Configure storage

This guide explains how to set up the storage backend for django-snapshots.

Use the local filesystem (default)

LocalFileSystemBackend stores snapshots as plain files on the local filesystem. This is the simplest option and supports the full AdvancedSnapshotStorage interface.

# settings.py
from django_snapshots.storage import LocalFileSystemBackend

SNAPSHOTS = {
    "STORAGE": LocalFileSystemBackend(location="/var/backups/snapshots"),
}

The directory is created automatically if it does not exist.

Use an existing Django storage backend

If your project already uses django-storages (e.g. S3, GCS, Azure), you can wrap any Storage instance with DjangoStorageBackend:

# settings.py
from storages.backends.s3boto3 import S3Boto3Storage
from django_snapshots.storage import DjangoStorageBackend

SNAPSHOTS = {
    "STORAGE": DjangoStorageBackend(
        storage=S3Boto3Storage(bucket_name="my-backup-bucket")
    ),
}

Note

DjangoStorageBackend only satisfies the basic SnapshotStorage protocol. Features that require the AdvancedSnapshotStorage tier (e.g. archive format) are not available with this backend.

Write a custom storage backend

Implement the five methods of SnapshotStorage on any class:

from typing import IO

class InMemoryBackend:
    """Trivial in-memory backend — useful for testing."""

    def __init__(self):
        self._store: dict[str, bytes] = {}

    def read(self, path: str) -> IO[bytes]:
        import io
        return io.BytesIO(self._store[path])

    def write(self, path: str, content: IO[bytes]) -> None:
        self._store[path] = content.read()

    def list(self, prefix: str) -> list[str]:
        return [p for p in self._store if p.startswith(prefix)]

    def delete(self, path: str) -> None:
        self._store.pop(path, None)

    def exists(self, path: str) -> bool:
        return path in self._store

SNAPSHOTS = {"STORAGE": InMemoryBackend()}

Use the dict configuration style

If you prefer to keep the storage backend configuration as a plain dict (e.g. for environment-specific overrides), you can pass a dict with BACKEND and OPTIONS keys:

SNAPSHOTS = {
    "STORAGE": {
        "BACKEND": "django_snapshots.storage.LocalFileSystemBackend",
        "OPTIONS": {"location": "/var/backups/snapshots"},
    },
}