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Percona Software for MongoDB Documentation

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List backups

Note

As of version 1.4.0, the pbm list command provides the information only about completed backups. To check for running backups, use the pbm status. For more information, see Percona Backup for MongoDB status.

For Percona Backup for MongoDB version 1.3.4 and earlier, the pbm list command provides the running backup listed with an ‘In progress’ label. When that is absent, the backup is complete.

Use the pbm list command to view all completed backups. 

$ pbm list

The output provides the following information:

  • Backup name
  • Backup type: logical, physical, selective, incremental. Available starting with version 1.7.0
  • The time to which the sharded cluster / non-shared replica set will be returned to after the restore. Available starting with version 1.4.0.
  • If point-in-time recovery is enabled, its status and the valid time ranges for the restore
Sample output 
Backup snapshots:
  2025-03-10T10:44:52Z <logical> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T10:44:56]
  2025-03-10T10:49:20Z <physical> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T10:49:23]
  2025-03-10T10:50:22Z <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T10:50:25]
  2025-03-10T10:51:02Z <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T10:51:04]
  2025-03-10T10:57:47Z <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T10:57:49]
  2025-03-10T11:04:25Z <incremental> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T11:04:27]
  2025-03-10T11:05:03Z <logical, selective> [restore_to_time: 2025-03-10T11:05:07]

Restore to time

In logical backups, the completion time almost coincides with the backup finish time. To define the completion time, Percona Backup for MongoDB waits for the backup snapshot to finish on all cluster nodes. Then it captures the oplog from the backup start time up to that time.

In physical backups, the completion time is only a few seconds after the backup start time. By holding the $backupCursor open guarantees that the checkpoint data won’t change during the backup, and Percona Backup for MongoDB can define the completion time ahead.

Last update: July 31, 2025
Created: July 31, 2025