Move Neo4j databases in Neo4j Desktop from one computer to another

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I am upgrading my local machine from Ubuntu 16.04 to 20.04. I run Neo4j Desktop (version 1.2.7) on my 16.04 and have installed it on the 20.04 machine and want to move the databases over.

I'm sure that in the past I just copied and pasted the database folders in /home/dougi/.config/Neo4j Desktop/Application/neo4jDatabases from one computer to the other and started Neo4j Desktop. However, when I do that no database show in the project.

I tried doing a dump and load, but couldn't see how I would load the database into Neo4j Desktop on the 20.04 machine as you have to "create" a database for it to show in the project and the database version when creating is limited to 4.0.3 and all of my databases are earlier versions than that (I don't want upgrade them right now).

I tried creating a database, deleting the files in the folder created in /home/dougi/.config/Neo4j Desktop/Application/neo4jDatabases and pasting the database folder from the 16.04 machine into it (i.e. replacing the files it created). I just get a message saying that the database files have been moved or corrupted when I load Neo4j Desktop.

I tried running a load from a dump I had made and had an error saying WARNING: Max 1024 open files allowed, minimum of 40 000 recommended.. I did find some google articles on that, but this felt like a really messy way of doing the restore so I didn't go any further with that.

What is the easiest way to move Neo4j Desktop databases from one computer to another please?

Thank you!

1
neo4jrestoreubuntu-20.04

1 Answers

0
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OK, so the answer to this is that there is a file /home/dougi/.config/Neo4j Desktop/Application/persist/databases.json which contains the list of databases that display in Neo4j Desktop.

Create a new database to add an entry to the file and then copy and paste that entry, replacing the database ID and version with those of the new databases you are adding files for to create an entry for each of the databases.

Restart your computer and delete the temporary database you created.

Or you could just copy the file from your previous version of Neo4j Desktop, assuming there are no formatting changes between versions of Neo4j Desktop.