How to Back Up Trello Boards

[Jadie]

I want to back up my boards in Trello, as I have now entered so much information pertinent to my projects onto the platform I would like to be able to download a backup of all of it in case we get hit with an EMP etc.  LOL but seriously.  Does anyone know the steps to download all the lists and comments etc. in every card of a Trello board?  Thanks!

[Katrin Anger]

@Jadie 

If you are on a free account, Jadie, your options to backup Trello data are a bit limited. Not everybody knows what to do with a JSON file that is produced as the backup source.

There is now another option available with a Power-Up called Booklet by Vince. With this free Power-Up you can export card data into a spreadsheet. The backup can be arranged by board or one (or multiple) lists.

Does that help?

[Jadie]

Thanks.  It looks like that could work?  But I couldn't find a privacy policy for Booklet by Vince, given that you have to allow it full access to your Trello board content.  I was able to send an email to them to request their privacy policy, as the link on their website to it is broken or missing. 

[Katrin Anger]

@Jadie 

Hi Jadie, here's a link to their Privacy Policy.

P.S. When you respond, can you make sure you tag me? Otherwise I am not being notified that someone has responded and I might never find out (even though now I did).

[Dasha Shakov]

Hey @Jadie

It's great to hear that you're thinking about protecting your mission-critical Trello data. In case you are still looking for a solution, I wanted to let you know about Backups for Trello. An enhanced alternative to exporting your data is to have it automatically backed up daily with a solution like Rewind in case something goes wrong.

I recommend checking out the Backups for Trello Power-Up in the Power-Up marketplace. With this Power-Up, your data will be saved in a user-friendly Rewind Vault. There, you'll be able to go back in time and restore your boards to an older version so they appear the way they did before something went wrong. We're excited to provide this relief to users like you who store important information in Trello.

If you have any questions, please don't be shy to comment here or send me a message at dasha@rewind.io.

[Kathleen Kruse]

Great idea, @Dasha Shakov - and much appreciated. But unfortunately, our organization's Trello board is based on a free account, so Backups for Trello isn't an option.

But I just tried Booklet by Vince as a free PowerUps option - and downloaded the Excel file. It's an easy, free option for those of us who simply want to capture backups on-the-fly periodically. Thanks @Katrin Anger for recommending it to @Jadie back in 2019 - because it will save us lots of stress in 2021 and going forward!

[Dasha Shakov]

Hey @Kathleen Kruse

Happy to hear you were able to find a fix. In case anyone else is reading this thread – Backups for Trello is open to all Trello plans – we have Free, Business Class, and Enterprise Trello users backing up their data with our solution.

Depending on how mission-critical your data is, we often recommend against using CSV exports as a backup since they are extremely difficult to restore should you lose data. Trello doesn't have an import capability, so while you are able to export your boards, if something were to go wrong you would have to manually import the data back into Trello. Again, if time to recovery isn't a concern, this can be a viable option, but I did want to put it out there in case it is.

Happy to answer any questions!

[marc -Collabello--Phase Locked-]

@JadieYou can do a Trello export like this: https://help.trello.com/article/747-exporting-data-from-trello-1 .

That would back up your data.

Other options are described here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-questions/How-to-create-a-simple-useful-backup-of-everything-in-trello/qaq-p/1040148

[Jadie]

Thanks, it looks like some third party integrations are necessary (Trello Upload Spreadsheet, Trello Backup 3.7 2016-02-02), but I couldn't find any information as to the safety of allowing either one. The latter kept putting me through a loop repeating the permissions process, when the spreadsheet instructions said it would just work.  I might have misunderstood them though: "11. Select "Backup boards" from the Trello menu in this spreadsheet. This will (optionally) dump the raw JSON output in the Dump worksheet, and then extract certain fields into new worksheets representing each board. NOTE: You may get a request to authorise the App Script - just click Ok, and then then reselect "Backup boards" from the trello menu and it should run the next time." When I reselected 'backup boards' from the Trello menu I was sent back into the same permissions loop over again..

In the next step of the spreadsheet, the Trello Backup script options did not match the instructions, so I could not schedule backups using this method.

The same thing happened as in the first paragraph above when I followed the spreadsheet's instructions for generating story cards, i.e. nothing but an infinite repeat loop through the permissions..

For emailing the spreadsheet when it contains data, I did not find the specified code so couldn't perform that part either.

Same thing with selecting certain boards to be backed up.

After going through this process, I didn't receive any sort of confirmation that my Trello is being backed up or not.