Database management

To create an additional user database, use the button on the instance card, give your database a name and then confirm with the Create button. Your new database is available instantly and appears in the Databases dropdown. Note that the creation of new databases requires a running instance.

You can delete a database using the […​] by the database name in the dropdown. Like creating a new database, this action requires a running instance. You can only delete user databases and not the system database in an instance.

You can deploy a database in Desktop to your Neo4j AuraDB instance and take advantage of Aura’s fully-managed features and services. This can be accomplished manually, but Desktop can do it for you. All you need to do is to start the process in Desktop.

The operation is completed in three steps:

You need to have an Aura account and an instance large enough to hold your database. See Aura → Create an account and Aura → Create an instance for more information. Although it is possible to deploy to a Free AuraDB instance, it is recommended to use the Professional tier for this operation. The Business Critical and Virtual Dedicated Cloud tiers are also supported.

The Aura instance should ideally be empty, as any data you may have there will be overwritten. The instance must be running for the deployment operation.

On the Desktop side, the instance containing the database you wish to deploy, needs to be stopped. Use either the Deploy to Neo4j Aura button, or access the same via the […​] menu on the instance card. Select the database you want to upload and deploy. Note that you cannot deploy the system database.

The next step is to provide Aura instance details and credentials. If you have your Aura instance credentials saved, for example if you downloaded them from when you created your Aura instance, you can drag and drop the txt file or browse for it. The connection URL for your Aura instance can be found on the instance card in the Aura console. See Aura → Instance details for more information.

Note that if you have already set up a remote connection to the instance in Aura, you can use that with the Select existing connection option. Likewise, you can add any new connection you speficy to your list of remote connections.

When you are done specifying the connection, use the Overwrite and continue to start the process.

The first two steps, creating the dump and uploading it to Aura, depend on the size of your database, but are in general fairly quick. The third step, importing the data to your Aura instance, can take a bit longer.

Once you start the process, you can follow the progress either via the progress bar or by showing the details. If needed, you can use the Cancel button in Desktop to stop the operation during the first two steps. When the process has reached the third step, import to your Aura instance, you can open the Aura console from Show details. At this point, the operation cannot be cancelled.

Note that your Aura instance will be in the Loading state while your data is being imported.

Locally existing databases can be loaded into your instance from the instance management menu […​] on the instance card. You can also load a database from the […​] menu on an individual database within an instance if you expand the instance card.

This action supports .dump, .tar, and .backup files and requires that your instance is stopped.

You browse for the database to be loaded and a new database is created in your instance when you hit Import. The name is inferred from the filename and must be unique to your instance, i.e. you cannot load a .dump file called neo4j into an instance with an existing database called neo4j. The load action doesn’t overwrite.

Once the database has been loaded, your instance starts automatically.

You can export one or more user databases (not the system database) to your instance’s dumps folder. This is also done from the instance management menu […​] on the instance card and requires that your instance is stopped.

You select which databases to export and use Export .dump to select destination folder for your export, and then the creation of .dump file(s) starts. It may take a moment, but once it is completed you get a confirmation and a shortcut to the dumps folder.

For a quick overview of an instance’s dumps folder, use the Open dumps folder option from the instance management menu […​]. Note that this action requires at least one .dump file in this folder.