Data directory

Data directory contains:

document.db - database
config.ini - instance level settings like port on which the Trilium application runs
backup - contains automatically backup of documents
log - contains application log files

Location of the data directory#

Easy way how to find out which data directory Trilium uses is to look at the "About Trilium Notes" dialog (from "Menu" in upper left corner):

Here's how the location is decided:

Data directory is normally named trilium-data and it is stored in:

/home/[user]/.local/share for Linux
C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming for Windows Vista and up
/Users/[user]/Library/Application Support for Mac OS
user's home is a fallback if some of the paths above don't exist
user's home is also a default setup for [[docker|Docker server installation]]

If you want to back up your Trilium data, just backup this single directory - it contains everything you need.

Changing the location of data directory#

If you want to use some other location for the data directory than the default one, you may change it via TRILIUM_DATA_DIR environment variable to some other location:

Linux#

export TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/home/myuser/data/my-trilium-data

Mac OS X#

You need to create a .plist file under ~/Library/LaunchAgents to load it properly each login.

To load it manually, you need to use launchctl setenv TRILIUM_DATA_DIR <yourpath>

Here is a pre-defined template, where you just need to add your path to:





    
        Label
        set.trilium.env
        RunAtLoad
        
        ProgramArguments
        
            launchctl
            setenv
            TRILIUM_DATA_DIR
            /Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/trilium-data

Create a script to run with specific data directory#

An alternative to globally setting environment variable is to run only the Trilium Notes with this environment variable. This then allows for different setup styles like two database instances or "portable" installation.

To do this in unix based systems simply run trilium like this:

TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/home/myuser/data/my-trilium-data trilium

You can then save the above command as a shell script on your path for convenience.

Fine-grained directory/path location#

Apart from the data directory, some of the subdirectories of it can be moved elsewhere by changing an environment variable:

Environment variable	Default value	Description
`TRILIUM_DOCUMENT_PATH`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/document.db`	Path to the Database (storing all notes and metadata).
`TRILIUM_BACKUP_DIR`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/backup`	Directory where automated Backup databases are stored.
`TRILIUM_LOG_DIR`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/log`	Directory where daily Backend (server) logs are stored.
`TRILIUM_TMP_DIR`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/tmp`	Directory where temporary files are stored (for example when opening in an external app).
`TRILIUM_ANONYMIZED_DB_DIR`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/anonymized-db`	Directory where a Anonymized Database is stored.
`TRILIUM_CONFIG_INI_PATH`	`${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR}/config.ini`	Path to Configuration (config.ini or environment variables) file.