> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pinecone.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Create a backup of an index
> Create a backup of an index.
```bash curl theme={null}
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
INDEX_NAME="docs-example"
curl "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/$INDEX_NAME/backups" \
-H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
-H 'accept: application/json' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-04" \
-d '{
"name": "example-backup",
"description": "Monthly backup of production index"
}'
```
```json curl theme={null}
{
"backup_id":"8c85e612-ed1c-4f97-9f8c-8194e07bcf71",
"source_index_id":"f73b36c9-faf5-4a2c-b1d6-4013d8b1cc74",
"source_index_name":"docs-example",
"tags":{},
"name":"example-backup",
"description":"Monthly backup of production index",
"status":"Ready",
"cloud":"aws",
"region":"us-east-1",
"dimension":1024,
"record_count":96,
"namespace_count":3,
"size_bytes":1069169,
"created_at":"2025-05-14T16:37:25.625540Z"
}
```
## OpenAPI
````yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pinecone-io/pinecone-api/refs/heads/main/2026-04/db_control_2026-04.oas.yaml post /indexes/{index_name}/backups
openapi: 3.0.3
info:
title: Pinecone Control Plane API
description: >-
Pinecone is a vector database that makes it easy to search and retrieve
billions of high-dimensional vectors.
contact:
name: Pinecone Support
url: https://support.pinecone.io
email: support@pinecone.io
license:
name: Apache 2.0
url: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
version: 2026-04
servers:
- url: https://api.pinecone.io
description: Production API endpoints
security:
- ApiKeyAuth: []
tags:
- name: Manage Indexes
description: Actions that manage indexes
externalDocs:
description: More Pinecone.io API docs
url: https://docs.pinecone.io/introduction
paths:
/indexes/{index_name}/backups:
post:
tags:
- Manage Indexes
summary: Create a backup of an index
description: |
Create a backup of an index.
operationId: create_backup
parameters:
- in: header
name: X-Pinecone-Api-Version
description: Required date-based version header
required: true
schema:
default: 2026-04
type: string
style: simple
- in: path
name: index_name
description: Name of the index to backup
required: true
schema:
type: string
style: simple
requestBody:
description: The desired configuration for the backup.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/CreateBackupRequest'
examples:
backup-index-no-name:
summary: Creating a backup of an index with no name
value: {}
backup-index-with-name:
summary: Creating a backup of an index with a name
value:
name: backup-index
backup-index-with-name-and-description:
summary: Creating a backup of an index with a name and description
value:
description: Backup of the index
name: backup-index
required: true
responses:
'201':
description: The backup has been successfully created.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/BackupModel'
'400':
description: Bad request. The request body included invalid request parameters.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
index-metric-validation-error:
summary: Validation error
value:
error:
code: INVALID_ARGUMENT
message: >-
Bad request. The request body included invalid request
parameters.
status: 400
'401':
description: 'Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.'
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
unauthorized:
summary: Unauthorized
value:
error:
code: UNAUTHENTICATED
message: Invalid API key.
status: 401
'402':
description: >-
Payment required. Organization is on a paid plan and is delinquent
on payment.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
payment-required:
summary: Payment required
value:
error:
code: PAYMENT_REQUIRED
message: >-
Request failed. Pay all past due invoices to lift
restrictions on your account.
status: 402
'403':
description: You've exceed your backup quota.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
unauthorized:
summary: Forbidden
value:
error:
code: FORBIDDEN
message: Increase your quota or upgrade to create more backups.
status: 403
'422':
description: Unprocessable entity. The request body could not be deserialized.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
missing-field:
summary: Unprocessable entity
value:
error:
code: UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY
message: >-
Failed to deserialize the JSON body into the target
type: missing field `metric` at line 1 column 16
status: 422
'500':
description: Internal server error.
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorResponse'
examples:
internal-server-error:
summary: Internal server error
value:
error:
code: UNKNOWN
message: Internal server error
status: 500
components:
schemas:
CreateBackupRequest:
description: The configuration needed to create a backup of an index.
type: object
properties:
name:
description: The name of the backup.
type: string
description:
description: A description of the backup.
type: string
BackupModel:
description: >-
The BackupModel describes the configuration and status of a Pinecone
backup.
type: object
properties:
backup_id:
example: 670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440001
description: Unique identifier for the backup.
type: string
source_index_name:
example: my-index
description: Name of the index from which the backup was taken.
type: string
source_index_id:
example: 670e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
description: ID of the index.
type: string
name:
example: backup-2025-02-04
description: Optional user-defined name for the backup.
type: string
description:
example: Backup before bulk update.
description: Optional description providing context for the backup.
type: string
status:
example: Ready
description: Current status of the backup (e.g., Initializing, Ready, Failed).
type: string
cloud:
example: aws
description: Cloud provider where the backup is stored.
type: string
region:
example: us-east-1
description: Cloud region where the backup is stored.
type: string
dimension:
example: 1536
description: The dimensions of the vectors to be inserted in the index.
type: integer
format: int32
minimum: 1
maximum: 20000
metric:
description: >-
The distance metric to be used for similarity search. You can use
'euclidean', 'cosine', or 'dotproduct'. If the 'vector_type' is
'sparse', the metric must be 'dotproduct'. If the `vector_type` is
`dense`, the metric defaults to 'cosine'.
Possible values: `cosine`, `euclidean`, or `dotproduct`.
x-enum:
- cosine
- euclidean
- dotproduct
type: string
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/MetadataSchema'
record_count:
example: 120000
description: Total number of records in the backup.
type: integer
namespace_count:
example: 3
description: Number of namespaces in the backup.
type: integer
size_bytes:
example: 10000000
description: Size of the backup in bytes.
type: integer
tags:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/IndexTags'
created_at:
description: Timestamp when the backup was created.
type: string
required:
- backup_id
- source_index_name
- source_index_id
- status
- cloud
- region
ErrorResponse:
example:
error:
code: QUOTA_EXCEEDED
message: >-
The index exceeds the project quota of 5 pods by 2 pods. Upgrade
your account or change the project settings to increase the quota.
status: 429
description: The response shape used for all error responses.
type: object
properties:
status:
example: 500
description: The HTTP status code of the error.
type: integer
error:
example:
code: INVALID_ARGUMENT
message: >-
Index name must contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or
hyphens, and must not begin or end with a hyphen.
description: Detailed information about the error that occurred.
type: object
properties:
code:
description: >-
The error code.
Possible values: `OK`, `UNKNOWN`, `INVALID_ARGUMENT`,
`DEADLINE_EXCEEDED`, `QUOTA_EXCEEDED`, `NOT_FOUND`,
`ALREADY_EXISTS`, `PERMISSION_DENIED`, `UNAUTHENTICATED`,
`RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED`, `FAILED_PRECONDITION`, `ABORTED`,
`OUT_OF_RANGE`, `UNIMPLEMENTED`, `INTERNAL`, `UNAVAILABLE`,
`DATA_LOSS`, `FORBIDDEN`, `UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY`, or
`PAYMENT_REQUIRED`.
x-enum:
- OK
- UNKNOWN
- INVALID_ARGUMENT
- DEADLINE_EXCEEDED
- QUOTA_EXCEEDED
- NOT_FOUND
- ALREADY_EXISTS
- PERMISSION_DENIED
- UNAUTHENTICATED
- RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
- FAILED_PRECONDITION
- ABORTED
- OUT_OF_RANGE
- UNIMPLEMENTED
- INTERNAL
- UNAVAILABLE
- DATA_LOSS
- FORBIDDEN
- UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY
- PAYMENT_REQUIRED
type: string
message:
example: >-
Index name must contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters
or hyphens, and must not begin or end with a hyphen.
description: A human-readable description of the error
type: string
details:
description: >-
Additional information about the error. This field is not
guaranteed to be present.
type: object
required:
- code
- message
required:
- status
- error
MetadataSchema:
example:
fields:
description:
filterable: true
genre:
filterable: true
year:
filterable: true
description: >-
Schema for the behavior of Pinecone's internal metadata index. By
default, all metadata is indexed; when `schema` is present, only fields
which are present in the `fields` object with a `filterable: true` are
indexed. Note that `filterable: false` is not currently supported.
type: object
properties:
fields:
description: >-
A map of metadata field names to their configuration. The field name
must be a valid metadata field name. The field name must be unique.
type: object
additionalProperties:
type: object
properties:
filterable:
description: >-
Whether the field is filterable. If true, the field is indexed
and can be used in filters. Only true values are allowed.
type: boolean
required:
- fields
IndexTags:
example:
tag0: val0
tag1: val1
description: >-
Custom user tags added to an index. Keys must be 80 characters or less.
Values must be 120 characters or less. Keys must be alphanumeric, '_',
or '-'. Values must be alphanumeric, ';', '@', '_', '-', '.', '+', or '
'. To unset a key, set the value to be an empty string.
type: object
additionalProperties:
type: string
securitySchemes:
ApiKeyAuth:
type: apiKey
in: header
name: Api-Key
description: >-
An API Key is required to call Pinecone APIs. Get yours from the
[console](https://app.pinecone.io/).
````