Backups & Restore
Coral automatically backs up your sandbox so you can recover from mistakes or roll back to a previous state. You can also create manual backups at any time.
Automatic backups
Coral runs a two-tier backup strategy for every active sandbox:
| Tier | Frequency | Retention | Purpose |
|---|
| Rolling | Every 4 hours | Latest only (overwritten each cycle) | Quick recovery from recent issues |
| Daily | Once per day | Kept for 3 days | Protection against longer-term problems |
Automatic backups only run while your sandbox is active. If your sandbox is paused, no new backups are created, but existing backups are retained.
Creating a manual backup
- Go to the Settings page.
- Scroll to the Backup & Restore section.
- Click “Create Backup”.
The backup runs in the background and typically completes in under a minute. Once finished, it appears in the backup list below.
Restoring from a backup
- Go to the Settings page.
- Scroll to the Backup & Restore section.
- Find the backup you want to restore and click “Restore”.
- Confirm the restore action.
Restoring replaces your current sandbox state with the backup contents. Any changes made after the backup was taken will be lost. Consider creating a fresh backup before restoring if you want to preserve the current state.
What’s included in a backup
- OpenClaw configuration (
~/.openclaw/openclaw.json)
- Conversation history and session data
- Installed tools and skills
- Custom files and scripts in your sandbox
What’s not included
- The sandbox operating system and base packages (these are rebuilt from the standard image on restore)
- Temporary files in
/tmp
- Running process state (your assistant restarts fresh after a restore)
