Snapshots: creation, retention and restoration
Snapshots are complete backups of your applications and databases on Square Cloud. This article brings together, in one place, how they're created, how long they're kept, and how to restore them.
How snapshots are created
- Manual: in the Snapshots tab of an application or database. Each plan has a daily quota of manual snapshots (plan RAM in MB / 256 x 2: Hobby 1 GB = 8, Standard 4 GB = 32, Pro 12 GB = 96). When you reach it, the API answers
DAILY_SNAPSHOTS_LIMIT_REACHED; the quota frees up 24 hours after the first snapshot of the window. - Daily automatic (databases): every plan that hosts databases gets an automatic daily snapshot of each database.
- Daily automatic (applications): from the Pro plan up.
- Safety snapshot: taken automatically on critical events, such as subscription expiration, deletion and restore.
- Treat snapshots as a safety net, not as your only backup strategy. For critical data, keep your own backups too.
Retention (how long a snapshot is kept)
The most recent snapshot of each application or database is kept for up to 30 days; older snapshots are kept for 7 days. This applies to applications and databases.
Snapshot | Retention |
|---|---|
Most recent (application or database) | 30 days |
Older ones | 7 days |
Safety snapshot taken at expiration (it is the most recent one) | 30 days |
After that, snapshots are permanently deleted and can no longer be recovered.
What happens when your plan expires
About 10 minutes after the due date, Square Cloud tries to take a safety snapshot of each application and database and then deletes them, together with all your API keys. Renewing reactivates the plan, but the deleted applications and databases do not come back on their own: you have to restore the snapshot.
How to restore
While the snapshot still exists:
- Renew your plan, if it expired.
- Open the Snapshots tab (squarecloud.app/dashboard/snapshots) and pick the snapshot.
- Restore it with Upload as a new application (snapshots up to 100 MB) or Create a new database, or download the .zip and upload it as a new application.
- The restored application or database is a new resource: set up the domain again and update the connection string (a restored database has a new host, password and certificate). Create new API keys too, since the old ones were deleted.
Once a snapshot is deleted, restoration is no longer possible.
Related
See also What happens to your files if your subscription expires?.
Updated on: 10/04/2026
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