Clearing and exporting
Get your data out, or wipe it, from the CMS and Storage panels.
On this page
Both your database and your storage can be downloaded in full, and both can be emptied. Exporting is a paid plan feature. Clearing is not, but it is permanent.
Before you begin
Export actions are disabled on the free plan. Where that applies, the control carries a Paid badge and a tooltip saying so.
Clearing collections needs project delete permission in the workspace. The Clear collections button is disabled with "You do not have permission to do this." when you lack it, and clearing a single collection is refused by the server for the same reason.
Export the whole database
Open the CMS tab, switch to the Settings sub-tab, and find the Export section. Pick a format from the dropdown, then press Export .zip.
| Format | What you get |
|---|---|
| CSV | One .csv file per collection inside the zip |
| JSON | One .json file per collection inside the zip |
| SQL | A single .sql file with CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS and INSERT statements for every collection |
The file downloads as <your-slug>-database.zip. Hidden system collections are left out.
A whole database export is capped at 100,000 rows. Above that it fails with "Your database is too large to export in one file. Export collections individually instead!"
Export one collection
Select the collection, open the three dots menu next to Add, and choose Export as CSV. That downloads just that collection, named after the project and the collection.
The menu item is disabled while the collection is empty.
Export one item
Open a row, then use the three dots menu in the editor header and choose Export as CSV. That downloads a single row.
Clear one collection's data
From the same three dots menu next to Add, choose Clear data. The confirmation is titled "Clear collection data?" and explains that it permanently deletes every item in the collection, while the collection, its fields and its structure stay intact.
If rows in other collections still point at these rows, the clear is refused with "Some items are linked from other collections and cannot be cleared. Clear those collections first!" Work down the chain and clear the dependents first.
System collections and the field metadata table cannot be cleared this way.
Clear every collection
In the CMS Settings sub-tab, under Danger zone, press Clear collections. The confirmation is titled "Clear all collections?" and warns that it permanently deletes every collection and all of its data, and that anything on your site using them stops working until they are recreated.
This is stronger than clearing one collection. It drops the tables themselves, structure included, not just the rows. Your database stays provisioned and DATABASE_URL keeps working, but it comes back empty and the AI has to rebuild the schema.
The button is disabled when the database has no collections.
The same Danger zone holds Delete all database backups, whose Delete backups button removes every finished backup of the site after asking Delete every database backup? It leaves your collections and their data exactly as they are, needs the same permission, and is greyed out on a site on the older database. See Delete a database backup.
Database backups are not exports
On a site on the newer database, a paid plan also takes a daily backup of the whole database, listed under the Database tab of Backups. It is a separate copy, not the export above, and it works differently:
- it is taken once a day on its own, unless you turn Daily backups off in the Backups section of the same sub-tab, and Back up now takes one by hand, while an export happens only when you press Export .zip
- it holds every table, the hidden ones included, with their indexes, triggers and views, as a single
database.sqlrather than one file per collection in a format you pick - it is not capped at 100,000 rows, only by the size of the database
- it cannot be restored, only downloaded and deleted
Clearing one collection or every collection keeps every backup already taken, so a backup from before the clear still holds the rows. After a full clear the database has no tables left, so the daily backup passes it over until the AI rebuilds the schema.
Export storage
Open the Storage tab, switch to the Configuration sub-tab, and press Export .zip in the Export section. Every file and folder comes down as <your-slug>-storage.zip.
The zip is capped at 100 MB in total. Above that: "Your storage is too large to export as a single zip. Download files individually instead!" There is also a scan ceiling of 20,000 objects, which reports "Your storage has too many files to export as a single zip."
For anything larger, download from the file browser instead, either a single file's Download file action or a multi select Download.
Clear storage
In the Configuration sub-tab, under Danger zone, press Clear storage. The confirmation is titled "Clear all storage?" and explains that it permanently deletes every file and folder, along with every folder privacy setting.
Your CDN link and your storage key survive, so site code can still read and write storage. It just has nothing to read until something writes again. Folder visibility settings do not survive the clear: a file your site writes afterwards follows the top level default until you make those folders private again or the site passes visibility on each write. See Which files are private.
Clearing storage keeps every storage backup already taken, so an archive from before the clear still holds the files. To remove the archives too, use Delete backups on the Delete all storage backups row in the same Danger zone, which asks Delete every storage backup? and needs the Delete projects permission.
From an AI client over MCP
The clearing actions on this page all have tools: clear_collection for one collection, clear_site_database for every collection, clear_storage for the whole storage bucket, clear_site_analytics for the visitor history, and clear_storage_backups and clear_database_backups for every backup of one kind. Each is irreversible. clear_storage needs the data:write scope and the rest need sites:delete, and both scopes are unticked by default.
The exports do not. Export .zip, the code export and the CSV exports all hand the browser a file to download, and a connected client receives structured data rather than files. A client can still get the same content: list_rows reads a collection page by page, read_storage_file reads a stored file, and get_storage_file_url returns a download link for one file at a time.
See MCP tools.