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Home Assistant Green Backups

If you’re running Home Assistant Green and something goes wrong, backups may be the difference between a quick 10-minute recovery… and rebuilding your whole smart home from scratch.

This guide shows you how to:

  • Set up automatic backups to Google Drive

  • Keep an extra copy on a NAS (generic / brand-agnostic)

  • Save a local copy to your computer

  • Restore Home Assistant Green if something goes wrong

What does a Home Assistant backup include?

A Home Assistant backup (often called a Full Backup) can include:

  • Your settings, dashboards, automations, scripts

  • Integrations and devices

  • Add-ons + their data (if included)

  • Files like your configuration.yaml and anything stored in HA

Tip: Don’t rely on backups stored only on the Home Assistant Green itself. If the storage fails, those backups go with it. Always keep at least one off-device backup.

Option 1: Automatic Backups to Google Drive

This is the “set it once and forget it” option (recommended)…

1. Install the Google Drive Backup add-on

    1. Go to Settings > Add-ons
    2. Click Add-on Store
    3. Search for Google Drive Backup
    4. Install it, then click Start

2. Connect your Google account

    1. Open the add-on and click Open Web UI
    2. Follow the login prompts
    3. Approve access and finish setup. Home Assistant will create a folder in your Google Drive for backups.

3. Set a backup schedule

Inside the add-on settings, set:

    • Backup type: Full backup (recommended)
    • Frequency: Daily (best for most homes)
    • Retention: Keep the last 7 ~ 30 backups (more is better, but takes up more storage)

Suggested setup (simple + safe):

    • Daily backups
    • Keep last 14
    • Full backup

Option 2: Backups to a NAS

A NAS is great for an extra local copy on your network. The goal is simple: your backup file ends up stored on your NAS.

1) Create a NAS folder for backups

On your NAS (or any SMB file share):

    • Create a folder like: HomeAssistantBackups
    • Create a user/login (optional but recommended)
    • Note down:
      • NAS address (IP or hostname)
      • Share/folder name
      • Username + password

2) Copy backups to the NAS

Most people do this one of two ways:

    • Use a backup add-on or automation that can copy/upload backups to an SMB share
    • Or download backups locally and place them in the NAS folder manually (works fine, just more work for you in the long run)

3) Confirm it’s working

Confirm your backup has been stored successfully on your NAS.

Tip: If your NAS is offline or sleeping, backups may fail. That’s why Google Drive + NAS is a strong combo.

Option 3: Download to Your PC

Local backups are quick, and downloading them gives you a “hard copy” you can store anywhere.

    1. Go to Settings > System > Backups
    2. Click the backup you want
    3. Click Download
    4. Save it somewhere safe (and ideally copy it to cloud storage)

How to restore a backup

Restore scenario A: Home Assistant still loads This is the common one: an update broke something, but you can still access the UI.
    1. Go to Settings > System > Backups
    2. Click the backup you want to restore
    3. Click Restore
    4. Choose Full restore (recommended)
    5. Wait for the restore + reboot to finish
Tip: Full restore is the fastest way to get back to “everything working like yesterday”. You will of course lose any changes made after your restored backup.

Restore scenario B: Home Assistant won’t boot / you’re starting fresh

This is what you do if the system won’t start, or you’re replacing storage / rebuilding.

Step 1: Reinstall Home Assistant on your HA Green

Factory reset your Home Assistant Green.

Step 2: Restore from backup during setup

During the onboarding setup:

    1. Choose Restore from backup
    2. Upload your backup file (the .tar backup you downloaded earlier)
    3. Confirm restore and let it complete

Step 3: Quick checks after restore

After Home Assistant comes back online, check:

    • Your dashboards load
    • Devices/entities are present
    • Automations are there
    • Add-ons are running
    • Zigbee/Z-Wave (if used) looks normal

Our recommendations

If you want a simple backup routine that’s hard to break:

    • Google Drive Backup add-on (daily)
    • Keep at least 14 rolling backups
    • Do a manual backup before updates
    • Download an important backup before big changes
    • Optional: copy backups to a NAS as a second location
Updated on February 17, 2026