How to back up an Airtable base including attachment files

A CSV backup of Airtable loses your files because attachment links expire. How to build a backup that keeps records and files together.

Why CSV alone is not a backup

CSV export keeps values but attachment cells become expiring links, so the files are gone once the links expire. Airtable snapshots restore inside Airtable only and are not an offline copy.

Free method: CSV per table + files

Download CSV for every table (one view per table showing all fields).
Right away, download every attachment into folders named by record ID.
Keep both in the same dated folder, e.g. 2026-10-23/Orders.csv and 2026-10-23/Orders/rec…/file.pdf.

The record ID is what lets you put files back on the right record later.

Paid scheduled option

If you need hourly or daily automatic backups to cloud storage, hosted services exist, for example On2Air Backups. They need access to your Airtable account and your storage.

With BaseDrop (Pro): Full backup

Choose Scope → Full backup. One ZIP contains, for every table, records.csv and records.json (all fields, record IDs, created times) with attachment cells replaced by paths such as files/recXXXX/invoice.pdf, the files themselves, schema.json (tables and field types) and manifest.json. Before the run BaseDrop shows the minimum number of API calls and what the last backup used. Incremental mode skips files saved by an earlier backup of the same base, so a weekly run only downloads new attachments; keep all ZIPs of a base extracted into one folder. Optionally it writes a notion-import.csv (primary field first) for moving to Notion. It runs when you click, not on a schedule.

FAQ

Is this a full backup?

It keeps record data, field types and files. No API-based export includes automations, interfaces or formula definitions; formula results are saved as values.

Can I restore it?

Import records.csv into a new table, then re-attach files using the record ID folder names. Linked records are saved as record IDs. Automatic restore is not built in yet.

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Updated 2026-10-23. Airtable is a trademark of Formagrid Inc.; BaseDrop is not affiliated with Airtable.