---
title: Back Up and Restore a Course
description: Think of backing up and restoring as making templates you can use in the future. You can save a lot of time by not starting a course from scratch each time.
---

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# Back Up and Restore a Course

## Think of backing up and restoring as making templates you can use in the future. You can save a lot of time by not starting a course from scratch each time.

| ### Table of Contents [Back Up a Course](https://learninganddevelopment.hubspot.com/learnhubspot/back-up-and-restore-a-course#back-up-a-course) [Restore a Course](https://learninganddevelopment.hubspot.com/learnhubspot/back-up-and-restore-a-course#restore-a-course) |
| --- |

A course backup is essentially a copy of a course, saving any or all of its settings and content (depending on the configuration of the backup) at the time you create the backup. In other words, having backups means having saved fallback versions of your course. It is advisable to take regular course backups (especially before making major changes), so that you may easily revert to previous versions if needed.

Courses can be restored from a backup made by Totara. The backup and restore process is a common way of moving or copying specific courses from one Totara to another.

---

### Back Up a Course

**Please note**: If you already have a backup/template you want to use, skip this section and start at [Restore a Course](https://learninganddevelopment.hubspot.com/learnhubspot/back-up-and-restore-a-course#restore-a-course).

1. Navigate to the course you want to back up. 
2. Under *Administration* on the left sidebar menu, click** Backup.**
3. Under *Backup settings*,** c**lick **Next** at the bottom right corner.
4. Scroll down and click **Next **at the bottom right corner.
5. Under *Filename, *change the name. 

**Please note: **This *filename* is for your reference only. You're essentially creating a file that you can always restore a course from. Think of it as a template (e.g.  CourseWithSCORMTemplate). It must have **.mbz** at the end in order to save the file and work properly. 

![backup and restore a course_screenshot 1](https://learninganddevelopment.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Totara%20LMS%20Training/backup%20and%20restore%20a%20course_screenshot%201.png?width=600&name=backup%20and%20restore%20a%20course_screenshot%201.png)

**Perform backup. **

---

### Restore a Course

1. Navigate to the course you want to restore.

2. Under *Administration* on the left sidebar menu, click** Restore.**

3. Under *User private backup, *click the **Restore** button to the right of the backup file you created.

| ![back up and restore a course_screenshot 2](https://learninganddevelopment.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/back%20up%20and%20restore%20a%20course_screenshot%202.png?width=500&name=back%20up%20and%20restore%20a%20course_screenshot%202.png) |
| --- |

 

4. 4. Scroll down to the *Destination* section; select **Restore as a new course**, then click **Next**.

**Please note:** the other options for *Destination* are

- **Restore into an existing course:**You can search for and select a course to restore into, which would replace that course's existing materials and content with those of the restore file.
- **Restore into this course: **You will be taken to a page with the option to **Delete the contents of this course and then restore**. 

5. Click **Next.**

6.** Search** for and **select** the category your course should belong to. 

7. Click **Next. **

8. Click **Next.**

9. Rename the **Course full Name **and **Course short name **(these should match).

**Please note**: when you restore, the course name changes to whatever your template is named, so remember to rename the course afterwards if necessary.

10. Click **Next.**

11. Review your Restore settings and then click **Perform restore.**