Recreate a database
Enterprise EditionNot available on Aura

You can recreate a database using the dbms.recreateDatabase() procedure. It allows you to:

Change the database store to a specified backup, while keeping all the associated privileges for the database.
Make your database write-available again after it has been lost (for example, due to a disaster). See Disaster recovery for more information.
Introduced in 2025.02 Delete the data and schema for a database, while keeping the database privileges assigned to each role.
Introduced in 2025.04 Alter the database store format when clearing the data and schema.

The recreate procedure works only for real user databases and not for composite databases, or the system database.

Remember that the recreate procedure results in downtime while the stores get updated. The time is unbounded and may depend on different factors — for example, the size of the store, network speed, etc.

In Neo4j 2025.04, the dbms.cluster.recreateDatabase() procedure is deprecated in favor of dbms.recreateDatabase().

Syntax

dbms.recreateDatabase(database :: STRING, options = {} :: MAP)

Input arguments are the database name and list of the seeding and topology options used for recreating a database.

Table 1. Seeding and topology options of the recreate procedure
Option	Description
seedingServers	A list of possible seeding servers. You can define available servers or provide an empty list. For details, see Use available servers as a seed.
seedURI	External source specified by URI.
clearData Introduced in 2025.02	Allows you to delete the data and schema for a database, while keeping the database privileges assigned to each role.
storeFormat Introduced in 2025.04	Allows you to change the database store format when clearing the data and schema.
primaries	Number of primary allocations for the recreated database. If you set number of primaries without secondaries, then secondaries is set to `0`. For more details, see Change the topology.
secondaries	Number of secondary allocations for the recreated database. You cannot set secondaries without primaries.

Prerequisites and considerations

The database in question can be in an online or offline state when it is recreated, but a successful operation starts the database regardless of its previous state.

If your database has Change Data Capture (CDC) enabled, the CDC chain will stop when the database is recreated, even though CDC remains enabled in the recreated database. To restore CDC functionality, follow the guide on how to initialize CDC applications from an existing database.

Before recreating a database, any eventual quarantined states need to be addressed. For more information, see Standard databases → Error handling.

You need the CREATE DATABASE and DROP DATABASE privileges to run the recreate procedure.

Additionally, in a cluster deployment, you have the option to modify the topology during the recreation process.

However, note that the store format (up to Neo4j 2025.04), access, and enrichment cannot be altered during recreation. Starting with Neo4j 2025.04, the store format can only be altered if the clearData option is used.

To check if the recreation is successful, use the SHOW DATABASES command and verify that all allocations have been started.

Seeding options

The store to be used during the recreation of a database can be defined in different ways. One method uses a backup, while others use available allocations in the cluster.

You can use either seedURI or seedingServers to specify the source from which the database should be recreated.

If you define neither, an error is thrown, unless you use the clearData: true option, in which case the database is recreated with an empty store and does not require any seeding options.
If you define both of them, then seedingServers must be an empty list. See Undefined servers with fallback backup for more details.
If seedingServers is not empty and seedURI is also defined, an error will occur.

Use a backup as a seed

If you provide a URI to a backup or a dump, the stores on all allocations will be replaced by the backup or the dump at the given URI. The new allocations can be put on any ENABLED server in the cluster. See Seed from URI for more details.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedURI: "s3://myBucket/myBackup.backup"});

Starting with Neo4j 2026.04, you can also use server URI to recreate a database from a backup/dump located on a server in the cluster’s file system:

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedURI: "server://server-id/myBackup.backup"});

For details, see ServerSeedProvider.

Use available servers as a seed

After the recreation is complete, the database will have the latest data store from the seeding servers.

Recreation is based on available remaining stores or specific stores explicitly defined by the user. Stores that are lost or not explicitly specified are excluded from the recreation process. Therefore, if the excluded stores contained more recent data than those used, data loss may occur.

Specified servers

You can specify a set of available servers. The stores on all allocations will be synchronized to the most up-to-date store from the defined servers. The number of defined servers cannot exceed the number of total allocations in the desired topology.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedingServers: ["serverId1", "serverId2", "serverId3"]});

Undefined servers

If you provide an empty list of seeding servers and do not specify a seedURI, Neo4j will select all allocations of the database (primaries and secondaries) on currently enabled and non-cordoned servers to act as seeders.

Before running the procedure, ensure that all unavailable servers are cordoned; otherwise, the procedure will fail.

To determine where the database is allocated, use the SHOW DATABASES command. To identify all enabled and available servers hosting the required database, run the SHOW SERVERS command. Servers have to show health = Available and status = Enabled. Cordon all unreachable servers by running the dbms.cluster.cordonServer() procedure.

Then Neo4j will select the most up-to-date seeder available in the cluster to recreate the database.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedingServers: []});

Undefined servers with fallback backup

If both an empty list of seeding servers and a seedURI are provided, Neo4j finds all allocations of the database and use those as seeders. Unavailable servers must be cordoned.

However, if no available servers can be found, the database is recreated based on the backup or the dump specified by the URI. This means the store is replaced by the most up-to-date seeder if available; otherwise, the backup is used.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedingServers: [], seedURI: "s3://myBucket/myBackup.backup"});

Change the topology

In a cluster deployment, there is an option to define a new topology when recreating a database. This can be beneficial during a disaster, if enough servers are not available to recreate the database with the original topology. When altering the total number of allocations down during a recreation, it is important to remember that the number of seeding servers cannot exceed the number of total allocations of the database. This also holds true when using recreate with an empty list of seeders. If there are more available servers in the cluster hosting the database than the number of new allocations, the recreation will fail.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {seedingServers: [], primaries: 3, secondaries: 0});

Clear data option
Introduced in 2025.02

In Neo4j 2025.02, the clearData option was added to the recreate procedure. This option allows you to delete the data (e.g., nodes and relationships) and the schema (e.g., constraints and indexes) for the database. This means you end up with an empty store, but as with the other recreate database options, all privileges associated with the database are kept.

Using the clear data option means the data and schema will be deleted permanently. If you want to have the option of getting them back later, make sure to take a backup before clearing the database. See Online backup for more information.

Alter the database store format
Introduced in 2025.04

In Neo4j 2025.04, the database store format can also be altered during recreation, but only when the clearData option is specified.

See Store formats, for more details about available database store formats in Neo4j. If the store format option is not defined, the recreated database ends up with the same store format as before the recreation.

CALL dbms.recreateDatabase("neo4j", {clearData: true, storeFormat: "block"});

Glossary

allocator: A component in the cluster that allocates databases to servers according to the topology constraints specified and an allocation strategy.
asynchronous replication: Asynchronous replication is used by secondary copies to poll for new transactions, which means they cannot be guaranteed to have received the most recent transactions. This enables efficient scale-out of read-performance.
Aura instance: A fully-managed DBMS represented by a single instance ID, that is running in the Neo4j Aura cloud.
auto-commit transaction: An automatically committed transaction that contains a single query.
Bolt protocol: Bolt is a protocol used for interaction between Neo4j instances and drivers.
bookmark: A marker the client can request from the cluster to ensure that it is able to read its own writes so that the application’s state is consistent and only databases that have a copy of the bookmark are permitted to respond.
category (Bloom): A category is based on a node label and is defined in a Perspective as a way of visually distinguishing nodes with the same label(s).
causal consistency: All servers in a cluster agree on the order in which transactions take place. The position of a server on the causal chain can be guaranteed using a bookmark.
cluster: A Neo4j DBMS that spans multiple servers working together to increase fault tolerance and/or read scalability. Databases on a cluster may be configured to replicate across servers in the cluster thus achieving read scalability or high availability.
client application: Software that interacts with a Neo4j server.
commit: A commit is the successful completion of a transaction, which ensures durability of any changes made. For more details, visit Operations Manual → Transaction management.
composite database: Composite databases are the means to access partitioned graph data with a single Cypher query.
constraint: Constraints are sets of data modeling rules that ensure the data is consistent and reliable.
Cypher®: Neo4j’s graph query language.
data model: A data model defines how information is organized in a database. A good data model will make querying and understanding your data easier. In Neo4j, the data models have a graph structure.
database: A database is a container used by the DBMS to manage and store graph data. The physical structure of data is controlled by the database.
database vs graph: Databases are the physical containers of graph data. Graphs are the logical structure of data in Neo4j.
Database Management System: Database Management System, or DBMS, capable of managing multiple databases. A DBMS may run on a single server, or span several servers configured as a cluster.
database schema: The prescribed property existence and datatypes for nodes and relationships.
deallocate: An act of removing a database from a server or a server from a cluster without loss of data or reduced fault tolerance.
degree (of a node): The number of relationships of a specific node; loops are counted twice.
disaster recovery: A manual intervention to restore availability of a cluster, or databases within a cluster.
driver: A software library that provides access to Neo4j from a particular programming language.
election: In the event that the Raft leader becomes unresponsive, followers automatically trigger an election and vote for a new leader.
entity: A node or a relationship.
expression (Cypher): A component of a Cypher query which produces values. It may be used in projections, as a predicate, or when setting properties on graph elements.
fabric: Fabric is the architectural design of a unified system that provides a single access point to local or distributed graph data.
fault tolerance: A guarantee that a cluster can maintain a database’s persistence and availability in the event of one or more servers failing.
follower: A primary copy of a database acting as a follower, receives and acknowledges synchronous writes from the leader.
Generative AI (GenAI): A type of artificial intelligence (AI) system that generates text, images, or other media in response to prompts.
graph: A logical representation of a set of nodes where some pairs are connected by relationships.
index: Data structure that improves read performance of a database.
knowledge graph: A specific type of graph that has an organizing principle so that a user (or a computer system) can reason about the underlying data. The organizing principle provides an additional layer of structure that adds context to support knowledge discovery.
label: Marks a node as a member of a named and indexed subset. A node may be assigned zero or more labels.
leader: A single primary copy of a database is designated as the leader. It receives all write transactions from clients and replicates writes synchronously to followers and asynchronously to secondary copies of the database.
main database: In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database(s) containing the user’s data. Can exist in the same Neo4j deployment as the tool asset database.
motif: A description of a specific pattern within a graph.
node: A node represents an entity or discrete object in your graph data model. Nodes can be connected by relationships, hold data in properties, and are classified by labels.
operator: A symbol representing a mathematical or logical operation.
parameter: Named value provided when running a Cypher statement.
path: A sequence of nodes and the relationships connecting them, that does not contain duplicate relationships. Several paths can match a pattern.
pattern: A specific arrangement of nodes and relationships that can be matched in a graph. A pattern follows a motif.
perspective (Bloom): A Perspective defines a certain business view or domain that can be found in the target Neo4j graph. A single Neo4j graph can be viewed through different Perspectives, each tailored for a different business purpose.
primary: A copy of the database that is able to process write transactions and is eligible to be elected as a leader. It participates in fault tolerant writes as it is part of the majority required to acknowledge and commit write transactions.
primary vs secondary: In a cluster, databases can operate in either primary or secondary mode. Primary databases are able to process write and read transactions, ensuring fault tolerance. Secondary databases are replicated asynchronously from primaries, and their main purpose is to provide read scaling within the cluster.
project (Aura): An isolated environment in the unified Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Preceded by tenant in the classic Aura console.
property: Properties are key-value pairs that are used for storing data on nodes and relationships.
query (Cypher): A statement that retrieves or writes information to a database.
Raft group: A group of servers that are participating in hosting a particular database in primary mode.
Raft group member: A server that is participating in a Raft group. A server can be a member of one or more groups.
Raft log: A shared log between all Raft group members that is guaranteed to be consistently updated and viewed by those members. The log contains both database data and operational state of the Raft group.
Raft protocol: The networking mechanism that enables a database to replicate its data across multiple servers to give high availability for accessing the data and high durability to the data stored.
read scaling: Distributing query load by creating additional database copies hosted in secondary mode (read-only).
relationship: A relationship represents a connection between nodes in your graph data model. Relationships connect a source node to a target node, hold data in properties, and are classified by type.
secondary: An asynchronously replicated copy of the database that provides read scaling within the cluster.
seed: A seed is a database dump or a full backup used to create a database on a cluster. This is sometimes called seeding.
server: A physical machine, a virtual machine, or a container running an instance of Neo4j. Servers can be standalone or part of a cluster.
session: A causally linked sequence of transactions.
session consistency: An alternative name for Neo4j’s causal consistency.
standalone: A single server running Neo4j and not part of a cluster.
synchronous replication: Synchronous replication requires the leader primary to replicate a transaction and block the commit until a quorum of the follower primaries acknowledges that the transaction is successfully replicated. Once the transaction is replicated, the commit is allowed to proceed. This ensures data durability and consistency within the cluster.
system database: A database used by Neo4j to store system information.
tenant (Aura): An isolated environment in the classic Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Replaced by project in the unified Aura console.
tool asset database: In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database where tools' assets are stored. This can be in the same Neo4j deployment as the main database(s) or in a separate deployment.
topology: A configuration that describes how the copies of a database should be spread across the servers in a cluster, see primary mode and secondary mode.
transaction: A transaction comprises a unit of work performed against a database. It is treated in a coherent and reliable way, independent of other transactions. Transactions comply with the ACID consistency model (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable).

Recreate a databaseEnterprise EditionNot available on Aura