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Home/System setup and customization/Environment setup and maintenance/Managing vaults/Vault operations

Copying a vault

Last updated on 10 April 2026

Admin

You can use the Copy Document Vault operation to create a copy of a vault. You can copy the vault fully or select the data components that are copied.

Note: The Copy Document Vault operation copies the vault first fully and then deletes the data components that have not been selected. For large vaults, the operation time can be long.

It is possible to copy the structure of a vault without the actual content to a new vault. You can use for example the sample vault, that is included in the M-Files installation, in this operation. To copy the structure of a large vault, we recommend exporting the structure. For more information, see Exporting content.

To copy a vault:

  1. Open M-Files Admin.
  2. In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files server.
  3. Right-click a vault.
  4. Click Operations > Copy Document Vault.
    Result:The Copy Document Vault dialog is opened.
  5. In the Name field, enter a name for the copy of the vault.
  6. Click Define to define the vault data location on the server to which the copy is saved.
    Result:The Document Vault dialog is opened.
  7. Click the ... button to browse for the vault data location.
  8. Optional: To define a separate location for file data:
    1. Click Advanced.
      Result:The Advanced dialog is opened.
    2. Select the Separate location for file data check box.
    3. Click the ... button to browse for the file data location.
    4. To define a separate account for copying file data, click Set Account for File Data.
    5. Click OK to close the Advanced dialog.
  9. Click OK to close the Document Vault dialog.
  10. In the Data to copy section, select the vault data components that you want to copy.
    Click All to select all components or Structure Only to select only the structure components of the vault.
    If the Documents and other objects check box is selected, you can exclude file data from the vault copy for troubleshooting purposes. Click Advanced and select the Exclude file data from the vault copy check box.
  11. Click OK to copy the vault.
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