before the error
DuckDB	Kept. A taken name stops the restore before anything is copied	Stops
SQL Server	The import needs an empty database, and stops if this one holds objects	Stops

Restore a SQLite dump into an empty database file. Every table TablePro creates has a quoted name, so one the file already holds gets the dump’s rows beside its own.

What a dump carries

mysqldump runs with --single-transaction --routines --triggers --events, so a MySQL dump is consistent with itself and carries stored routines, triggers and scheduled events. pg_dump -Fc carries the whole database. sqlite3 .dump writes the schema and every row as SQL. DuckDB writes one of two things. A .duckdb file carries tables, views, indexes, foreign keys and sequences, and only DuckDB reads it, which is also true of pg_dump’s archive and MongoDB’s. A Parquet folder holds schema.sql, load.sql and one Parquet file per table, which pandas, Spark and BigQuery read directly. Pick the file to restore into TablePro later, the folder to hand the data to something else. The folder restores too, except on TablePro 0.83.1 and 0.84.0-beta.2, where File > Restore Dump… takes only the .duckdb file. The folder is imported first into a separate DuckDB instance that can read nothing outside it, then copied into the database. A schema.sql or load.sql that reaches for another file, a database or an extension fails there, and the database is left as it was.

SSH tunnels and SSL

Both flows reuse the connection’s active SSH tunnel, with no second port forward. The whole of the connection’s SSL configuration reaches the tool, the CA certificate and the client certificate and key included: PostgreSQL takes them in PGSSLMODE, PGSSLROOTCERT, PGSSLCERT and PGSSLKEY, and MySQL and MariaDB in their client’s own flags. SQLite and DuckDB open a file, so neither applies. MySQL’s clients and MariaDB’s no longer take the same flags. MySQL’s take --ssl-mode, with VERIFY_CA and VERIFY_IDENTITY included. MariaDB’s take --ssl, --skip-ssl and --ssl-verify-server-cert, and reject --ssl-mode. Which family a tool belongs to comes from its --version rather than its name: Homebrew’s mariadb formula installs MariaDB’s dump tool as mysqldump. A tool that answers no version is used for Disabled and Preferred, and refused for Required, Verify CA and Verify Identity. MariaDB’s clients have no flag for encrypting without verifying, so Required reaches them as --ssl --ssl-verify-server-cert. That refuses a server offering no TLS. With no CA certificate set it checks the encryption rather than the server’s identity. MariaDB’s clients send the password as typed whenever a server asks for it that way (mysql_clear_password, PAM through dialog, or a test plugin Homebrew ships), with or without TLS. On Disabled, TablePro runs them with a plugin folder that holds only the sign-in plugins that never do, so such a login fails instead. A build with those plugins compiled in ignores the folder, so TablePro asks the tool first, against a local stand-in server, and refuses one that answers. Preferred reads the server’s greeting first, which sends no credentials: a server offering TLS gets --ssl --skip-ssl-verify-server-cert, and one offering none gets --skip-ssl and the same folder. When the greeting cannot be read, the backup or restore stops rather than guess. --ssl against a server without TLS falls back to plaintext and sends the typed password to caching_sha2_password, so it is never used there. A local socket, the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy and an SSH tunnel to the server’s socket keep every plugin.

Unloading on the server

Oracle, Snowflake and BigQuery have no client-side dump. Unload to somewhere the server can write by running the engine’s own statement in a query tab. It runs with your privileges, so the server’s own error comes back when the destination is not writable.

DECLARE
  h NUMBER;
BEGIN
  h := DBMS_DATAPUMP.OPEN('EXPORT', 'TABLE');
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.ADD_FILE(h, 'orders.dmp', 'DP_DIR');
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.ADD_FILE(h, 'orders.log', 'DP_DIR', NULL, DBMS_DATAPUMP.KU$_FILE_TYPE_LOG_FILE);
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.METADATA_FILTER(h, 'SCHEMA_EXPR', 'IN (''SALES'')');
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.METADATA_FILTER(h, 'NAME_EXPR', 'IN (''ORDERS'')');
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.START_JOB(h);
  DBMS_DATAPUMP.DETACH(h);
END;

COPY INTO @my_stage/orders
FROM sales.orders
FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = CSV, COMPRESSION = GZIP, HEADER = TRUE)
OVERWRITE = FALSE;

EXPORT DATA OPTIONS (
  uri = 'gs://my-bucket/orders-*.csv',
  format = 'CSV',
  overwrite = false
) AS SELECT * FROM sales.orders;

In the Oracle block, DP_DIR is a DIRECTORY object, not a path. The block starts a Data Pump job and returns before the file is written: watch DBA_DATAPUMP_JOBS for its progress. BigQuery needs the * in the URI, because it shards its output.

Passwords

Your password never reaches the tool’s argument list, which every process on the machine can read through ps. PostgreSQL gets PGPASSWORD and MySQL gets MYSQL_PWD, both in the environment. MongoDB’s tools read neither, so TablePro writes a 0600 config file and deletes it when the process exits. DuckDB is asked for nothing: it is already connected.

SqlPackage is the exception. It accepts a password only inside its connection string, which means the command line, where other processes on the Mac can read it while the tool runs. A dump and a restore both ask before starting. Windows or Entra authentication avoids it entirely: leave the username empty and the tool uses integrated security.

The tools run directly, with connection values passed as arguments. They inherit a limited environment plus the connection’s password and SSL settings. Shell startup files are not loaded. PostgreSQL password-file lookup follows Use ~/.pgpass.

Failures

A non-zero exit shows the last 64 KB of the tool’s stderr in a scrollable monospaced view, and DuckDB’s own error text in the same place. Most come down to one of these.

What you see	What to do
”… was not found on this system” followed by an install command	Run that command so the binaries land on `PATH`. The message names the tool and the package for your engine
An authentication failure	The password goes through the environment or a config file rather than a prompt, so this is the account or the database. Check that the role can log in
”The server asked for the password in plain text …”	The server signs in through PAM or LDAP, and the session has no TLS. Set SSL Mode to Required, or turn TLS on for the server
”could not tell whether … is MySQL’s client or MariaDB’s”	The tool on `PATH` did not answer `--version`, and the two families take different SSL flags. Reinstall `mysql-client` or `mariadb`
Objects that conflict with the dump	Restore into a fresh database, or drop the conflicting objects first
”a single transaction can only write to a single attached database”	A DuckDB query tab has an open transaction that has already written. Commit or roll it back, then run the backup again
”The backup could not be imported, so this database was not changed. …”	A DuckDB Parquet folder failed in its separate instance, and DuckDB’s error follows. Check that `schema.sql` and `load.sql` name only files in that folder, or restore a `.duckdb` backup

One non-zero exit is not a failure. A pg_restore newer than the server sets parameters the server does not have, such as transaction_timeout on anything before PostgreSQL 17, and exits 1 after restoring everything. When those are its only errors, the restore reports complete and names the settings the server skipped. Any other error in the same run still fails it. So does a server whose lc_messages is not English, because its errors cannot be read.

Start here

Connections

Databases

Write SQL

Browse and edit data

Schema and server

Import and export

AI

Integrations

Around the app

Sync and licensing

Customization

Security and privacy

Backup dump

What goes in

Backing up several databases

Restore dump

Objects already in the database

What a dump carries

SSH tunnels and SSL

Unloading on the server

Passwords

Failures

​Backup dump

​What goes in

​Backing up several databases

​Restore dump

​Objects already in the database

​What a dump carries

​SSH tunnels and SSL

​Unloading on the server

​Passwords

​Failures

Backup dump

What goes in

Backing up several databases

Restore dump

Objects already in the database

What a dump carries

SSH tunnels and SSL

Unloading on the server

Passwords

Failures