This page describes how to create a static copy of a serverless index, also known as a backup.

Serverless index backups are in public preview and available only on Standard and Enterprise plans.

Create a backup

You can create a backup from a serverless index, as in the following example:

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

backup = pc.create_backup(
    index_name="docs-example", 
    backup_name="example-backup", 
    description="Monthly backup of production index"
)

print(backup)

The example returns a response like the following:

{'backup_id': '8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71',
 'cloud': 'aws',
 'created_at': '2025-05-15T00:52:10.809305882Z',
 'description': 'Monthly backup of production index',
 'dimension': 1024,
 'name': 'example-backup',
 'namespace_count': 3,
 'record_count': 98,
 'region': 'us-east-1',
 'size_bytes': 1069169,
 'source_index_id': 'f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74',
 'source_index_name': 'docs-example',
 'status': 'Ready',
 'tags': {}}

You can create a backup using the Pinecone console.

View all backups for an index

You can view all backups for an index as follows.

Up to 100 backups are returned at a time by default, in sorted order (bitwise “C” collation). If the limit parameter is set, up to that number of backups are returned instead. Whenever there are additional backups to return, the response also includes a pagination_token that you can use to get the next batch of backups. When the response does not include a pagination_token, there are no more backups to return.

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

index_backups = pc.list_backups(index_name="docs-example")

print(index_backups)

The example returns a response like the following:

[{
    "backup_id": "8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71",
    "source_index_name": "docs-example",
    "source_index_id": "f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74",
    "status": "Ready",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "tags": {},
    "name": "example-backup",
    "description": "Monthly backup of production index",
    "dimension": 1024,
    "record_count": 98,
    "namespace_count": 3,
    "size_bytes": 1069169,
    "created_at": "2025-05-15T00:52:10.809305882Z"
}]

You can view the backups for a specific index from either the Backups tab or the Indexes tab in the Pinecone console.

View all backups in a project

You can view backups for all indexes in a project as follows.

Up to 100 backups are returned at a time by default, in sorted order (bitwise “C” collation). If the limit parameter is set, up to that number of backups are returned instead. Whenever there are additional backups to return, the response also includes a pagination_token that you can use to get the next batch of backups. When the response does not include a pagination_token, there are no more backups to return.

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

project_backups = pc.list_backups()

print(project_backups)

The example returns a response like the following:

[{
    "backup_id": "8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71",
    "source_index_name": "docs-example",
    "source_index_id": "f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74",
    "status": "Ready",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "tags": {},
    "name": "example-backup",
    "description": "Monthly backup of production index",
    "dimension": 1024,
    "record_count": 98,
    "namespace_count": 3,
    "size_bytes": 1069169,
    "created_at": "2025-05-15T20:26:21.248515Z"
}, {
    "backup_id": "95707edb-e482-49cf-b5a5-312219a51a97",
    "source_index_name": "docs-example2",
    "source_index_id": "b49f27d1-1bf3-49c6-82b5-4ae46f00f0e6",
    "status": "Ready",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "tags": {},
    "name": "example-backup2",
    "description": "Monthly backup of production index",
    "dimension": 1024,
    "record_count": 97,
    "namespace_count": 2,
    "size_bytes": 1069169,
    "created_at": "2025-05-15T00:52:10.809354Z"
}, {
    "backup_id": "8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71",
    "source_index_name": "docs-example3",
    "source_index_id": "f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74",
    "status": "Ready",
    "cloud": "aws",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "tags": {},
    "name": "example-backup3",
    "description": "Monthly backup of production index",
    "dimension": 1024,
    "record_count": 98,
    "namespace_count": 3,
    "size_bytes": 1069169,
    "created_at": "2025-05-14T16:37:25.625540Z"
}]

You can view all backups in a project using the Pinecone console.

View backup details

You can view the details of a backup, as in the following example:

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

backup = pc.describe_backup(backup_id="8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71")

print(backup)

The example returns a response like the following:

{'backup_id': '8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71',
 'cloud': 'aws',
 'created_at': '2025-05-15T00:52:10.809354Z',
 'description': 'Monthly backup of production index',
 'dimension': 1024,
 'name': 'example-backup',
 'namespace_count': 3,
 'record_count': 98,
 'region': 'us-east-1',
 'size_bytes': 1069169,
 'source_index_id': 'f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74',
 'source_index_name': 'docs-example',
 'status': 'Ready',
 'tags': {}}

You can view backup details using the Pinecone console.

Delete a backup

You can delete a backup, as in the following example:

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

pc.delete_backup(backup_id="9947520e-d5a1-4418-a78d-9f464c9969da")

You can delete a backup using the Pinecone console.