Importing an existing database

Note: The process of importing or loading data requires you to create an AuraDS instance beforehand.

There are two ways you can import data from an existing Neo4j database into an Aura instance.

You can use the import database process to import either a .backup file or a .dump file. This process, however, only works for .backup and .dump files under 4GB.

If the size of the .backup or .dump file exported from a database is greater than 4GB, you must use the Neo4j Admin database upload method.

For more information about backups, see Backup, export and restore.

Import database

To import a .backup or .dump file under 4GB:

  1. Navigate to the Neo4j Aura Console in your browser.

  2. Select the instance you want to import the data.

  3. Select the Import Database tab.

  4. Drag and drop your .backup or .dump file into the provided window or browse for your .backup/.dump file.

  5. Select Upload.

When the upload is complete, the instance goes into a Loading state as the backup is applied. Once this has finished, the instance returns to its Running state; and the data is ready.

Neo4j Admin database upload

This command does not work if you have a network access configuration setup that prevents public traffic to the region your instance is hosted in. See Public traffic below for more information.

database upload is a neo4j-admin command that you can run to upload the contents of a Neo4j database into an Aura instance, regardless of the database’s size. Keep in mind that the database you want to upload may run a different version of Neo4j than your Aura instance. Additionally, your Neo4j Aura instance must be accessible from the machine running neo4j-admin. Otherwise, the upload will fail with SSL errors.

For details on how to use the neo4j-admin database upload command, along with a full list of options and version compatibility, see Operations Manual → Upload to Neo4j Aura.

The database upload command, introduced in Neo4j 5, replaces the push-to-cloud command in Neo4j 4.4 and 4.3. If the database you want to upload is running an earlier version of Neo4j, please see the Neo4j Admin push-to-cloud documentation.

The neo4j-admin push-to-cloud command in Neo4j 4.4 and earlier is not compatible with instances encrypted with Customer Managed Keys. Use neo4j-admin database upload in Neo4j 5 to upload data to instances encrypted with Customer Managed Keys.

For Neo4j 4.x instances in Azure encrypted with Customer Managed Keys, use Neo4j Data Importer to load data, as neo4j-admin database upload is not supported. See the Data Importer documentation for more information.

Public traffic

If you have created a network access configuration from the Network Access page, accessed through the sidebar menu of the Console, Public traffic must be enabled for the region your instance is hosted in before you can use the database upload command on that instance.

To enable Public traffic on a network access configuration:

  1. Select Configure next to the region that has Public traffic disabled.

  2. Select Next until you reach step 4 of 4 in the resulting Edit network access configuration modal.

  3. Clear the Disable public traffic checkbox and select Save.

You can now use the database upload command on the instances within that region. Once the command has completed, you can disable Public traffic again by following the same steps and re-selecting the Disable public traffic checkbox.