# Create a backup of an index

The backup records the schema of the index it is taken from and reports it as `schema`. An index created from the backup with [Create index from backup](/guides/database-control-plane-create-index-from-backup) inherits that schema.

:::code-group
```bash curl
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_NAME="docs-example"

curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/$INDEX_NAME/backups" \
    -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
    -H 'accept: application/json' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07" \
    -d '{
      "name": "example-backup", 
      "description": "Monthly backup of production index"
      }'
```
:::

`POST /indexes/{index_name}/backups`

:::code-group
```json title="200"
{
  "backup_id": "670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440001",
  "source_index_name": "my-index",
  "source_index_id": "670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "source_index_deleted_at": "2024-03-05T12:00:00.000Z",
  "name": "backup-2025-02-04",
  "description": "Backup before bulk update.",
  "status": "Ready",
  "cloud": "aws",
  "region": "us-east-1",
  "schema": {
    "fields": {
      "embedding": {
        "dimension": 1536,
        "metric": "cosine",
        "type": "dense_vector"
      },
      "title": {
        "full_text_search": {
          "language": "en",
          "stemming": false,
          "stop_words": false
        },
        "type": "string"
      }
    }
  },
  "record_count": 120000,
  "namespace_count": 3,
  "size_bytes": 10000000,
  "tags": {
    "tag0": "val0",
    "tag1": "val1"
  },
  "created_at": "2025-02-04T10:30:00.000Z"
}
```

```json title="400"
{
  "error": {
    "code": "INVALID_ARGUMENT",
    "message": "Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters."
  },
  "status": 400
}
```

```json title="403"
{
  "error": {
    "code": "FORBIDDEN",
    "message": "Increase your quota or upgrade to create more backups."
  },
  "status": 403
}
```

```json title="422"
{
  "error": {
    "code": "UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY",
    "message": "Failed to deserialize the JSON body into the target type: missing field `metric` at line 1 column 16"
  },
  "status": 422
}
```

```json title="500"
{
  "error": {
    "code": "UNKNOWN",
    "message": "Internal server error"
  },
  "status": 500
}
```
:::

#### Authorizations

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `Api-Key` | `string` | - |  |

An API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the [console](https://app.pinecone.io/).

#### Headers

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `X-Pinecone-Api-Version` | `string` | `2026-07` | Required date-based version header |

#### Path Parameters

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `index_name` | `string` | - | Name of the index to backup |

#### Body

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `name?` | `string` | - | The name of the backup. Must be 1-45 characters long, start and end with an alphanumeric character, and consist only of lower case alphanumeric characters or -; any other value is rejected with 400. Required string length: 1 - 45. Example: backup-2025-03-15 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `description?` | `string` | - | A description of the backup. |

#### Response

`200` — The backup was created. The returned backup starts in status `Initializing`; poll it until the status is `Ready`.

The BackupModel describes the configuration and status of a Pinecone backup.

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `backup_id` | `string` | - | Unique identifier for the backup. Example: 670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440001 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `source_index_name` | `string` | - | Name of the index from which the backup was taken. Example: my-index |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `source_index_id` | `string` | - | ID of the index from which the backup was taken. Example: 670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `source_index_deleted_at?` | `string` | - | The deletion timestamp when the source index has been deleted. Not present for backups associated with an active index. Example: 2024-03-05T12:00:00.000Z |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `name?` | `string` | - | Optional user-defined name for the backup. Example: backup-2025-02-04 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `description?` | `string` | - | Optional description providing context for the backup. Example: Backup before bulk update. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `status` | `string` | - | Current status of the backup. Example: Ready |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `cloud` | `string` | - | Cloud provider where the backup is stored. Example: aws |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `region` | `string` | - | Cloud region where the backup is stored. Example: us-east-1 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `schema?` | `object` | - | The schema of a Pinecone index. The schema defines the typed fields that documents in the index can contain, including vector fields, semantic text fields, and metadata fields. |

:::accordion{title="Show child attributes"}
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `fields` | `object` | - | A map of field names to their configurations. Indexes that are served by the vectors API — created with the reserved _values / _sparse_values schema, or created by an earlier API version from dimension, metric, and vector_type — report their vector fields under the reserved names _values (dense) and _sparse_values (sparse), and any metadata fields configured for filtering as legacy fields carrying only filterable. Dense vectors-API indexes always report both _values and _sparse_values, regardless of how they were created. |
:::

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `record_count?` | `integer` | - | Total number of records in the backup. Example: 120000 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `namespace_count?` | `integer` | - | Number of namespaces in the backup. Example: 3 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `size_bytes?` | `integer` | - | Size of the backup in bytes. Example: 10000000 |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `tags?` | `object \| null` | - | Custom user tags added to an index, at most 20 per index. Keys must be 80 characters or less and alphanumeric, '', or '-'. Values must be 120 characters or less and consist of printable ASCII characters or spaces. To unset a key, set the value to be an empty string. null in responses when the index has no tags. |

| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `created_at?` | `string` | - | Timestamp when the backup was created. Example: 2025-02-04T10:30:00.000Z |

## Related pages

- [List backups for all indexes in a project](./database-control-plane-list-project-backups.md)
- [List backups for an index](./database-control-plane-list-index-backups.md)
- [Describe a backup](./database-control-plane-describe-backup.md)
- [Delete a backup](./database-control-plane-delete-backup.md)
- [Create an index from a backup](./database-control-plane-create-index-from-backup.md)
- [List restore jobs](./database-control-plane-list-restore-jobs.md)
- [Describe a restore job](./database-control-plane-describe-restore-job.md)
- [List collections](./database-control-plane-list-collections.md)
- [Create a collection](./database-control-plane-create-collection.md)
- [Describe a collection](./database-control-plane-describe-collection.md)

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