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Paperless Ngx

Document management system for organizing, indexing, and searching your documents.

Installation

Enable Paperless by setting COMPOSE_PROFILES=paperless.

Paperless will be accessible at /paperless.

On first run, an admin account will be created with the credentials specified in paperless/.env.

Environment Variables

Variable Description Default
PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY Secret key for production, generate with openssl rand -base64 32
PAPERLESS_TIME_ZONE Timezone for the container America/New_York
PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE Default OCR language eng
PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER Admin username admin
PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD Admin password changeme

Backup

Paperless data can be backed up to any cloud storage product using Restic via resticker.

Restic provides:

  • Incremental backups: Only changed data is backed up
  • Deduplication: Identical content across snapshots uses minimal space
  • Encryption: All data encrypted with your repository password
  • Compression: Optional, doesn't interfere with deduplication
  • Remote backends: S3, B2, SFTP, Rclone remotes, and more

What Gets Backed Up

  • Data directory (/usr/src/paperless/data): SQLite database and settings
  • Media directory (/usr/src/paperless/media): Documents, thumbnails, and attachments

What Is Excluded

  • Thumbnails (/data/media/.thumbnails/): Can be regenerated

Initial Setup

1. Configure Backup Environment

Copy the backup environment template and customize it:

cp paperless/backup.env.example paperless/backup.env

Edit paperless/backup.env and set the following:

Variable Description Example
RESTIC_REPOSITORY Backup destination URI for Restic See examples below
RESTIC_PASSWORD Strong password to encrypt the repository Generate with openssl rand -base64 32
CRON Backup schedule (cron format with seconds) 0 30 3 * * * (3:30 AM daily)
TIMEZONE Timezone for cron scheduling America/New_York
RESTIC_FORGET_ARGS Backup retention policy --keep-last 7 --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4 --keep-monthly 3

2. Choose Your Backup Destination

Restic supports multiple backends. Pick one based on your infrastructure:

Rclone Remote (Optional - reuse existing rclone configuration):

Rclone is optional. Use this only if your RESTIC_REPOSITORY URI starts with rclone:. If you prefer to use Rclone, it allows you to back up to any service supported by Rclone (S3, B2, SFTP, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) without direct Restic support, or if you want to reuse existing Rclone configurations.

First, configure your rclone remote destination:

docker compose run --rm -it paperless-backup rclone config

This interactive command will guide you through:

  1. Creating a new remote (choose n)
  2. Naming your remote (e.g., backup-s3, backup-b2, backup-sftp, etc.)
  3. Selecting your storage type (S3, B2, SFTP, etc.)
  4. Entering credentials and configuration

The configuration will be saved to paperless/.rclone/rclone.conf. Do not manually edit this file; use the rclone config command above to modify it.

Then set in backup.env:

RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rclone:myremote:/nas-backups/paperless

This allows you to use any rclone-supported backend seamlessly.

S3-Compatible (Direct) (AWS, Wasabi, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces, etc. - no Rclone needed):

You can also back up directly to S3-compatible services without using Rclone:

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=s3:s3.amazonaws.com/my-bucket/paperless

# Or for S3-compatible services:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=s3:https://s3.wasabisys.com/my-bucket/paperless

# Additional environment variables:
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret

Backblaze B2 (Direct - no Rclone needed):

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=b2:my-bucket:paperless

# And provide credentials:
B2_ACCOUNT_ID=your_account_id
B2_ACCOUNT_KEY=your_account_key

SFTP (Direct - no Rclone needed):

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=sftp://user@backup.example.com/paperless

# Password authentication is interactive or set:
SFTP_PASSWORD=your_sftp_password

Local Path (NAS mounted volume or local directory - no Rclone needed):

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=/mnt/backup-drive/paperless

# Ensure the directory exists and is writable:
mkdir -p /mnt/backup-drive/paperless

Google Cloud Storage (Direct - no Rclone needed):

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=gs://my-bucket/paperless

# And provide credentials (via service account JSON):
GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/path/to/credentials.json

Azure Blob Storage (Direct - no Rclone needed):

# Set in backup.env:
RESTIC_REPOSITORY=azure://paperless-container/paperless

# And provide credentials:
AZURE_ACCOUNT_NAME=myaccount
AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY=mykey

3. Generate a Secure Password

# Generate a strong random password
openssl rand -base64 32

# Copy the output and paste it into backup.env as RESTIC_PASSWORD

Important: Store this password securely. You'll need it to restore backups. If lost, your backup data becomes inaccessible.

Testing the Backup

List Existing Snapshots

docker compose run --rm paperless-backup snapshots

This will list all backup snapshots. If the repository doesn't exist yet, it will be initialized automatically on the first scheduled backup.

Manually Trigger a Backup

Perform a one-time backup:

docker compose run --rm paperless-backup backup /data

Then apply the retention policy to clean up old snapshots:

docker compose run --rm paperless-backup forget --prune --keep-last 7 --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4 --keep-monthly 3

(Note: Replace the --keep-* arguments with your configured RESTIC_FORGET_ARGS from backup.env)

Check Repository Status

docker compose run --rm paperless-backup check

Monitor Scheduled Backups

Start the Paperless backup service:

COMPOSE_PROFILES=paperless,paperless-backup docker compose up -d

Then monitor backup logs:

docker compose logs -f paperless-backup

The backup will run automatically according to the schedule in backup.env (default: 3:30 AM daily).

Restoration

Quick restore overview:

  1. Stop the Paperless service
  2. Restore the SQLite database from the Restic snapshot
  3. Restore the media directory from the Restic snapshot
  4. Start Paperless again

To restore a specific snapshot:

docker compose run --rm paperless-backup restore <snapshot-id> --target /restored

Then:

  1. Copy the database: cp /restored/paperless.db /restored/data/paperless.db
  2. Copy the media: cp -r /restored/media/* paperless-media/
  3. Restart Paperless